Making upper 6 figs, boyfriend of Joanna Angel, director at Burning Angel and Kink, fucking some of the hottest women on the planet daily, big house and nice car...it's good to be James Deen.
He's successful and in demand because he's a good performer. He's there to showcase the female talent and doesn't let ego make the scene be about him instead of her. Scott Nails is another one used a lot because he's professional and not some egotisical misogynist.
The article said he was making that at 19 when he wasn't a director just a performer. He's 25 now directing at 2 companies and probably still works everyday so I'm sure it's much higher. I guess "upper 6 figs' could be interpreted as 600K and up but I think he's around 300-400K easy. "On YouTube, you can watch a 19-year-old Deen fire off an interview while reclining at the foot of a bed before a scene. A dim young porn actress orbits around him, chewing on cashews and attempting to redirect the camera’s attention. “I’m in this for money, not to be famous,” Deen tells the camera. When asked, he rattles off his earnings: He averages $10,000 to $15,000 a month, he says, once hitting a high of $22,000." Edited by - seijuro on 12/1/2011 2:14:51 PM
$150K a year is still not enough to pay for a McMansion in Los Angeles -- unless it's in a terrible location, you bought it at a foreclosure sale, you haven't a stick of furniture in it, you don't pay property taxes, you don't have health insurance, you don't maintain the property, and you don't save a dime. It does help if most of your food comes from craft services, though.
Anyway, interesting article. James Deen is an excellent performer and a welcome alternative to the prevailing thug-look in porn. If he makes tons of cash, good for him!
@Bob Have you seen any of Manuel Ferrara's recent movies? Manuel shoots a lot out of his new crib and if you've seen it in his movies you'll know that it's very nice. Great lighting, a lot of space, and big pool make it a great porn set. He's a director who owns the rights his movies distributed through Evil Angel similar to James with Burning Angel and James also directs for Kink which along with Brazzers and Bangbros is among the most successful internet pron sites. Both of them probably command the same top rate for male talent which I'm told is at least 1K per scene and that is down in this economy. Dude also rolls in a Bentley Continental GT which has got to be about 90-100K and a Porsche Cayenne which is not nearly as expensive but nevertheless a nice whip. 300-400K a year doesn't seem too crazy for either of them to pull. If a typical porn contract star can get about 100-150K a year guaranteed with ~12 scenes a year, I'm sure a male POTY/director who probably works everyday can easily double that.
Typical porn contract star salary is more like 60k. A top dude like Manuel who produces his own movies may or may not be making money on them. It depends if they sell. He makes really good ones so I suspect they do OK, but it's nothing remotely like 5 years ago.
^ I'll take your word Skronker, especially since I learned a lot of what I know about the industry from listening to your ADT podcasts. 60K contract? That's about a 20-25% increase from what they were making at Starbucks before. I guess this is how dancing, web-camming, and escorting has become the main income for so many.
Gee, thanks! I'm sure some people do better than others. Esp with the camming, etc. Although, in the end, everything that's not a DVD sale erodes the bedrock of the industry and everyone's chance to sustain an income. Manwin owns almost everything already, or will soon, and is going to destroy porno, or what's left of it. So enjoy now, while you still can.
pornography wasn't sex but fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world 12377 Posts 9/07
Posted - Dec 3 2011 : 5:30AM
You're assuming it's his house, I doubt it. Most of the time shoots take place in rented porn houses. My understanding is that most directors make pretty shitty money, although Evil Angel gives them a better deal than most.
^ I know what you mean about the rented houses, some of which are more like mansions, but I'm actually quite sure that it is indeed his house. He's tweeted about it. Hah, I feel kinda weird and offensive posting about other people's finances and property, but it just came up in the discussion. Manuel or James ought to be the one's discussing these things if they so choose. So, if they read my posts on this topic and take offense, my apologies.
Apparently ABC are doing a piece about him now. This is getting sort of out of hand. I mean, he's my favorite male performer(though he still isn't as good as Manuel in vanilla porn), but I recognize that he's also one of the most abusive guys in mainstream porn right now. I'm not talking about the choking/slapping business that people usually whine about, but about shit like his bound gangbangs scene with Cherry Torn where he legit left her looking like a rape victim. If it's gonna be another story about how he's porn's sensitive guy next door I'll fucking die. And to be clear, I don't blame him for acting the way he's acting in BDSM scenes(i.e. being a super intense dom) - it mostly works pretty great, but to try to sweep that guy's style under the rug like Hess did in her article(because otherwise it'll make women look bad for being infatuated with him, and that's sort of the opposite of what she obviously intended) is goddamn ridiculous.
I just registered to add my agreement that the Hess article is such a crock. What I find particularly egregious isn't that it doesn't mention the BDSM work he's done, but that she totally mischaracterizes the Tumblr teens' fascination with him. For every animated gif of him holding a girl's hand there's 10 gifs of him shoving his fingers down someone's throat or choking the hell out of them. She makes it sound like the interest in him is almost in spite of porn. Way to sweep the edgier aspects of female sexual fantasy under the rug.
I don't mean to quibble, but the term "feminist" is no longer very descriptive given the diverse schools of self-identifying "feminist thought" that are out there these days. Any women writer, Hess included, who regards James Deen with anything other than undiluted opprobrium bears scant resemblance to the pioneers of 1960's classic radical feminism, such as Susan Brownmiller and Andrea Dworkin. So, unless you've read Hess at length (which I haven't), you may be making too many assumptions.
Just because the piece doesn't deal with the BDSM side (basically what JD shoots with Kink, which many, many male adult performers do as well, such as Mark Davis, Mr. Pete, Steve Holmes, etc., etc.), I wouldn't automatically perceive an agenda there. Not everybody watches the Kink stuff, and Deen is indeed known more widely for his gonzo, alt and mainstream porn scenes -- which mix the tender with the tough. Basically, just good honest fucking. I mean, say what you will about his aggressive side but this guy came up through the ranks during the most insane period of gonzo, and he never registered as an abusive cat (watch him alongside Tony T. on some old Anabolic clip and tell me what you think). The point is taken, though ... but without access to the reporter's notebook, you don't really know if she was trying to keep it fluffy deliberately, if an editor limited the scope of the story, or if that's simply the angle she thought best delivered her idea.
I guess the part I find a bit unsettling with the linked article is the age of the girls mentioned in the article. I am not sure it's good to publish on the web that minors are viewing porn and gushing over pornstars 10 years their senior. I know this sounds totally trollish but something about that just doesn't seem right to me. Again, sorry to come across as trollish but is anyone else feeling this way??
Your not alone, I feel the same way, when I read that, it just didn't seem ethical. On another note I guess it's a good thing that he doesn't look the stereotypical musclebound Porn guy. But overall I don't like that the whole article seems to be portraying him as "Above & better than all Men." Like he's "God's gift to Women."
I think it's just being realistic about the age of the fans, and that's also what makes it newsy and a tad edgy. I do agree the tone is a bit "fangirl," but I enjoyed the read because it represented a different perspective from the usual 300-lb middle-aged creepy dude who lives in his mother's basement and jerks off all day (just referring to myself actually ... no, not really, I weigh more than 300 lbs. ;)
Just repeating what I've heard, tbh, but from what I've seen from her article, it seems pretty likely.He's one of the busiest male perfomers on Kink right now(probably either tied or slightly behind Mark Davis) - often simulating rape(particularly in Bound Gangbangs) - it's more than a little weird that this article would barely mention this aspect of his work(particularly since it mentioned the rape issue wrt Pornstar Punishment*). Now, I certainly wouldn't describe him as consistently abusive, but he has his moments, for example his scene with Andy San Dimas in Belladonna's Slut, which she describes in Danny Wylde's blog:though in all fairness she also says this:^James Deen and Aiden Kelly actually discuss it for a bit in the Manhandled 4 BTS. There's also his scene with Roxy Jezel in one of the Gangbang Auditions, where he choked her unconscious something like five times, which disturbed me way more than her infamous scene with Rocco. *I'm pretty sure Deen's problem with PSP is that there was an attempt to legitimize the rape - which doesn't happen in Kink, so I'm completely in agreement with him here, even though I like the rougher stuff. Edited by - 1234 on 12/26/2011 9:49:25 AM
I guess I am just a bit nervous that the law might take notice of the industry if they were to come across that website. Those of you who are parents, would you want your 15 yo daughter to be viewing porn and chatting with porn stars? It just seems to me that this might be crossing a certain line, but if I'm off base I would love to be proven wrong. Thanks for hearing me out.
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Digital Lust Self-removed
All truth is parallel; All truth is untrue 768 Posts 10/11
Posted - Dec 26 2011 : 6:17PM
That is blasphemy. Ron Jeremy will always be porn's best-loved Jew.
James is cute and funny, in shape without being intimidatingly ripped, and down to earth in a lot of ways that make him easily approachable. Ron? Not so much...
I know this is a dormant thread, but I registered just so I could respond to it.
I read this article a while back, and I will admit to being a little squeamish when the author mentioned his teenage fans.
I freely admit that I was all into my dad’s porn mags when I was a teenager, so the only thing that’s surprising to me is that they admit they’re watching it and how they ascribe such “nice” emotions to it. I still don’t have very many female peers who will freely admit to watching porn, ever. It’s like when I admitted to giving bjs in college and 4 out of 5 of my girlfriends looked at me like I’d grown a second head. I guess what I want to know is would the concern be the same if this article was about Tori Black and the fifteen year old boys who whack off to her picture every day. Are people bothered because it’s teenage girls watching the porn?
Just another bare bum in the shiower 1739 Posts 12/04
Posted - Jan 30 2012 : 4:25AM
I think the amazing thing about the article is that anyone cares enough about a male porn performer to do a fanpage about them. I think it says a lot about how likeable James comes across as. The age of the fans doesn't really surprise me as many of my female friends in the 18 to 25 year age group talk often of porn.
That is a good point. NOT to get off the subject but that reminds me of how it's been considered okay for Middle aged Twilight Moms to be cougar for Taylor Lautner. Yet when Middle aged Male Harry Potter fans fancy the now 21 year old Emma Watson, it is frowned upon like, "Ewww."
All truth is parallel; All truth is untrue 768 Posts 10/11
Posted - Feb 3 2012 : 6:30PM
James is really young though. Ron is an old man. When Ron was his age, he was thin like him too. Despite the fact that Ron is in the worst shape of his life, there are still plenty of women who want to work with him.
First, it's comforting knowing that teenage girls are watching porn. No reason for us guys to feel guilty for watching porn. Second, it's less threatening to hear that teenage girls are admiring a male porn star because, as we all know, according to radical feminist math, Girl = Good and Boy = Bad.
<<James Deen was featured on ABC's Nightline. http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/james-deen-wholesome-boy-door-porns-hottest-star/story?id=15499092??>> Deen is a very good stunt dick, and pretty good actor, as far as porn goes. But damn, he seemed none too bright in that interview. I saw that thing last week on Nightline. Sheesh.
Rocco & Nacho are the KINGS OF HARDCORE and yes I am a Red Blooded WOMAN 402 Posts 8/12
Posted - Aug 18 2012 : 12:59PM
Porn Stars respects James Deen. Nacho Vidal said on Twitter that he thinks that James is good performer and he respects him as well. Edited by - katvena on 9/11/2012 8:48:00 PM
Not my type of work horse, but industry girls seem to love him. Personally, none of the scenes he has been featured in, blew me away, but i'm not gonna hate on him.
James Deen @ AEBN
Posted - Nov 29 2011 : 1:02AM
60K contract? That's about a 20-25% increase from what they were making at Starbucks before. I guess this is how dancing, web-camming, and escorting has become the main income for so many. 