Sinner Takes All: A Memoir of Love and Porn

CHAPTER 10 A Star Is Porn

With my New Year’s resolution of taking it to the next level still fresh in mind, I marched into Digital Playground’s offices on January 2, 2000, to talk business. I thought I was just there to talk, but Samantha Lewis, the co-owner of the company and my soon-to-be manager, had already prepared a contract for me and in my excitement, I did the unthinkable. I signed the contract without reading it, without having an attorney read it, and without knowing what the hell to say yes to and what to say no to. I blindly signed on the dotted line.

The negotiations weren’t really negotiations at all. It went a little something like this:

Samantha asked, “How much do you need to live?”

“About five thousand a month,” I stupidly replied. It seemed to be my magic number. I got $5,000 for Penthouse and $5,000 for Virtual Sex. “OK, that’s what we’ll pay you,” Samantha was quick to agree. She was a bit too quick to agree and I found out later what a raw deal I signed.

“Great!” I was elated. I was now a contract girl. Sam, Ali, and I went out to Delmonico’s Steak and Lobster House in Encino to celebrate. I dined on lobster and champagne and was on top of the world.

From that moment on, things started happening really fast, and I was becoming very close with Sam. She became like a big sister, or almost a mother figure for me. We’d talk every day, sometimes three, four, five times a day. We’d shop, go out to lunch, gossip, share beauty tips, hit the gym, and do all the things that close girlfriends do. She handled everything for me, such as my schedule, hiring the right makeup and hair people for my jobs, leasing me a car to drive, everything. Because she was older than me, I looked up to her and learned a lot about life from her. And I trusted her like you’d trust a close family member. And even Ali acted like a father figure to me.

“Guess what?” Samantha asked me. “You’re going to AVN. You’ll be signing at a booth. It’ll be great.” Signing at AVN really meant you made it. Adult Video News is the Bible of the porn industry. Every year in January, they have an awards show and convention in, appropriately enough, Sin City—Las Vegas. And all of the big stars would go and plug their new movies, meet their fans, sign autographs, and party.

I flew to Vegas about a week later and immediately hit the convention floor. I arrived at the booth in Vegas, and there was a stack of 8 x 10 glossy photos of me that said Virtual Sex with Tera Patrick. Two Sharpies sat next to the stack. And next to the Sharpies were Nikki Tyler and Julia Ann, who used to partner with Janine in Blond-age , a dancing act they performed at strip clubs. And then there was this really loud, outgoing, beautiful woman named Teri Weigel.

“Hey!” Teri, dressed in nothing but a G-string and pasties, yelled to me. “You’re the new girl! Awesome! Hi! I’m Teri! So nice to meet you!”

I was a little nervous going in, but my nerves immediately went away. The other girls didn’t introduce themselves to me at first, so I latched onto the much friendlier Teri. She was a Playboy Playmate in 1987 and is the only Playmate to have gone into porn. I looked at her with awe. Here was this beautiful, powerful woman with a microphone in her hand, commanding a crowd of people to come on by. She stood on a chair, loud, confident, and gorgeous as hell.

I had no idea what the fuck I was doing, or if I’d even have any fans to sign those glossy photos for. But lo and behold, fans knew who I was and were coming to see me. It was the first time I met any of my fans, and I loved them immediately. I jumped right in and started signing “Tera Patrick” in my chicken scratch. I didn’t know what or how to sign an autograph. I was thinking about how Marilyn Monroe signed her name.

I said to my new friend, “Hey, Teri, how do you sign an autograph?”

“Awww, sweetie. Here…” and she took a blank piece of paper out and proceeded to write my name in all different ways with different lines like “Love, Tera Patrick,” “Love & Lust, Tera Patrick,” “Fucking Fuck Me, Tera Patrick.” She wrote out all of these little signatures and I started signing them one after another. When there wasn’t a line of fans, I’d practice my signature on paper. My name was still new to me, so I wasn’t used to signing it yet.

Teri took me under her wing. She taught me how to do my makeup for the bright lights at a signing like this. She taught me how to handle my fans. She basically taught me how to “do AVN” and how to be a porn celebrity.

“Girl, you are going to have this down and you are going to be a huge star,” she told me after our long day of signing. I’ll never forget her kindness, and I tried to be like Teri to the new girls that came into the business after I got more famous. There were times when I’d be bitchy to the new girls, but I’d catch myself and think, “Teri would be so disappointed in me if she knew I was being a bitch.”

Things were happening fast with Digital Playground. They got me the Playboy TV gig on Night Calls 411 Live show next. It was a live, call-in television show where horny guys and gals phoned in their sex and relationship questions, talked about their fantasies, and interacted with the show’s hosts, who would masturbate on air or demonstrate sex toys and other things like that. I went through a whole round of auditions and finally landed the role of the Net Nympho. Crystal Knight and Flower Edwards were the show’s hosts, and they couldn’t have a third host, so I became the Internet girl and I’d read e-mails from viewers, banter with them, and give a little striptease as I did my thing. I was the Net Nympho for the first year and then I became the cohost with Crystal Knight after Flower got pregnant and left in June 2001.

I loved being on TV, but I loved it a little too much. Every day was a party for me, and I was drinking more heavily than I ever had. I didn’t do a single episode of Night Calls sober. Every night on the set, the production manager would come up to me and say, “All right, Stick”—they called me Stick because I was so thin at the time—“what’s it going to be tonight?” And I’d name my drink of choice. I’d often get a fifth of Jack Daniel’s and a two-liter bottle of Coke and it would either be half gone or entirely gone before the night’s end.

I’m shocked I didn’t get fired. I was smashed on every episode of that show. The director, Jeff, and my producer, Jamie, would have to give me direction in my earpiece to keep me alert. “Tera, your eyes are closed. Tera, open your eyes. Tera, sit up straight. Tera, put your shoulders back. Tera, Tera, Tera!” It was always something with me. But I was happy. I was becoming the biggest porn star out there. I was on TV; my webcam show, The Tera Patrick Show, in front of a live audience on TeraPatrick.com, was up and running and going strong; and I was just drinking out of celebration. Or so I thought at the time. I was a party girl and I wanted to party like a rock star.

Looking back on it now, it was a pretty depressing existence, but I wasn’t aware of it in the moment. As far as I was concerned, I had accomplished my New Year’s resolution and took it to the next level. I was going to be Penthouse’s February 2000 Pet of the Month. I became a Hustler Honey. Digital Playground was keeping me busy with photo shoots and lots of press—they even hired me a full-time publicist! I knew I had made the right decision. Something really good was happening here. I was getting my $5,000 a month from Digital, plus I was getting about $3,000 an episode for Night Calls, and I was shooting for all the magazines. I was bringing in about $20,000 a month.

And on top of that, I had my first experience of truly feeling like a star. Sam and I flew to France for the 2000 Hot d’Or adult film awards, which, at the time, were part of the Cannes Film Festival. I was there to win Best American New Starlet. When we got off the plane, I couldn’t believe how many fans gathered at the airport to greet me with signs that read WELCOME TERA! and HELLO TERA! and TERA’S NO. 1 FAN! and WE LOVE YOU TERA! As if that wasn’t overwhelming enough, when I got in the car to head to an interview, there were two police cars with sirens escorting us to the TV studio. I couldn’t believe it. Only a year in the business, and I had a police escort!

My publicist looked to me and said, “Oh my goodness. It’s like you are Demi Moore!”

I was loving it, but I was also turning into a spoiled brat. When Samantha showed me my Penthouse issue, she was bursting with excitement.

“I have a surprise for you!” she said excitedly, pulling the magazine out from her bag with pride.

I looked at the magazine and my first thought was, “I’m not on the cover.”

Samantha was like, “Ta-da!”

“I’m not on the cover,” was all I could say.

“But you’re Penthouse Pet of the Month!” she said.

“I’m not on the cover.” I was pissed.

Samantha explained to me the reason I wasn’t on the cover was because the Penthouse Pet of the Year is always on the January cover and the runner up was always on the February cover. So, if you get Pet of the Month in January or February (I was the February Pet), you don’t get the cover. But I got over it. I was so happy with the spread. It turned out really beautiful, so I called up Suze Randall and said, “Thank you for making me look so beautiful, Suze!” Suze said, “Oh, Popkins”—that’s what she called me because it rhymed with my real last name, Hopkins—“you’re the one that looks smashing. I didn’t have to do anything, my little piggy. My little slut.”

Sure enough, two years later in 2002, I landed Penthouse Pet of the Year Runner-Up and finally got on the cover of the magazine. And around the same time, as fate would have it, I found myself with a new shot at Playboy, the magazine I really wanted to be in. This is what I wanted my entire life and it was finally happening. Playboy was doing a big porn-star special. I was officially a big porn star by then, and they wanted me to be part of it. We shot it in November 2001 for the March 2002 issue dubbed “The Women of Porn,” featuring me, Kira Kener, and Dasha on the cover. And not on the cover, but inside, were Jenna Jameson, Taylor Hayes, Julia Ann, Chasey Lain, Lacey, Janine Lindemulder, Brittany Andrews, Juli Ashton, and Asia Carrera.

Jenna Jameson was clearly the biggest porn star in the room, but Janine and I were hot on her tail. I think most people at the shoot assumed it would be Jenna, Janine, and me landing the cover together, but that’s not exactly how it turned out. The photographer was shooting us in all different configurations, and as I was being shot with Kira and Dasha, I had butterflies in my stomach hoping it would be the shot. Then I heard the editor, Marilyn Grabowski, say to an assistant, “Oh, that’s my shot.” My manager, Samantha, kept telling me I would be on the cover, so I already had my hopes up for it. She was right.

Competition for the cover aside, the vibe on the set was very festive and exciting. Everyone got along great, and no one caused drama. The final shot of the day was the big group orgy shot where all twelve of us were stark-naked, lying on a big bed together with all of our arms and legs intertwined. They placed Jenna next to me and as we were figuring out how to pose together, Jenna said to me, “Wow, someone’s got long legs. Life is so rough.” I smirked, knowing I would be on the cover and she wouldn’t and thought, “Yeah, now life really is rough. Ha!” There was always a friendly fake competition between Jenna and me. I always gathered that she was not happy knowing that I was on the rise.

The excitement of the day got the best of me, and I missed out on my chance to tell Janine how much I loved her. I was such a huge fan of Janine’s, but I was just too intimidated to talk to her. She had such a rock-star attitude and I knew she had dated Vince Neil and was famous for fucking famous musicians. I wanted to get some tips from her, but I was too afraid. She was such a goddess to me.

Even though my Penthouse cover was the February issue and my Playboy cover was the March issue, the two magazines overlapped a bit on the newsstands when they came out and it was the first time any woman was on the cover of both Penthouse and Playboy at the same time. It was quite an accomplishment for me. When Playboy came out, I ran down to my neighborhood newsstand on the corner of Ventura Boulevard and Van Nuys Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, and I lined up all the Playboy magazines and all the Penthouse magazines that I was on the cover of and just stared at them. Finally someone said, “That’s you!”

“Yes, it is!” I was so proud to say.

I was so proud, but my father was even prouder. Before the magazines hit the newsstands, I decided it was time to tell my father what I was really up to. He was about to figure it out soon enough when he saw his daughter on the cover of Playboy with a headline that read SIZZLING PORN STAR PICTORIAL.

I had started to talk to my father again. Due to busy work schedules and living in different cities or states over the years, we would sometimes not talk as much as we should. But he came to visit me at my new place on Dickens Street in Sherman Oaks, one of the nicer cities in the San Fernando Valley, which was another upgrade in my living situation.

Like ripping off a Band-Aid, I told dad very quickly. I said, “Dad, I’ve done some movies.”

“Of course you have,” he said very matter-of-fact.

There was a long pause. I was dumb and naive to think that no one watches porn or knew what I was up to. I told him that I was very happy and that I was making a lot of money and that I was doing it on my own terms. Then he said, “Will you sign a couple of these Playboys for my friends?” I felt relieved. He was proud to see me on the cover of Playboy. It was the approval I had been looking for my whole life.

“It’s an honor to be in Playboy, honey. I’m happy for you,” he said. “Just be careful. Take care of yourself, and be happy.”