How Much Do Porn Stars Really Get Paid?
They pay the bills by having sex on camera, but do they earn well?
To everyone outside of the adult entertainment industry, the lives of porn stars seem like a complete mystery. Many enjoy watching porn, but only a few wonder what goes on behind the scenes, or consider the lives of the actors and actresses in them.
Starring in porn films as a profession is still considered taboo and it still isn't considered the kind of job you'd brag to your grandmother about. However, it turns out that it's a pretty lucrative way of putting food on the table.
The first thing to know is that porn stars earn differently. Money varies depending on their status, who their agent is, and many other factors. The Independent recently spoke to Derek Hay, former porn star and founder of LA Direct Models which represents many of the big names in the adult world, to get a sense of what sort of money goes around in the multi-billion dollar industry.
The pay for performers is not exactly set in stone and it depends on what they are willing to do, but there is a basic rate to be expected. For starters, a female performer in a scene with a male performer would earn approximately $1000. This rate reduces in same-sex scenes, which is around $700-$800.
There may be scenes where the star's pay can increase significantly and it usually happens when a scene involves a sexual act the performer isn't accustomed to doing. The studio will then raise the pay to incentivize the star. This sort of rate is called the "premium rate" and it could be anything from $2000 to $6000.
"For the right girl, for whatever reason which could vary, to do acts like their first anal scene, first interracial scene, first scene with three, four or five guys, those scenes could pay premium rates," Derek Hay said. "A company’s studios would offer a particular girl a much higher rate to induce her to accept the offer to shoot that kind of scene. That’s always been the case, but in the past few years a number of different studios have put a lot of prominence on those kind of scenes and the rates offered to models to do that have increased markedly."
We are now living in a world where the gender pay gap is so blatantly obvious across many industries, but according to Hay, porn is an exception. He says it is "universally known that women get paid a lot more" but indicated that successful male actors are compensated "what most people would think is a lot." Not to mention, they have an advantage in being able to work more frequently than women.
With that being said, Derek noted that the most successful porn stars don't earn as much as people think they do.
"I don’t think that adult stars make as much money as the general public perceives them to make," he said. "I don’t think there’s anybody, even the biggest stars, who are making more than half a million a year, but if some of the top stars are making $300,000-400,000 per year, by most people’s perception that would still be a lot of money I think."
