Jenna Jameson (born Jenna Marie Massoli on April 9, 1974) is an American pornographic actress and entrepreneur who has been called the world's most famous porn star and "The Queen of Porn". She started acting in erotic films in 1993 after having worked as a stripper and glamour model. By 1996, she had won the three top newcomer awards from pornographic film industry organizations. She has since won more than 20 adult film awards, and has been inducted into both the X-Rated Critics Organization (XRCO) and Adult Video News (AVN) Halls of Fame.
Jameson founded pornographic entertainment company ClubJenna in 2000, with Jay Grdina, whom she later married. This business was initially an individual website, which expanded into managing similar websites of other stars and began producing pornographic films in 2001. The first such film, Briana Loves Jenna (with Briana Banks), was named at the 2003 AVN Awards as the best-selling and best-renting pornographic title for 2002. By 2005, Club Jenna had revenues of US$30 million with profits estimated at half that. Advertisements for her site and films, often bearing her picture, tower on a forty-eight-foot-tall billboard in New York City's Times Square. Playboy TV hosts her Jenna's American Sex Star reality show where aspiring porn stars compete for a Club Jenna contract.
Jameson is also noted for her relative success in crossing over into mainstream celebrity, starting with a minor role in Howard Stern's 1997 film Private Parts. Her mainstream appearances continued with guest-hosting E! television, an award-winning voice role in the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and a recurring role on the 2003 NBC television series Mister Sterling. Her 2004 autobiography, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale, spent six weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list.
Early Life of Jenna Jameson
Jenna Marie Massoli was born on April 9, 1974 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her father is Lawrence Massoli, an Italian American program director for an NBC affiliate and a police officer. Her mother was Judith Brooke Hunt Massoli, a Las Vegas showgirl who danced in the Folies Bergère show at the Tropicana Resort and Casino. Her mother died of skin cancer on February 20, 1976, before Jenna Massoli's second birthday. The cancer treatments bankrupted the family and they moved several times, including living in a trailer and moving in with her father's mother. Her father spent most of his time at work at the Las Vegas Sheriff's Department, and she became very close to her brother, Tony Massoli. She was a frequent entrant in beauty pageants as a child, and took ballet classes.
In her autobiography, Massoli writes that in October 1990, while the family was living on a cattle ranch in Fromberg, Montana, she was beaten with rocks and gang raped by four boys after a football game. She says she was raped a second time, while still sixteen, by her boyfriend Jack's biker uncle, Preacher. (Preacher has denied this.) Rather than tell her father, she left home and moved in with Jack in her first serious relationship.
Jack was a tattoo artist, and gave her the first of a series of tattoos, one which would become her trademark tattoo, double hearts on her right buttock. According to E!, Massoli's brother Tony, who later owned a tattoo parlor himself, added the inscription "HEART BREAKER".
Early Career of Jenna Jameson
Jenna Massoli tried to follow in her mother's career as a Las Vegas showgirl, but most shows rejected her for not having the required height of 5 feet 9 inches (175 cm). She was hired at the Vegas World show, but left after two months stating that the schedule was brutal, and the money was terrible.
Massoli's boyfriend Jack encouraged her to apply for jobs as a stripper, and in 1991, though underage, she began dancing in Las Vegas strip clubs using a fake I.D. After she was rejected from the Crazy Horse Too strip club because of the braces on her teeth, she removed them with a pair of needle-nose pliers and was accepted. After six months, she was earning US$2000 per night, before finishing high school.
Her first stage name as a stripper was "Jennasis", a name she later used for incorporating as "Jennasis Entertainment". She chose the name "Jenna Jameson" to use as a model after scrolling through the phone book for a last name that matched her first name, before finally decided on Jameson for Jameson Whiskey, which she drinks.
Besides dancing, starting later in 1991, she posed for nude photographs for photographer Suze Randall in Los Angeles, hoping to get into Penthouse magazine. Jameson was paid $300 per day, without rights to the pictures. After her photos had appeared in several men's magazines under various names, Jameson stopped working for Randall, feeling Randall was "a shark", and had been taking advantage of her.
While still in high school, Jameson began taking drugs — cocaine, LSD, and methamphetamines — accompanied by her brother (who was addicted to heroin) and at times her father. Her addiction became worse during her four years with her boyfriend. She eventually stopped eating properly and became too thin to model; Jack left her in 1994. She weighed 76 pounds (less than 35 kilograms) when a friend put her in a wheelchair and sent her to her father, who was then living in Redding, California, in order to detox; her father did not recognize her when she got off the plane.
Jameson founded pornographic entertainment company ClubJenna in 2000, with Jay Grdina, whom she later married. This business was initially an individual website, which expanded into managing similar websites of other stars and began producing pornographic films in 2001. The first such film, Briana Loves Jenna (with Briana Banks), was named at the 2003 AVN Awards as the best-selling and best-renting pornographic title for 2002. By 2005, Club Jenna had revenues of US$30 million with profits estimated at half that. Advertisements for her site and films, often bearing her picture, tower on a forty-eight-foot-tall billboard in New York City's Times Square. Playboy TV hosts her Jenna's American Sex Star reality show where aspiring porn stars compete for a Club Jenna contract.
Jameson is also noted for her relative success in crossing over into mainstream celebrity, starting with a minor role in Howard Stern's 1997 film Private Parts. Her mainstream appearances continued with guest-hosting E! television, an award-winning voice role in the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and a recurring role on the 2003 NBC television series Mister Sterling. Her 2004 autobiography, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale, spent six weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list.
Early Life of Jenna Jameson
Jenna Marie Massoli was born on April 9, 1974 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her father is Lawrence Massoli, an Italian American program director for an NBC affiliate and a police officer. Her mother was Judith Brooke Hunt Massoli, a Las Vegas showgirl who danced in the Folies Bergère show at the Tropicana Resort and Casino. Her mother died of skin cancer on February 20, 1976, before Jenna Massoli's second birthday. The cancer treatments bankrupted the family and they moved several times, including living in a trailer and moving in with her father's mother. Her father spent most of his time at work at the Las Vegas Sheriff's Department, and she became very close to her brother, Tony Massoli. She was a frequent entrant in beauty pageants as a child, and took ballet classes.
In her autobiography, Massoli writes that in October 1990, while the family was living on a cattle ranch in Fromberg, Montana, she was beaten with rocks and gang raped by four boys after a football game. She says she was raped a second time, while still sixteen, by her boyfriend Jack's biker uncle, Preacher. (Preacher has denied this.) Rather than tell her father, she left home and moved in with Jack in her first serious relationship.
Jack was a tattoo artist, and gave her the first of a series of tattoos, one which would become her trademark tattoo, double hearts on her right buttock. According to E!, Massoli's brother Tony, who later owned a tattoo parlor himself, added the inscription "HEART BREAKER".
Early Career of Jenna Jameson
Jenna Massoli tried to follow in her mother's career as a Las Vegas showgirl, but most shows rejected her for not having the required height of 5 feet 9 inches (175 cm). She was hired at the Vegas World show, but left after two months stating that the schedule was brutal, and the money was terrible.
Massoli's boyfriend Jack encouraged her to apply for jobs as a stripper, and in 1991, though underage, she began dancing in Las Vegas strip clubs using a fake I.D. After she was rejected from the Crazy Horse Too strip club because of the braces on her teeth, she removed them with a pair of needle-nose pliers and was accepted. After six months, she was earning US$2000 per night, before finishing high school.
Her first stage name as a stripper was "Jennasis", a name she later used for incorporating as "Jennasis Entertainment". She chose the name "Jenna Jameson" to use as a model after scrolling through the phone book for a last name that matched her first name, before finally decided on Jameson for Jameson Whiskey, which she drinks.
Besides dancing, starting later in 1991, she posed for nude photographs for photographer Suze Randall in Los Angeles, hoping to get into Penthouse magazine. Jameson was paid $300 per day, without rights to the pictures. After her photos had appeared in several men's magazines under various names, Jameson stopped working for Randall, feeling Randall was "a shark", and had been taking advantage of her.
While still in high school, Jameson began taking drugs — cocaine, LSD, and methamphetamines — accompanied by her brother (who was addicted to heroin) and at times her father. Her addiction became worse during her four years with her boyfriend. She eventually stopped eating properly and became too thin to model; Jack left her in 1994. She weighed 76 pounds (less than 35 kilograms) when a friend put her in a wheelchair and sent her to her father, who was then living in Redding, California, in order to detox; her father did not recognize her when she got off the plane.