Porn star reveals the one thing she’d change about career

Angela White has been in the porn industry since she turned 18 but it wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. She’d been planning the move for four years.

An Australian porn star who is one of the most celebrated women in the industry has revealed one thing she wished she took a little more time to do when joining.

Angela White has been in the porn industry since she turned 18 but it wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. In fact, she had been thinking about it – and doing her research – since she was just 14.

“When I developed, I was highly sexual and excited to explore my sexuality,” Angela told news.com.au.

“But I did so in an environment [where I was] sl*t shamed for expressing and exploring my sexuality – no matter how I did it. If I slept with men I was a sl*t, and if I slept with women I was a lesbian, which I was labelled in a derogatory way. I felt very ostracised for something that was core to who I am.”

Angela White is one of the most successful women in porn. Picture: Instagram/@theangelawhite

Pornography was the first place where she saw women like her celebrated, and one of the first places she saw women with bodies like her own being seen as sexy. Up until then, she had only ever seen men being celebrated for being open sexually.

“This was back before plus size modelling was really a thing. Back then, if there was a curvy woman on television she was the butt of every joke. It was like seeing my body in a magazine surrounded by glitz and glamour,” she said.

“It was so cool to be able to see that, and be like ‘wow I can accept by body for how it is and explore my sexuality’.”

White had four years from this moment to think about whether joining the industry was something she really wanted to do, what companies were ethical and what the rules were.

She joined the industry at 18 but said if she could have some of the conversations with her loved ones over again, she would change some things.

“If I had to do it all over again, I would do [the conversations with my loved ones] differently,” White revealed.

She wanted to join the industry since she was 14. Picture: Thom Kerr

“I think I was just excited and so adamant that this is what I wanted to do with my life that I just told people it’s what I was doing. There was no moment for comments, questions or concerns.”

She said she wished she’d taken more time to explain to her loved ones how much research she’d done and how she’d considered all the implications, particularly for her mum.

White revealed her mum was worried because there was less resources to know what the industry was like as there wasn’t podcasts and social media wasn’t huge, but she’d had done all the research that was available to her.

Since those conversations, White has cemented herself as one of the most well known women in pornography.

She recently won five AVN Awards, the Oscars of the industry, taking her to being the most awarded female performer ever at 69 wins.

She says she owes her success to her passion, saying her attempt to create a genuine connection with everyone in a scene resonates through to viewers and keeps her fans going.

She says she wishes she could redo the conversation with her mum. Picture: Thom Kerr

She isn’t wrong when she says her connections with fellow performers are genuine — in fact, she says, it was her “ultimate goal”.

“I think being able to be vulnerable helps my fans connect with me as well because I become more relatable,” she said.

White also has a large presence on adult subscription service OnlyFans, which allows fans to make direct requests to her. She said there is no such thing as a rogue request and she considers everything “normal”.

“Like fans will come up to me at conventions and offer to massage my feet, for example, and I actually love that because I’ve been on my feet in heels all day,” she said.

She said a common request she gets is “wholesome” — subscribers sometimes just want her to say their name.

“It all comes back to that genuine connection,” she said, adding she loves her fans as they are “amazing, generous, sweet and loyal”.

“They give me so much energy and positive feedback.”

Angela says she owes her success to her relatability. Picture: Instagram/@theangelawhite

However, White revealed there was a new fan base growing on her account – women.

“People think that women don’t like porn but it’s because there hasn’t been a product that they value enough to pay for it.

“I create specific content for women on my OnlyFans and they pay for it. And women are my biggest tippers,” she said.

“I think women are looking for a diverse range of things just like men are.”

In 2010, White completed an honours degree in gender studies, with her thesis following six female porn stars and the dichotomy that women in porn are either seen as victims or empowered.

In the 14 years since, she says the conversation is similar.

“It’s always black or white — you’re the hapless victim, or you’re an empowered freedom fighter. And it’s just like, the world isn’t like that. It’s a spectrum,” she said.

“There are people like me where this is the perfect job for me. I feel empowered when I do it. I’m creating a career doing something that I love. And then there are people that are just in the industry because you know they have a debt and they will pay that off.”

She did say that she feels it is shifting more towards empowerment, particularly thanks with OnlyFans allowing people to be directors and producers as well as performers.