# Do porn stars really fake their deaths to break free from the business? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 4, 2011, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363 "2011-01-04T14:18:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/1 "2011-01-04T14:18:11Z")
[Over here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=591164) in the thread about the (apparently falsely) rumored death of porn star Tawnee Stone, GuanoLad said, > [@It seems Tawnee Stone may have died \[she's alive- ed. title\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-seems-tawnee-stone-may-have-died-shes-alive-ed-title/565925/2): > > Stories like this have been falsified before, in order for them to break away from their persona cleanly. It’s unclear in this case whether Ms. Stone herself had any part in the hoax, but I’m curious as to whether, and how often, this kind of thing has happened before. Does anybody know of any supposedly dead porn stars who are actually alive and well? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/2 "2011-01-04T14:52:15Z")
I doubt it. Most porn stars don’t work under their real names anyway, and besides, it’s not like the porn business is difficult to get out of. All you have to do is stop working. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/3 "2011-01-04T15:22:06Z")
Lisa De Leeuw is generally believed to have died in the '90s from AIDS. Her Wikipedia page quotes an author who claims that she is still alive, and just out of the business. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/4 "2011-01-04T16:09:39Z")
So John Holmes might actually be alive somewhere, and working as a fireman? ---
**Author:** ![Shark\_Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Shark\_Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shark_Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/5 "2011-01-04T17:07:50Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > So John Holmes might actually be alive somewhere, and working as a fireman? Pizza delivery guy. ---
**Author:** ![FallenAngel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@FallenAngel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FallenAngel)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/6 "2011-01-04T21:15:04Z")
It’s no longer part of the article, but in her old bio on Wikipedia it was alleged Hyapatia Lee faked her own death in order to boost the value of her career memorabilia. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus\_alba](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quercus_alba/32/4061_2.png) [@Quercus\_alba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus_alba)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/7 "2011-01-05T00:36:47Z")
> [@Shark\_Sandwich](#): > > Pizza delivery guy. [Or food truck guy…](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/04/la-food-trucks-become-the_n_804464.html) ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/8 "2011-01-05T01:02:29Z")
That’s my quote in the OP, and I said that because I was pretty sure there was something that happened in the early 2000s with an online porn star. I thought it was _Tiffany Teen_ or one of her contemporaries, and not that she had faked her death herself, but that it had been falsely reported by somebody unscrupulous, for his own gain. But now I can’t find any evidence of it, so I may be misremembering. ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/9 "2011-01-05T06:58:54Z")
I read a post on Asia Carrera’s blog about a recently deceased porn star, which linked to a page of porn star deaths. It was amazing how many porn stars ‘die’ in car accidents. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/10 "2011-01-05T07:20:40Z")
I’d think a car accident would be a pretty bad way to stage a fake death. You’re going to have a police investigation and they’re going to expect a body in the wreck. That’ll generate some kind of public record which can be looked up by anyone who wants to verify a death. I’d say go with a fake drowning. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/11 "2011-01-05T07:26:22Z")
I doubt they are gunning for actually disappearing. Just enough to make casual perusers move on. ---
**Author:** ![MikeSouth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@MikeSouth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeSouth)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/12 "2011-01-05T15:53:06Z")
I have been in the biz for 20 years and theres only a few instances of known faked deaths…Hyapatia Lee is one of them. She faked her death to increase the value of her memorabilia as was stated. There’s a few more suspected fakes, Moana Pozzi comes to mind. When a porn chick decides to exit she usually just disappears into suburbia. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/13 "2011-01-05T16:53:31Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I doubt they are gunning for actually disappearing. Just enough to make casual perusers move on. Yeah, but if you want casual perusers to move on, you just stop making porn. What’s the point of calling up the porn studio, “Tell them I died in a car crash!”. Why not just stop making porn? And then when the casual peruser looks up after noticing that he hasn’t seen any new Starlet X movies in a while, and asks what happens, he gets told, “She left the business”. Because people leave the business all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Gus\_Gusterson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85f322/32.png) [@Gus\_Gusterson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gus_Gusterson)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/14 "2011-01-05T17:50:10Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Yeah, but if you want casual perusers to move on, you just stop making porn. What’s the point of calling up the porn studio, “Tell them I died in a car crash!”. Why not just stop making porn? And then when the casual peruser looks up after noticing that he hasn’t seen any new Starlet X movies in a while, and asks what happens, he gets told, “She left the business”. Because people leave the business all the time. I think that “perusers” was meant to be “pursuers” and Inner Stickler was talking about stalkers. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/15 "2011-01-05T18:04:35Z")
Then why did he call them casual? If you’re just trying to distance yourself from your sordid past, you change your haircut, go back to your real name, and move on. Faking the death of your porn stage name won’t help distance you from your porn past, because your porn past won’t come up from people from the porn world tracing you to your current life, but rather people from your current life stumbling across your videos. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/16 "2011-01-05T19:34:14Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > That’s my quote in the OP, and I said that because I was pretty sure there was something that happened in the early 2000s with an online porn star. I thought it was _Tiffany Teen_ or one of her contemporaries, and not that she had faked her death herself, but that it had been falsely reported by somebody unscrupulous, for his own gain. > > But now I can’t find any evidence of it, so I may be misremembering. I suppose it’s debatable on the terminology, but Tiffany Teen was a “non-nude model”, not a porn star. She was one of Phil Flash’s stable of non-nude models, along with MeganQT, Princess BluEyez, Next Door Nikki, and a couple others. There were a handful of nude photos of Tiffany that leaked out, along with a couple very-poor-quality photos of her giving a blowjob, but the consensus at the time was that Tiffany was one of those models who is completely stunning in almost-nude “tease” photos but inexplicably disappointing when actually nude. Unless, of course, you’re talking about a different Tiffany Teen. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/17 "2011-01-05T19:56:35Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Yeah, but if you want casual perusers to move on, you just stop making porn. What’s the point of calling up the porn studio, “Tell them I died in a car crash!”. Why not just stop making porn? And then when the casual peruser looks up after noticing that he hasn’t seen any new Starlet X movies in a while, and asks what happens, he gets told, “She left the business”. Because people leave the business all the time. I haven’t the foggiest. I simply doubt that they’re trying to go off the grid, so to speak but rather want a semi-plausible alibi. “Say, you aren’t Gang-Bang Gladys are you?” “Sorry, nope, anyway, didn’t she die in a car crash?” “Oh yeah, I thought I heard that somewhere. Sorry for bothering you.” “No problem, now turn your head and cough.” This of course is reliant on porn stars faking their deaths with any consistent basis. As to the truth of that, I couldn’t tell you. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/18 "2011-01-05T22:22:29Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > Unless, of course, you’re talking about a different Tiffany Teen. I was talking about that Tiffany Teen, but having said that there was someone else who briefly used the name Tiffany Teen, and maybe that’s who I am confusing things with. Or I could be completely wrong and getting my wires crossed from the beginning. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2011, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/19 "2011-01-06T00:09:28Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Yeah, but if you want casual perusers to move on, you just stop making porn. What’s the point of calling up the porn studio, “Tell them I died in a car crash!”. Why not just stop making porn? And then when the casual peruser looks up after noticing that he hasn’t seen any new Starlet X movies in a while, and asks what happens, he gets told, “She left the business”. Because people leave the business all the time. I suppose there’s the possibility of faking death not to fool the public, but to fool the _studio_ in order to get out of a contract. > [@GuanoLad](#): > > I was talking about that Tiffany Teen, but having said that there was someone else who briefly used the name Tiffany Teen, and maybe that’s who I am confusing things with. > > Or I could be completely wrong and getting my wires crossed from the beginning. I’m now remembering an online porn model/actress named Tiffany, who was marketed as a “teen” … “Teen Tiffany”, maybe? She had wavy dark blond or light brown hair, as opposed to Tiffany Teen’s very straight platinum blond. I haven’t run across anything new from her in quite some time. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2011, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363/20 "2011-01-06T03:50:25Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > I suppose there’s the possibility of faking death not to fool the public, but to fool the _studio_ in order to get out of a contract. What contracts? My understanding is that the majority of performers get paid on a day-by-day basis. You get hired to show up on a specific date and have sex on camera. You get paid and that’s the end of it - performers rarely get residuals in the porn business. Only a very small handful (like maybe a couple of dozen) have a contract with a specific studio. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-porn-stars-really-fake-their-deaths-to-break-free-from-the-business/566363.md?page=2)