In this MMAmania.com crossover interview, retired porn star turned fantasy sports guru, Lisa Ann, opens up about her new book "The Life," and how sports have given her stability throughout her life.
Lisa Ann is a conqueror of the male fantasy. First with sex, now with sports.
Widely known as one of the most popular adult film stars ever, Ann, 43, began to write her memoir, "The Life," more than three years ago; however, she didn't have an ending, at least not one she was willing to share publicly. She had been privately planning her exit from the adult film industry and preparing for new endeavors, but couldn't share that information with potential publishers. Then, on Dec. 15, 2014, she released a handwritten letter through her Facebook account formally announcing her retirement.
She had her ending.
After saying goodbye to a 20-year career in the adult film industry as a performer and director, Ann swapped sexual fantasies for fantasy sports, and soon made the full transition into her new gig, hosting "Lisa Ann Does Fantasy" on SiriusXM with co-host Adam Ronis, a show that began in 2013. She completely embraced her new-found profession, pouring her efforts and time into finishing her book, and one year to the day later -- on the anniversary of her retirement -- "The Life" was officially released through Lioncrest Publishing.
Once the finish line of her wildly-successful first career was crossed, and its full trajectory realized with her retirement, which sent shockwaves throughout the industry, she had all she needed to fill in all the remaining blanks in order for the book to be completed and escape from being imperfect.
She got on this topic, of course, from discussing Ronda Rousey's book, "My Fight/Your Fight." Ann -- who is a fan of the former UFC women's Bantamweight champion -- excitedly said it's next up on her reading list before asking, "have you read it?" I told her I had and we then discussed Holly Holm defeating Rousey for the title at UFC 193. When I mentioned that perhaps Rousey's book came out too soon -- since the women's fighting icon is far from finished -- she was instantly reminded of the embryonic stages of her own opus.
"It's funny you say that," Ann told MMAmania.com. "I started to write my book three years ago. And when I was starting to shop my content 2.5 years ago, I wasn't retired yet and I wasn't telling anyone about my retirement plans yet. And everyone kept saying to me, 'Well how is it going to end? What is the ending?' It was so bizarre how many meetings I did that ended with the sentence, 'How is it going to end?' It wasn't until I put retirement plan into place and acted it out that I could clearly understand, 'yeah, now I have an endpoint.' If I wanted to write something else I could, but I had to have an endpoint."
Ann always has plenty to say, but not plenty of time. This particular interview took an email chain over two weeks in length until she would finally be able to schedule time for it. But, one of the unique parts about the former porn star who rocketed into super stardom back in 2008 while playing former Republican vice president nominee, Sarah Palin in a parody called "Whos Naylin Paylin?" is that she operates without any representation.
No manager. No agent. Just her. And that is wildly unusual for someone of her stature. She is a hard woman to get a hold of, and extremely busy, but this is how she does things ... and she wouldn't have it any other way.
"When you put out a book there is just ... I'm doing six to seven interviews a day," said Ann, who has appeared in more than 500 adult films. "And all of that insane stuff and then arranging my travel schedule. It's so hard to find reliable people. And it's so personal, you know what I mean. Also, I find people like ... When you are booking events especially, people love dealing with you directly because they don't ever worry about something that is not going to get conveyed to you.
"Like, when I was on the road as a feature dancer I had an agent and my dance agent used to never tell me when I had radio shows. So, they'd be driving you home from the club at like 4:30 in the morning and they would tell me, 'Okay, we are picking you up at six for your radio show.' When you get told that and you are not prepared mentally for that, you are like, 'so, you are picking me back up in an hour and a half?'"
The loquacious Easton, Pa., native is candid, quick witted and informative. If you have any preconceived notions about what a former porn star should or shouldn't be, she will shatter them. And the stories she tells hint at the treasure trove awaiting you throughout the pages of her new book "The Life." There is always depth within her answers and she can discuss anything. Sometimes one topic sparks another thought in her head and the conversation instantly veers down another path, but it usually rights itself back to the original thought. And at the same time she's formulating her answers, Ann will also surprise you by asking questions because she truly wants your thoughts on whatever topic is being discussed. Nothing is taboo or too personal and her answers are always very entertaining.
Photo courtesy Sirius XM
Ronda Rousey, Karma and Superstition
The women's fighting icon is what sparked our initial conversation and what opened a portal of discussion including everything from episodes of "Ted Talks" on Netflix, to her affinity of Tina Fey, and sports always being a constant presence in her life. Ann has mentioned Rousey before on her weekly spot on "The Morning Men" show, which is on SiriusXM on the MadDog Sports channel, and like many other personalities and celebrities, she has been blown away by what the now former champion has accomplished and always pays attention whenever she fights.
"How impressive," says Ann on what Rousey has done in the sport. "It's such a new sport for women to be involved in. "She has done so much for the business and she has been great on television as well. Her role in 'The Entourage' movie. She is pretty. She photographs well. She carries herself well on camera. But I think there were a couple of small mistakes along the way. The big karmic mistake that I think everyone else noticed as well, was her not tapping gloves."
Ann is referring to the pre-fight ritual we are all accustomed to seeing prior to every fight. The one in which Rousey refused to take part in with Holm. Nevermind what took place in the Octagon that night in Australia, Ann is of the belief that Rousey's refusal to touch gloves with Holm angered the MMA gods, so to speak, and that is what initiated "Rowdy's" downfall.
"Are you superstitious at all?" Ann asks.
"Sometimes," I answered.
"See, I'm pretty superstitious so I couldn't do something like that," she admitted. "I would think if the other person didn't do it to me that's fine, but I would have to go along with it because it's part of the art of the process. It's part of the art of the process of the fight is always the tapping of the gloves and who are you to change the art of the process?
"It's karmic. Even in my day-to-day operations, I feel like this: I'm out and about and I can open three or four extra doors for people, or I can help somebody in some way, shape or form, than my karmic count is always overflowing. Do you know what I'm saying?"
In addition to not touching gloves, Rousey also fabricated a scene at the UFC 193 weigh ins by getting in Holm's face, which led to a mini scuffle of sorts. Rousey had some choice words for Holm that she relayed to Joe Rogan on stage immediately afterward. She then continued her verbal assault on Holm via social media, which really caught Ann's eye at the time.
"THE BIG KARMIC MISTAKE THAT I THINK EVERYONE ELSE NOTICED AS WELL, WAS HER NOT TOUCHING GLOVES."-- Ann on Ronda Rousey vs. Holly Holm
"She put up a nasty Instagram post that day," said Ann, before taking the conversation into the power of social media, the generational gaps between those who use it and how Rousey's words -- specifically the verbal shots at Holm -- were interpreted and used against the former champion in the gargantuan tidal wave of backlash that came crashing down in the days after the bout.
"How old is Ronda?"
"28," I tell her.
"How old are you?"
"39," I answered.
"I'm 43," she stated. "Ronda is from this new generation and this new generation has me looking at a book probably totally differently than I would have looked at this book twenty years ago, because right now I have to live in fear. Just as excited as I am, I am in this culture of this new generation that throws just as much hate out there as they throw positive things out there. So, with Ronda doing that, I think that is just the tone of her generation. I know you and I would never agree with it because we don't operate that way and this is what social media has changed -- the actions and skills to deliver any kind of message to somebody whether it's positive or negative.
"I mean, do you think that if people had to put their return home address on a piece of mail to you that they would spend the time and write to you how horrible of a person they think you are and write slanderous things? They wouldn't. But now, for the 141 characters instantaneously I can say whatever I want, I believe karmically again that when you put those things out there in writing and you let them be embedded in your personal profile on the Internet -- just like Ronda did with that Instagram post -- I think that takes away your karma and then again it creates a dark cloud around you. And it's weird because when I asked my younger friends about that Instagram post -- I have friends 18-years old to 70-years old, so I have a great range to get an outlook. To the younger people they saw nothing wrong with it and to people my age and older they thought it was very disrespectful and unnecessary. I hope she gets back at it if she is healthy enough. But, you always gotta plan for your own demise. You never want to run your mouth too much, then it comes back in your face."
As for "My Fight/Your Fight," Ann thinks Rousey's book coming out when it did was more or less her management wanting to capitalize on her current level of fame, coupled with the uncertainty of not knowing when her time at the top will end or die down. Feelings with which she is very familiar.
"Sometimes agents will tell their talent 'you want to do as much as you can right now because you don't know what is going to be there for you.' So, they push out a book really fast and they do everything really fast," she explained. "When you see success stories ... Like one of my biggest idols is Tina Fey. Tina Fey has been so progressive with her career and it has lasted such a long time and she just put out 'Bossy Pants' last year, which was one of my favorite reads of last year, from cover-to-cover I couldn't put it down. Love what she is about. Love who she is. Love all she has been a part of. But, she's never really strained for the recognition at all. When she does these movies, you just love her movies.
"THERE IS A DIFFERENT LEVEL OF HOW MUCH YOU ALLOW FAME TO BECOME YOUR MISTRESS, OR IF YOU JUST VISIT WITH YOUR FAME ONCE IN A WHILE. IT CAN BE A VERY DEVILISH MISTRESS AND IT CAN CONFUSE YOUR SPIRIT."
"There is a different level of how much you allow fame to become your mistress, or if you just visit with your fame once in a while. It can be a very devilish mistress and it can confuse your spirit and then when your are also only talking to agents, managers and business people that you are paying--which is another reason I chose to do my own thing --everyone starts feeding you and eventually your bubble can almost confuse you and convince you. With me doing things on my own and all my friends doing different things for work and none of my friends are industry related, so they all bring something different to the table and we have totally normal conversations. If I'm doing something stupid, like years ago I got a tattoo and I did not know my friends were going to be react the way they did. They were so disappointed and I ended up getting it removed. I loved at that moment where I realized I had people that cared about my future just as much as they cared about my right now."
But, wait, tattoo? What was it? Where was it?
"I was such a huge Nine Inch Nails and I was also just getting out of my contract with Metro ... I was bitter at the world. It said on the back of my neck, 'I would rather die than give you control," said Ann, her voice cracking with laughter. "It was dope, but as a woman who wears her hair up in a pony tail a lot, likes to go to spin class -- the look of horror on some people's faces was like ... 'Oh, I get it, this might've been a little harsh.'
"When you are a Nine Inch Nails fan, you think, 'isn't the whole world a Nine Inch Nails fan? What are you talking about? How do they not know this song? I think creating a circle outside of your world, and right now Ronda is in that world where her agents are pushing her to do all these things and I think it probably got a little bit ahead of her and you do live in this fear of your shelf life and everyone is always telling you it could end and you always know it could end and it is a weird phenomenon and you are on this like wheel. For me it was Paylin."
Popularity Killing Fun, Knowing When It's Time To Go
It was in 2012 when Ann, born Lisa Anne Corpora, began to notice the big wave of fame she was still riding from the first series of parody movies based on Sarah Palin in 2008 (Ann's character was Serra Paylin), was showing no signs of slowing down even four years later. She even reprised the role of Paylin in Eminem's video for the song, "We Made You," in addition to appearing in several "Who's Naylin Paylin" sequels.
"I realized this is just not ending and I'm going to need to figure out some sort of resolve on my own because it is not what everyone said it would be," she recalled. "I couldn't keep doing this forever."
Reaching the pinnacle of her industry changed everything for her, in some ways for the worse. She fondly recalled the early days of her career, the pre-Internet period where she had a favorable filming schedule, entire summers off and could walk down the street or be among the public's eye without being noticed.
"What is funny is when I was younger I was making a decent income, I had a beautiful schedule, I went on the road all fall and winter, I shot all my movies in one month and took two months off," she said, recalling this time period like a sort of age of innocence. "For four summers out in California I took two entire months off. So, my life was like this: We were on VHS back then. People did not acknowledge you. They might see you and you might see a twinkle in a guy's eye, but he is not going to say hello. There was no Internet so you could still live a double life. I loved that everyone in the business liked me because I wasn't fighting for any sort of power. I was making enough money to pay my bills and live the life I wanted to live and I wasn't in a mental place where I had any ego established in myself at all. It was such a fun place to be, and I will tell you, being popular took the fun out of everything for me when it came to the business."
Aside from mainstream popularity making it nearly impossible to not be noticed, success always breeds jealously and hatred among other contemporaries no matter what the profession. And Ann got more than a tasteful while she became one of the most popular porn stars of all time. The negativity, of course, soured her thoughts on the business even further, on top of the fact that she had already begun thinking about moving on from it.
"The business itself, the people I liked, that I communicated with for years were talking behind my back," she said. "There became a time where I raised my value and I also raised my rate and I knew what I was bringing in. I was selling product. So, to be a smart business woman in this business is not very well liked. So once people see you asking for more money they start talking meanly about you, and it's like well, if I was a hair dresser and I was doing better at hair after five years hopefully you allow me to raise my prices as a hair dresser.
"It was very black and white to me, because again, I was going to outside sources -- my friends -- €”who were telling me about my rankings, and were talking to me about things and I could bounce things off of them. It was turmoil on every level of the business, from the hierarchy, to the award shows, to the talent, who thought I was stealing work from them and I was undermining them. It was mind-boggling to me. It was really what made the demise of my career happen and what made me stick to my retirement plan. "
There were also several health scares within the industry.
"It hit me really in 2012, it was four years after Palin and we were doing the second run of movies after the re-election and 2013 we had a lot of shutdowns in the industry," said Ann, who also left the industry for several years back in 1997 during an AIDS scare. "We had a situation with Mr. Marcus. We had another situation with hepatitis and we had four HIV positives in one year. And from 2012 to just going through turmoil, to 2013 and seeing the new reality, I realized it's time to make a plan and it's time to put it in motion."
By this time Ann had been hosting a show on SiriusXM in LA called "Stripper Town" on the Spice Radio channel, which was previously the Playboy channel. She was finding her sea legs on the airwaves and realized she really enjoyed being a radio host. It was becoming quite clear she had something new and exciting to move on to ... and a possible new career after porn awaiting her.
"There is a fantasy on air about who you are entertaining," Ann said, her voice changing slightly, indicating her love for what she is now doing. "You can't see them in person, but you know you are making someone's situation better, whether it's sitting in traffic, whether they are doing chores, it's their choice to listen to you. And so I find this really cool comfort in not being as obsessed in what I look like and just be able to speak openly and have fun and then get callers and speak to strangers. "
Stability, Larry Holmes, Getting Over Twitter And Back To Basics
Sports, Ann will tell you, were always the one constant in her life while she was on the road performing at strip clubs and traveling around the country from city to city. They offered some solace to her nomadic lifestyle.
"My love for sports is one of the things that I hold responsible for my stability because there were many times in the business where it was lonely for me because everybody was doing a lot of drugs," she explained. "I went through a little phase in the 90s where I dabbled with ecstasy, but I never did anything regularly or needed. So I would end up leaving events. And so you are in Vegas and everyone is out partying and you are back in the hotel room and what are you doing? You are watching ESPN because in Vegas there is only six other channels. On the road I could always find ESPN. It kept me company. Before the Internet I would always grab the newspaper and read all the box scores. In a way sports kept me ... It was my addiction."
Not only that, but the lifelong sports fan wanted to know about the teams in the cities she was traveling to, just so she could engage with her fans about their beloved hometown teams.
"MY LOVE FOR SPORTS IS ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I HOLD RESPONSIBLE FOR MY STABILITY."
"Every season that went by I would know what teams I wanted to study because I'd be going to Chicago and I'd want to know what the Blackhawks were doing during hockey season because the fans love when you've gone out of your way and you talk to them about something that they love. And I'd see somebody with a Blackhawks hat and I'd be able to walk up to them and talk about the Blackhawks. It was a sense of pride that came from making everyone I visited know that it was important for me to be in their city and I thought a lot about the things that they had going on and I was grateful to be traveling."
Little did she know during those times, she was preparing herself for a second career she had no idea she'd soon be entering. Her escape into sports and thirst for obtaining knowledge to engage with fans of different cities was pure kismet. It was unknowingly setting the wheels into motion. Once she started talking sports on "Stripper Town" the ball got rolling for her entry into fantasy sports and an opening was right around the corner.
"I started to do a little bit of sports talk and this is about 2012 when someone within the company came to me and said, ‘Hey, Playboy Radio used to have a Fantasy Sports show," said Ann. "They aren't doing it anymore, but there might be a fit. Reach out to Matt Deutsch from SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio.' So we communicated for awhile back and forth and by 2013 I learned Fantasy Sports because when I first met him in 2012 I only knew sports. I didn't know Fantasy. So, I took the time to learn and to understand. I started with fantasy football and basketball and September 9, 2013 was my very first show, ‘Lisa Ann Does Fantasy' on Monday nights with my co-host Adam Ronis and it was the perfect aha moment in 2013 when the business was very turbulent in many negative ways.
"It was a very great 'aha' moment, like, ‘Okay, I have a job and this job requires me to put in my own payroll and this job is corporate and I have to 'cc:' people in these emails and I have new things to learn and everyone here is great.' And I started to see and feel some really good hope and some really good excitement in my life. Thinking about 2012 and 2013, it was such a peak for fantasy sports. We have our lifers and people who have been playing fantasy baseball and football for years, but in your sport and in many other sports it's become new to people and they are gravitating toward their favorite sport because they can now play fantasy. So, it was a perfect time for me to jump on board."
The former porn star -- who is currently ranked No.1 on the website Pornhub.com -- is not afraid to play up her former career, either, using her sense of humor to bring sexual innuendos into the mix for regular segments on her show like "Can't Get It Up," where players who didn't perform well in fantasy games that week are called out by her as well as her, "Lisa Ann Does Fantasy" listeners. She embraces her porn star roots wholeheartedly. She straddles the fence of sports and sex rather gracefully and has her finger on the pulse of her audience and fan base.
"THERE IS GOING TO BE A LOT OF PEOPLE IN THE BUSINESS THAT ARE VERY, VERY UNHAPPY WITH ME BECAUSE I'M PUTTING SOME TRUTHS OUT THERE."
"I think also it's a great time for people to understand that we live in a very openly sexual world," Ann asserted. "I think we learned that when Ashley Madison got hacked. That showed us how many people are out there living their own secret fantasy lives. I am yet judged in a sense that it's criminal to some people, when I'm not living a secret fantasy life. I've put what I've done out there. I've experimented and did things. Looking back now it's even cooler to me than when I was in it. Because I look back and I go, ‘whoa, I can't believe you did all that and you had no support, you had nobody that ....' Other than my friends, I didn't have people telling me I was doing the right thing. When I see people judging, I wonder to myself, ‘well what is it that you are hiding or what is it that you are jealous of?' because what I did was a choice. You had the choice to click the box and say you are 18 and you want to watch this or you had the choice not to. It's like fantasy sports, it's your choice to play."
Ann splits time between her condo in Los Angeles and apartment in New York City, and always has several pots on the kettle. Between hosting her show on SiriusXM, her website TheLisaAnn.com, repping her signature line of custom-made replicas featuring her anatomy for sex toy company "Fleshlight," hosting the "Paid or Pain" comedy shows in NYC, or connecting with fans via social media, her hours are usually filled up. Most recently she has been featured on FOX Sports Live and ABC "Nightline" because of the uniqueness of her story and subsequent transition into the sports realm. Things are going quite well and she is truly enjoying her new-found career, and is, of course, extremely proud to share her one-of-a-kind story to the world in her book "The Life."
"I'm really proud of it," she says. "I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm anxious. There is going to be a lot of people in the business that are very, very unhappy with me because I'm putting some truths out there. But, what I'm hoping is, every young girl that reaches out to me on social media that wants to get into the business, which is a very common thing nowadays, I just hope that this gives them another objective and it gives them a little bit more of things to look for; things that you don't want someone to tell you; things that if an agent tells you ‘this' it's a red flag."
She fully expects some blowback and to have plenty of shade thrown in her direction in regard to the book, which she has already experienced since retiring from the adult-film industry. To put it simply: Haters are gonna hate, as the saying goes. Ann has thick thin and doesn't let much bother her, saying, "Not at all because I've dealt with the worst and now I deal with a little bit."
Actors and actresses who have left their porn careers often end up returning for financial reasons when their second career doesn't succeed. So there were many that failed to wish Ann well, and instead passed along snide remarks assuming the same would happen to her.
"I felt that when I retired," she recalled. "When I retired all my regular friends knew. I didn't tell anyone in the business until I announced my retirement and I got maybe two congratulations texts out of the thousands of people I knew, and the rest were not pleasant. Common texts I got where, 'save my number for when you are broke and out of money I know you will need it.' I was just like, 'Okay, we will never need to talk again. That was not a polite thing to say. You would've been better off not saying anything at all.'"
But, many people can't help themselves. Jealously makes it hard for them to truly be happy for someone else, when they are unhappy at their place in life. "It's sad. It's so sad," Ann lamented. "It shouldn't be like that."
"WHEN I SEE PEOPLE JUDGING, I WONDER TO MYSELF, 'WELL WHAT IS IT THAT YOUR ARE HIDING OR WHAT IS IT THAT YOU ARE JEALOUS OF?' BECAUSE WHAT I DID WAS A CHOICE. YOU HAD THE CHOICE TO CLICK THE BOX AND SAY YOU ARE 18 AND YOU WANT TO WATCH THIS OR YOU HAD THE CHOICE NOT TO."
She expressed her feelings further on this point by making reference to the days of her youth and how her small Pennsylvania town united to root for one of their own sports heroes, "The Easton Assassin," former Heavyweight boxing champion Larry Holmes.
"I remember growing up in eastern Pennsylvania and all we had was Larry Holmes," Ann recalled. "And when Larry Holmes would come home from a fight, everybody waited on the street to see Larry Holmes drive back through the city and it was like, everybody there was so proud of him. There was not one person that would've said something. And the world we live in now is so different.
"I was hoping that one day we would get back to basics with the Ashley Madison hack, the Charlie Sheen thing. Maybe we should all try to live more stable lives. It sounds strange coming from me, a previous porn star. I did quit by choice. I wasn't dating or lying to anyone. I wasn't cheating. I was always safe with my body. And so, I can say that. And I can say this might be the time where everybody softens up a little bit and realizes what you put out negative will come back to you negative. Life attracts life. It's magnetic. It's like 'The Secret.' People put that out there it's going to come back, they just don't know when."
As for the naysayers and personal attackers on social media, Ann said it took her, "a long time to get over Twitter and understand it," but now she makes deleting and blocking on her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts a daily ritual while she drinks her morning coffee.
"When everyone goes through it for their first time it breaks my heart, because I know it does hurt your feelings in the beginning," she said. "I've learned to just do it, get it over with and be done with it. But, before there were days where I just didn't want to look at it all because if you are a sensitive girl and you look at it, it could be the next thing that could make you cry.
"I REMEMBER GROWING UP IN EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA AND ALL WE HAD WAS LARRY HOLMES."
"And when I hear people say nasty things, I always think to myself, 'This person has to be unhappy already. I don't have to wish them unhappiness in return for the unhappiness they are wishing on me because clearly they are unhappy.' Because when you are happy you don't have time to go on Twitter and say mean things to people. You don't."
Any chance see ever gets bothered by keyboard insulters nowadays? "Not at all," she says. "Because I've dealt with the worst and now I just deal with a little bit."
If you've ever read some of the comments on her Instagram or Facebook, you'd see a potpourri of some of the most crude, lewd and offensive comments getting thrown in her direction. However, no matter how cringeworthy, there are some that she can't help by crack up in laughter at.
She shared one instance.
"I posted a Christmas ornament on Instagram and my grandfather made it for me in 1986 and it has the little inscription for him and my grandmother and someone wrote a horrible comment under that," said Ann, describing the post, "and I had to laugh because I don't know if you know but Aziz Ansari has a new show on Netflix and it's very funny. If you get a chance to watch it with your girlfriend it's a cute little couple's show. I started watching it and he was dating this girl and they posted the same thing on their Instagram and she got all these nasty comments. And it was so great that he addressed that because I never realized that it happens to regular girls too not just porn girls so it made me feel even better by Aziz addressing it on his show. I was like, 'oh, just because you are a girl you get those comments? OK, cool, good to know," she laughed.
With a burgeoning second career off and running, a new book on the shelf and interviews with main-stream outlets, and TV appearances, Ann has humanized the porn star and given the industry a voice it has never had. Most importantly, she is showing others that it is possible to succeed outside of that world if you so choose to do so.
"Well until I retired, and before I retired, these thoughts were in my mind because I had an agency and I was watching the girls and I was seeing the history of the industry and the industry has an incredibly large suicide rate," Ann said, revealing some of the darker side of the porn business.
Some actresses seek to get out, but many get into financial trouble with taxes, which leads to them staying in for the wrong reasons and "they don't know where to go and years go by," Ann explained.
"There is a lot of negative factors that they stay and it makes it harder to get out," she continued. "Then try to leave the business and they get another job and then they try to get back in. It becomes a vicious cycle and as I watched it I thought, ‘has there been anyone that has been a decent spokesperson?' All these girls are going to need to get jobs. All these guys are going to need to get jobs and there's a ton of things they can do with their brand name. If they had a huge following sure they can transition that following into something, whether it be marketing for clubs or whatever it may be, there has to be a ton of opportunities. Somebody has to show them that it's possible."
That someone is her.
"I became a unique scenario because I was fortunate enough to never fall into any lifestyle that required drugs or alcoholism," she stated proudly. "I didn't fall into any of these things that are very common in the business. I got out of the business. I straightened my money situation to take care of my life and my things. I'm not an addict in any way shape or form. I have no criminal record. I am the ideal case to walk away and make a stab at it and try some new things. And I want to show the girls now, where it's like, ‘Well, how did she get there?' Well, one of the things that she did do was she made sure the entire time she was in the business, she never fell into the traps of the lifestyle.'
"When I see the girls drinking when they are dancing I say to them, ‘Listen, most people don't drink or do drugs when they are working. If you start doing this now and you work 70 percent of your life, you are going to become a drug addict or an alcoholic. It's not your fault. It's just going to happen.' And so I was able to be aware at a young age and say, "This isn't going to be productive, so I'm not going to do that.' And hopefully I can make a path for the newer girls getting in and go, ‘the only way to establish a good career after is to establish a good lifestyle during and not fall into things that could potentially hurt you in the long run.'"
All the years of experience leak through her words with every sentence. It's apparent she has seen plenty of highs and lows in her life since her first days as a stripper when she was only 16 and is more than ready to bare her soul to the world with every page. "Well, I hope 'The Life' is formative and entertaining," she says with excitement. Ann didn't become successful by accident. She knows exactly what it takes to make it, what it means to leave one career behind and start another one, and has seen plenty of careers derail along the way.
The book includes, "a lot of fun, quick, little stories," she said. Like how she left the porn industry once and owned and operated a day spa for several years, as well as being married once upon a time. Both topics are discussed at length in "The Life," which also includes never before seen photos, fliers from the various clubs she's performed at, and other personal items she's amassed throughout the years. Mementos the self-described "pack rat" kept stowed away in boxes like a time capsule of sorts until the final stages of crafting her book, where she rediscovered all of it.
"I found everything down to my very first boyfriend ever's school ID from 1986," she laughed. "And it was so fun to pick photos where I had big hair because it was the 80s and I brought my own camera on the set of, ‘Who's Naylin Paylin' and I got some really cool BTS shots of Nina Hartley and everyone reading their scripts and laughing.
The porn star turned fantasy sports guru has made the most out of her opportunities and exhausted all her efforts into making her second career a reality, which is something that is never taken for granted and something that is truly cherished. She is proud of her roots, and with the first year of retirement out of the way, has a firm grasp in her new career. She has set succeeded in what she set out to do.
"My webmaster said to me the other day, 'Lisa you made yourself PG-13 in less than a year,'" she said. "I don't know how you did it, but the entire world is looking at you the way you want them to look at you.' I said, ‘well, I did the right thing. The day after I retired I got my boobs reduced. They served their purpose when I was a performer, but now I went with the actual frame of my body and I've also changed my wardrobe a lot and I toned down my look and how I present myself and the things I do. I don't go out at night. I'm not a night club girl. I've transitioned and I've actually made some fair exchanges. So, you have to make the changes to adapt to your new life so it's real."
The transition is complete. The book is released. The past is embraced. The present is accepted.
New fantasies lie ahead.