Part two of my hour-long interview with Belladonna.

For those who don’t know her work, Belladonna, 21 years old at the time of this interview (fall 2002), has worked in porn since the age of 18. Apart from a short hiatus in 2004 when she got pregnant and eventually birthed a li’l baby girl (Myla), she seems to have worked more or less constantly in the industry, becoming a director in 2002 and beginning her own company, Belladonna Entertainment, in 2005. Like Nina Hartley, she’s a lifer, and our porn-lives are vastly enriched for her participation.

This is an interesting clip from Wikipedia, commenting on Bella’s Primetime Live interview in 2002 (the footage was taken before she did the interview with me, but aired AFTER she and did our interview, which is significant.)

Her career in the pornography business was followed for two years by a crew from ABC Television, culminating in a January 2003 interview with Diane Sawyer as part of a Primetime Thursday segment on pornography.^[8] At one point in the interview Belladonna broke down in tears.^[8] Following its broadcast Belladonna condemned what she described as unfair treatment by Sawyer and the ABC staffers, saying the segment had portrayed her as a victim and that the interview was edited^[11] to convey the misleading impression that she had been forced to perform against her will. One topic discussed in the interview was the fact that she had contracted the STD chlamydia.^[12] The publicity provided by the interview boosted Belladonna’s career.^[8]

The interview has since been used by a number of anti-pornography groups to support their case that pornography is exploitative of the women who appear in it; nevertheless, Sinclair remains an active performer in the industry. In later interviews, Sinclair claimed that she had never intended to make “anti-porn” statements, and that Primetime had deliberately taken many of her statements out of context to give the segment a negative slant.^[2] In one interview, when she was asked if she was happy how the interview came out, her reply was:

“

I am not happy about Primetime 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![2]

”

ABC contacted her once to do a follow-up to the interview; she refused saying, “No thank you. I don’t want to be embarrassed again.”^[7]

Here’s Bella’s interview on Primetime Live:

and part two:

Stark contrast between the two interviews, huh? If you watch Bella and take note of how she is when I spoke to her, you can see that she’s a happy, smart woman in control of her life. I don’t doubt that porn is exploitative and dangerous in some ways. But Diane Sawyer is just a lying pig.