The porn star who found Jesus

Wealth, glamor and pleasure. This is the picture the porn advocates paint. But for Brittni De La Mora, or Jenna Presley, who for seven years was her alter ego as one of the porn industry’s biggest stars, life looked completely different. Of course she earned well, but when the soul ached, drugs also came into the picture. Only when she found Jesus did she get her life in order. Today she works as a pastor and wants to help others who sit in a similar seat she sat in to find a way out of the porn swamp.

The year is 2002 and a fifteen-year-old Brittni Ruiz, whom she named as unmarried, travels with some friends to Tijuana in Mexico. After a wet night, they end up in a strip club. Brittni, who during her upbringing suffered from a lack of love and confirmation, takes that recruitment that night as a topless dancer, a job she then continues with for two years at a club in her hometown San Diego.
– I had a tough upbringing. I was constantly depressed and was never confirmed. By constantly being told that I was not good enough and that life would be better without me, I was filled with uncertainty. This led me to start making decisions based on my uncertainty, says Brittni as an explanation for why a seemingly ordinary and well-behaved girl ended up in an industry few have the goal of ending up in.
Brittni had no interest in porn. She stripped for the money. But when she was 18, some producers from the porn industry caught her eye when they saw her dancing.

First porn scene

They asked if she would be interested in filming romantic movies and promised to make her a star. She had an idea what it was all about, but agreed to a meeting. To her surprise, she went to the men’s meeting and agreed to record her first porn scene.
– Because I did not love myself and did not know how valuable I was, I went from stripping to porn. The money was a big part of it, but also the confirmation and the attention, Brittni says.
The first time as a porn star describes Brittni as an intoxicant. She got a kick out of it and found it exciting. Then the anxiety and depression she had previously struggled with came back.

“Enjoyable for the moment”

– Sin is enjoyable for a moment. You try to fill a void that is in your heart, but it only works for a while. I quickly started to feel very broken and already after a year I wanted to leave the industry because I hated my life, says Brittni, who soon became aware that leaving was not an easy thing.
Who would even want to hire a former porn star, she asked herself. She therefore remained for another six years.
Early in his career, drugs also came into the picture. Before the recordings, marijuana cakes were served, as it was common knowledge that it was easier to record the sex scenes loudly. For Brittni, it soon became heavier drugs.
A director came and said that she was fat and needed to lose weight, even though she only weighed 50 kilos. She then started using cocaine to lose weight, later she also came to use both ecstasy and crystal meth.
– I also realized that it was not as stressful for the soul to record my scenes if I was tall. My depression and depression also gave way when I was high, but the drugs gave a false sense of joy. There was nothing real or lasting about it.

The top name in the porn industry

Purely financially, Brittni earned well during her time in the industry. When she was one of the top names in the porn industry, her name was valued at $ 3.4 million and per scene she recorded, she received $ 1,500. That gave $ 30,000 a month. But because of the drugs, she was still constantly broke.
– When I left the industry, it was not with many dollars. I was addicted to drugs and my addiction was expensive, so most of what I earned went to satisfy my drug cravings. It is very common in the industry.
In recent months, five female porn stars have died. Someone after taking an overdose and others by suicide. A common scenario in the industry and a resort that Brittni herself tried to take on several occasions.

“No hope for the future”

– Since I had no hope for the future, I felt that ending my life would be a good thing. Sometimes I could divert my thoughts by cutting myself and at one point I went and tattooed myself to numb my pain.
After three years in the porn industry, Brittni tried to break out. She accompanied her grandfather to church and accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior and began drug addiction. But when men were her weakness, she soon met new guys to date. Guys who pulled her in the wrong direction and she fell back into the porn industry for another three dark years.
In connection with the experience of salvation, Brittni gained an understanding of who God was and experienced that she began to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. Three years later, she felt a desperate need to get out of the porn industry. She would fly to Las Vegas to record some scenes.

The woman Jezebel

Then she heard the voice asking her to take the Bible on the flight. On board came the eyes of Revelation 2: 20-21 where it says, “But I have this against you, that you let the woman Jezebel be kept, who calls herself a prophet and teaches and deceives my servants to commit fornication and eat sacrificial meat. I gave her time to turn around, but she does not want to turn around from her fornication. “
– I started to cry and felt that I was that woman. The next day I went to the director and said that after this day I will stop. After that, I never looked back.

Always Loved

Today, Brittni works with her husband as a pastor. In addition, she runs the organization Always Loved, which helps women find a way out of the porn industry. As long as her testimony can help other people out in freedom, she feels it is worth continuing to tell. She is therefore now also writing a book about her life.

Rickard Bransell

With permission from the magazine  Inblick.

INBLICK  is the news magazine that describes the surroundings from the little person’s perspective. With weight in Christian opinion issues and a clear stance for “these my little ones”, news reporting with a social focus is conveyed. In each week’s newspaper, there are also several wonderful reports about  what Jesus does in ordinary people’s everyday lives.  Coming out on Thursdays. Contains detailed TV appendix from  Kanal 10  and Kanal 10 Norway.