Famous Pornstars: How Porn Launched Their Career

Photo: Tibrina Hobson (Getty Images)

Your pecker isn’t the only thing that goes up due to porn, some succesful mainstream careers were also launched by it. Far more impressingly. These famous pornstars were once in naughty films, and naughty is a severe understatement for some performances, but have since succesfully transitioned to mainstream celebrity status.

Some times, they’ve directly benefited from their porn careers, but sometimes it was a more of a hidden blessing that came with its own problems. Regardless, porn is now behind them, and in front are various possibilities that open when you become a household name.

Sibel Kekilli

There’s never been a bigger show on this planet than Game of Thrones, and Sibel Kekilli was a vital part of it. German actress of Turkish origin played the complex prostitute Shae, but she also had roles in numerous German films, notably, the popular and awarded Head-On (2004). But the youthful looking 37-year-old had her secret revealed after her biggest movie – that she used to make adult movies, which caused her a lot of personal problems with her family. Yet, it surely helped her get, and excel at, the biggest role of her career, the highly sexual Shae.

Sasha Grey

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Probably the prototype for famous pornstars who transitioned to mainstream stardom, Sasha Gray was in the porn industry for just five years (2006 – 2011) but remains one of the biggest names in the business. Sasha was known for her intense scenes before she caught the eye of a Hollywood director Steven Soderbergh who gave her the main role in his film “The Girlfriend Experience”, where she played a high-end call girl. The 29-year-old appeared on the hit TV show Entourage as a version of herself and co-starred in a movie with Elijah Wood. Grey also wrote an erotic novel and was in an industrial music band.

Traci Lords

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There isn’t a bigger crossover star that used to do porn than Traci Lords. The now 49-year-old MILF became nationally known at the age of 18 when it was revealed that she was making adult movies while being quite underage. A huge scandal followed, and Traci didn’t stick around with the porn industry while she was legally allowed to do it. No, she used the buzz created and switched to mainstream acting, but didn’t stop there. She became a singer, model, producer, and director, while also writing her best selling autobiography.

Qi Shu

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Even if you think that you don’t know who Shu Qi is, you do. The stunning Taiwanese actress was the female lead in the Jason Statham’s The Transporter (2002) as the kidnapped “package”. While that is her only major Hollywood movie, the shockingly youthful 41-year-old is one of the highest paid actresses in China. She dipped her toes in the porn industry at the start of her career, posing in hardcore magazines and acting in some erotic, softcore movies. If she was still in porn, she would definitely enter our top 10 list of hottest Asian pornstars.

Sunny Leone

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Another famous pornstar that is huge in Asia now, only not in China, but in India. Sunny Leone was a pornstar for a long time, 11 years to be exact, but she left the biz in 2013 and is now a mainstream actress in India. The Canadian of Indian origin has over 11 million followers on Instagram, acts and appears on numerous television shows in the second most populous country in the world. Definitely one of the cutest pornstars to ever make hardcore movies, she was a famous pornstar with a massive army of fans even before she went mainstream.

What are some other famous pornstars that successfully transitioned to mainstream celebrity status? Which of these women would you most want to see get her old job back?

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