At the moment, Belladonna is one of the most popular stars in porn. She's black-haired in most of her films, with thick, puffy lips, and a distinctive gap between her front teeth. Her body is covered with tattoos and piercings, the most notable of which is
an enormous Sacred Heart tattoo that covers most of her left breast. To date, she's appeared in over 200 films and countless pictorials.
She's racked up award after award: at the 2003 AVN convention, she won
Best Supporting Actress, Best Tease Performance, and Best Sex Scene.
Elegant Angel has given her the prestigious title of Buttwoman. Her
reviews consistently rate her as the best star in the business: She's
"one dirty girl," one fan said, who
"rocks with an intensity and personality that no one else can match." At
adult-video conferences, her fans surround her, begging for an
autograph, a feel, or a quickie in the closet--whatever she's
willing to give. She's an incredible success, a woman at the very top of
her field.
Her real name is Michelle. Ethnically, she's German, Scottish,
and Cherokee Indian. She's the daughter of a man who's a Mormon
bishop and Air Force captain. When
she was 18, she left her home in Utah and went to Los Angeles to look
for work as a nude model. The hard truth, though, is that Michelle
isn't beautiful, and, like so many LA girls with dashed hopes and empty
wallets, she descended into the world of smut. She chose the name
"Belladonna" because someone told her it meant "beautiful woman"; she
didn't know that it was also a poison. "I always hated porn,"
Michelle reflected in an interview with ABC News's Primetime. "I
thought it was the most disgusting thing in the world."
"I have always been really sexual and an exhibitionist," Belladona
says. "I was literally humping my girlfriends at five
years old."
Michelle's first sex scene was supposed to be a straight boy-girl shoot
with Chris Cannon, but when she showed up on the set, the director asked
her to do an anal scene. The request shocked her, because Michelle had
never really thought about anal sex before. But she gave in, worrying
that if she refused, no one in the business would hire her again. She did
it, and after it was over, she felt devastated. "I wasn't ready for anal
sex," she remembers. "It was painful. But I can hide it really
well."
"I hadn't had sex for a couple of months so I was really horny,"
Belladonna says, grinning widely. "I wasn't nervous at all." As for the
anal, she says "it was really nice. I loved it."
Michelle's career started off fairly slowly. In fact, she briefly quit
the business after she was cast in a brutal 12-person gangbang scene in
which she was penetrated in every imaginable way. She took the $4000 she
made and fled to her home in Utah. Nine months later, though, she
returned to the business, tempted by signs that her career had begun to
take off. A successful porn star, you see, can choose her partners,
insist on condoms, and design her own scenes. (They can also
make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.) She won a small part in
a movie produced by one of the major studios, and began to feel at home.
"The first second I walk in," Michelle says, "this girl grabs my breast,
and I'm like, 'Wow,' that's like the best welcome...someone likes me, you
know?" Porn veterans, however, had their doubts; Ona Zee, the owner of
one video company, told Michelle that "there's a part of me that wants to
say to you, 'Run for the hills, girl, do something else, because you can
be something better.'"
Michelle didn't get a big role, but she also didn't run. Instead, she
fell in love with Nacho Vidal, a porn star she met on set of a film shot
in Prague. "The day we met, he said, 'You're going to be the mother of
my children. I love you,'" Michelle remembers. "You know what I mean? I
never had that before. I never had a
guy be so in love with me."
Belladonna and Vidal set out to shoot a sex scene for Buttwoman
iz Bella. In the midst of the scene, Vidal begins slapping her in
the face, cursing at her, and choking her. She
makes it through, wipes her eyes, and sits down. "I took a beating today,
and it was great," she says, trying to smile.
With the success of the Buttwoman films, Michelle's standing in the
business skyrocketed. She ditched Vidal ("there is no Nacho...ever, EVER
again!" she said). But it's still tough: "I've had to have sex with guys
who just stink like mother-fuckers," she says. "I never want to say
anything....I figure that next time they'd shower before their scene, but that never happens."
Belladonna's now known best for her enthusiasm for anal sex. She
says that she always enjoys her scenes. "I have two different ways of
getting off," she says with a lecherous smirk. One involves
knowing that people are watching her. The other involves
challenging herself. "I like to try everything I can in this business,"
she says. That's how she ended up doing the double-anal scenes that are
now her trademark.
"Someone asked me to do it one day in a scene," Michelle says, "and I
had never done it before so I couldn't say no, you know?"
Though she pretends to enjoy the sex, she says in the Primetime interview
that "my whole entire body feels it when I'm doing it and ... I feel so
gross." She tries to compensate by imagining herself outside her body, dissociating herself from
what's happening to her. In her mind, she recites the same mantra over and over again: "Hey, I only have this much time left. Don't worry about
it. Get the check. Gonna go deposit it in your bank." Why does she put
up with it? "You get addicted to the money," she says.
One interviewer asked her why she smiled all the time. She started to
cry. "Because I like to hide--hide everything, you know?" she sobbed.
"And I'm not happy...I don't like myself at all."
"I am not happy about Primetime," says Belladonna, "but I would
love to see the whole story air one day so everyone can see how much I had
to say that was FOR the porn industry. If you know me you know that I
LOVED shooting!"
Would Michelle recommend this career to anyone? "Well, I would...if
they have done everything else they want to do in life." What about her
future? "After three years it's almost like, 'Can my body handle this?' I
have to prepare a lot for my anal scenes and I think my body is just
getting a little tired." In fact, there are rumors that she won't last
another year.
Belladonna now has a contract with Sineplex to produce and direct
her own movies. "This new contract is almost unbelievable! I even get dental and health insurance!" Flush with success,
she has a message to all of her fans: "Thank you for enjoying my body for
all this time!"
"I think that the female has the decision of the way she
wants to be treated in this business," Belladonna says. "I mean, you can
make people treat you exactly how you want to be treated because you are
your own boss, and your own representation. I personally don't think
people get treated badly, because I know a lot of people in this
business...and I never hear about anything like that."
Basic stats:
- Measurements: 34C (natural)-24-34
- Height: 5'4" (162 cm)
- Weight: 127 lbs (57 kg)
- Birthdate: 5/21/81
- Birthplace: Biloxi, Mississippi
Sources:
http://www.rogreviews.com/interviews/Belladonna.asp
http://www.rogreviews.com/interviews/Belladonna2.asp
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/DailyNews/porn_love_030123.html
http://www.leecarverphotography.com/belladonna.htm
http://www.burningangel.com/new/interviews/02/07/belladonna.php
The comments attributed to "Michelle" generally came from the PrimeTime interview, except for a few moments in the porn site interviews where her Belladonna persona seemed to slip a bit.
The comments attributed to "Belladonna" come from the porn site interviews, except for a few moments in the PrimeTime show where she was interviewed on set and was clearly trying to adopt the Belladonna persona.