I have interviewed lots of people who do some kind of work in the adult entertainment industry, from webcamming to stripping to being a porn performer. While doing this, I’ve looked up how much people can make not just for research purposes, but also because I have considered getting into the business.
Don’t get excited, though, ladies and fellas. Yeah, I know showing off my killer sex skills, and epic engorged stick would be a gift to the world. But I’m going to stick to commenting on the adult industry only – at least for now.
Anyway, I have a pretty good idea of what people make, and it depends on a few factors. First, gays porn stars, whose earnings range between $500 to $1,500 per scene, make more than straight guys who might only get a few hundred dollars for a movie.
Like you would guess, women nearly always make more than that and can get up to $2,500 for a scene. If they rise to the level of being a true pornstar like Jesse Jane and Traci Lords, they might make more than double that.
With that kind of paycheck coupled with dozens of adult movies made year after year, this can raise a performer’s net worth into the multi-millionaire range.
Ever wondered who some of those people are? Here they are — the world’s richest porn stars.
Jenna Haze
Net worth: $3.7 million
Jenna Haze started her career in the adult business in 2001 and managed to build up her name recognition and net worth in just a few short years. First, she only did lesbian scenes with other upstart performers. However, she later did videos with super famous adult entertainers of both sexes like Tera Patrick and Johnny Sins.
Typically porn stars don’t just do work in front of the camera, certainly not the richest of them anyway. After eight years of performing with men and women, Jenna Haze started her own production company called Jennaration X Studios and made even more money.
Sadly, she left the adult industry in 2011, but you can see a massive archive of the best work on her website JennaHaze.com.
Katie Morgan
Net worth: $5 million
Honestly, I had a hard time tracking down exactly what Ms. Katie Morgan’s exact net worth is. I checked a few different celebrity and adult entertainment sites, and most of them say that she is probably closer to 5 million as of last year.
That is not much compared to other adult performers on this list. Still, when you consider the fact that she wasn’t even a millionaire at the beginning of 2018, at the rate she’s going, she might soon be the richest porn professional ever.
Ron Jeremy
Net worth: $6 million
Who says that guys can’t become big-name porn stars. It certainly helps when you’re packing what Jeremy has in his pants.
He has worked with some of the biggest female adult performers like Bree Olson and Katie Morgan. What a lucky fucker? Having the chance to film or film with girls like that would almost make it worth it for me to show off my boy bits on camera.
I’m sure most of you guys knew that he’d done it with other porn stars, but perhaps what he’s best know for running his sex club, Club Sesso, and defending the erotica industry from prudes and censors.
Out of all of the richest porn performers I have researched, this porn star perhaps also done the most work in the mainstream. For example, he has voice acted in multiple video games and animated comedies as himself or a character. On top of that, he has appeared in interviews on everything from Red Eye on Fox News to Penn and Teller’s show Bullshit!.
Traci Lords
Net worth: $7 million
Traci Lords is undoubtedly an attractive woman and has a unique story compared even to other porn performers discussed here.
The reason is the legal shitstorm, which consumed her history of making fap films.
More than likely, you won’t be able to find her explicit performances outside of maybe the dark web. And I don’t recommend you try since she started her career in erotic entertainment using a fake ID before she was a legal adult.
In fact, she walked away from the industry just a couple of days after her 18th birthday. This did not prevent a massive investigation by the FBI, k*ddy smut charges being thrown out, and landing many people into a world of hurt.
However, if you want to see the beautiful Mrs. Traci Lords’ non-nudie work, she has appeared in several mainstream movies that you can look up on IMDb.
Maria Takagi
Net worth: $8 million
Most of the adult actors on this list are mostly white, and either nationally Americans or Canadians. However, Maria Takagi is the only one on here of pure Japanese ancestry. So, those of you who have a thing for girls from Land of the Rising Sun look her up after you finish reading this post.
Hell, even if you don’t have an Asian fetish, Takagi’s work is sure to get a rise out of you — if you get what I’m saying. 😉
Pro tip: if you are Googling around for her, besides Maria Takagi, she also goes by Rika Inoue and Yukiko Hara.
Jesse Jane
Net worth: $8 million
While originally from the US of A, Jesse Jane has made a name for herself and made money all over the world. For instance, she has done porn for several American studios, been featured as a Pet of the Month for Australian Penthouse, and has even appeared on Danish television.
If you have never heard of the indescribable Jesse Jane, she is perhaps best known for being the star of the full-length 2006 fap film Pirates.
Peter North
Net worth: $11 million
His legal name was Alden Joseph Brown, which he changed to Matt Ramsey when he got into gay porn in the ’80s. When he got tired of doing it with dudes, he rebranded himself as a straight guy and became Peter North in the nineties.
Funnily enough, he has said this stage name is a reference to his little Peter, his penis, which points to the north. That and he identifies as being from the high north of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
He has starred in an impressive 2,588 adult movies and produced plenty of porn behind the camera. In fact, his production company, Northpole Entertainment, got up and running in 2001 and has pumped out hundreds of films over the last couple of decades.
So it figures he is the second richest pornstar with a pecker on this list.
I would almost say that I am jealous of the guy and that I look up to him, were it not for the fact that in 2019 it came out that he is a woman abusing prick.
Tera Patrick
Net worth: $17 million
If you’ve read some of my other reviews, you probably know that Ms. Patrick is one of my favorite porn stars of all time. Clearly, I’m not alone since Tera Patrick has not only managed to net millions of greenbacks but also a ton of envious awards from the industry.
Some of her accolades include Best New Starlet from not one but three critical adult organizations, is an XRCO Hall of Famer, and has been awarded fan favorite three years in a row.
If you haven’t already somehow, check out her work immediately. It’ll all make sense as to how this starlet has become one of the most successful women who has marketed her sexuality. I would recommend starting with one of Tera Patrick’s last titles: Barbarella XXX.
Jenna Jameson
Net worth: $30 million
When it comes to ways of making money using your body, Jenna Jameson has nearly done it. Her early work included some pretty chic glamor modeling and a good amount of sensual stripping. Unlike some nude performers who take a while to make serious money, Jameson was getting $2,000 a night after half a year of working in the Vegas strip club scene.
And that was back in 1991 – that’s close to $3,800 in today’s money.
This experience as a sex worker grabbed the attention of Penthouse, which she posed for. It also made it easier to get a ton of jobs making adult movies starting in the mid-1990s. Unlike some other porn stars who are a bit more niche, Jameson did it all as an adult entertainer.
By that, I mean that she did soft- and hardcore scenes with men and women having all of her holes filled. Just like her career as a stripper, Jameson exploded as a fap filmstar, won a ton of awards in a few years, and started earning $60,000 a day.
Throughout the late 20th century, her net worth skyrocketed, her brand got even bigger, which led to even more opportunities to make money come the new millennium.
For instance, she has promoted sex toys based on her anatomy, she’s been featured as a character in a sex video game, and started her own fan club ClubJenna. Further, she has been a TV personality, worked as a writer, overcome addiction, and despite being in her 40s, now working as a webcam model.
With this jaw-dropping pedigree, Jenna Jameson clearly has earned her title as “The Queen of Porn” and her spot as the richest female porn performer of all time.
Rocco Siffredi
Net worth: $275 million
Obviously, the industry is biased in favor of women when it comes to getting fame and fortune. But there is an exception to every rule as the life and career of Rocco Siffredi prove.
He was discovered by a trio of pornographers in a French sex club in ’85, which landed him a few jobs in the fap movie business. This led him eventually to working with mentor and porn pioneer John Stagliano.
After working in the porn industry for a few years, he went from porn star to fashion model. Unlike most people who leave the porn industry, he returned in a few years and became even more successful. In 2004 he mused about getting out of the business again because of his family. But ultimately, he ended up returning again and stayed for several more years while trying to find a male prodigy to carry on his legacy.
Being an exception in every part of his life, Siffredi is a Baby Boomer porn star who is still happily married to the same woman for 27-years. She is the main reason he has left the industry permanently. That may disappoint a lot of people, but when you’re the richest porn star in history, what more can you do?
ThePornDude’s final words
These are just the current highest money-making smut stars, but I’m sure that there are more to come. If you want to see a list of other performers, many of whom are still making movies and are likely to make buku bucks check out my list of the top 50 popular performers here.
