LOS ANGELES—Let’s play “two truths and a lie” with Adam Snow: His first language was French. He had a pet squirrel. He flies planes.
Sorry, that was a trick…all of those are true.
Let’s try again: He swims with sharks. He had a pet baby turkey. He spins fire.
Again, all true.
In fact, the story of the performer is so unique, it sounds like a piece of fiction written for a larger-than-life screenplay about a world-traveling adventurer with a heart of gold.
“I live my life with no fear, and that has always been the case,” Snow proudly says. “I went skydiving once and I scared the instructor. He asked me, ‘Do you have any last words just in case we don’t make it?’ And I said, ‘Nope, I’m good to go. I’ve lived a full life.’ And he replied, ‘Oh…nobody’s ever said that before. Are you sure you’re okay to go?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, we’re good…let’s go!’”
Buckle up, folks...
A Real-Life Tarzan
How’s this for a unique list of childhood homes: North Dakota, Tucson, Belgium, Paris, Tennessee.
“I was in a military family—I was born in North Dakota, and my sister was born in Montana. Up until I was starting preschool, I was doing a lot of traveling. And my first language was actually French because we were living there when I learned how to speak. I would stand on the front porch and yell ‘Bonjour!’ to people as they walked by,” Snow laughs. “My dad had a camcorder, so I’ve seen video of me as a toddler running around.”
But as far as Snow can remember, home was northeast Tennessee, right on the border with southwest Virginia. He grew up in the woods around the Appalachian Trail and Smoky Mountains. As such, he quickly felt a connection with nature.
“I was always outdoors. Before my (performer) name was Adam Snow, it used to be TarzanTopXXL—and it was because Tarzan was my nickname growing up because I was always up in the trees somewhere. My mom always knew where to look for me. And I used to make club houses up there with my cousins. I have hundreds of cousins—true Tennessee, not much to do around there except fuck. And then I started learning how to make traps—I would catch my sister in them all the time. I used to get in trouble for it.”
But amid all those adventures were some mishaps.
“The only time I really scared my dad—and I remember this because it scared me—was the first time I ever fell out of a tree. I was in high school, and my parents had just bought this big farm place, it was like eight acres. I was up in the top of this tree down by the pond, and I remember grabbing ahold of a branch to lift myself up to go higher—and the branch broke. I fell from the top all the way down, and hit branches along the way. It knocked me out. I don’t remember how long I was laying there.
“As soon as I woke up, I walked back up to the house. My dad had a dog at the time, and the dog was going crazy—so my dad came through the door, and he said that I looked like a ghost. I was solid white. He rushed me to the emergency room because he didn’t know what had happened, and he was so scared. He was like, ‘I’ve never seen you so colorless.’”
And like Tarzan, Snow felt a kinship with animals. When he was in high school, he chased a squirrel out of a tree: “The squirrel jumped, and I jumped—and I caught it, so I had a pet squirrel for a while. I had another one around 2015. I was driving and saw this little baby squirrel on the road, so I stopped and went to go pick it up. Its underbelly was red from how hot it was on the concrete, so it was burning. So I took it home and nursed him back to health.”
Snow kept the critter for about seven months, allowing it to run around his house. He named him Rascal.
“My background is construction and design and architecture, so I built this whole squirrel clubhouse for him to run around in. The house I lived in had a tree that grew up through the deck, so I’d let him out and he’d run around this tree, and he would come back. I’d start letting him out more, and he would stay out longer—and he’d always come back. But eventually he never came back. So I assumed he found another little squirrel and started his own little squirrel life.”
Snow’s pet history includes more conventional animals like dogs, cats and horses…but also rabbits, a sugar glider, snakes and tarantulas.
“I’ve always had some crazy pets. I caught a wild baby turkey once, and we had it as a pet for a while when I was younger. The most unique pet we had was after my dad and I were driving down the river road and saw a dead deer—but it was kind of moving a little, so my dad stopped to see. He was going to put it out of its misery, but it wasn’t the deer—it was a baby deer curled up underneath it. So we took the little baby home and had a pet deer for a while. That was fun,” Snow laughs. “Have you ever seen a deer trying to walk in the kitchen?”
Coming Out…and Moving On
Snow’s sense of adventure also owes a lot to the military. But for all the fun he had growing up, he isn’t fond of all the memories from his formative years.
“It was very strict growing up. My dad was in the Air Force, and I eventually joined the Navy. Growing up, it was like living with a drill sergeant. Needless to say, we didn’t really get along very well,” Snow says.
“I learned to swim by him throwing me in the lake. It was like, ‘Figure it out.’ And I don’t have a fear of heights because of my dad literally pushing me off the cliffs into the water as my mom was yelling and screaming at the top of her lungs on the boat, ‘Don’t do this!’ And my dad just throws me off a cliff into the water. It was the same with wakeboarding and kneeboarding and skiing. I never really wanted to do those things as a kid. I was forced to do those things. I had to do those things. My dad would literally sit there with the boat running and me tied to the rope on the kneeboard, and he would not let me get out of the water until I got myself up on the board. I remember just yelling and screaming and crying. I was just a kid. Now I know how to do all those things…so I guess some good came out of it?”
At the same time, Snow had to come to terms with his sexuality—in surroundings and an environment that were not receptive to it.
“I always knew that I liked boys, I just didn’t know what the word ‘gay’ meant until around middle school or high school. When I was a kid, my dad would take me to go hang out with his friends, and they had kids my age—so I grew up playing with other boys. We would make forts out of boxes, and we’d be like playing with our dicks in there. Nothing ever happened; it was just kind of exploring as kids.”
In middle school, Snow took classes where he learned how to build computers—which opened a new world.
“Once we first got a computer, I was able to look up guys on the internet. I had this file folder of all these pictures of hot guys that I found online—and I think it was even on a floppy disc,” he laughs. “I just saved the photos. And I remember one time you could actually get this little ‘desktop dancer’ that was like a male stripper. He would strip in a little corner, and I thought that was the hottest thing. It was a family computer, but I built it—and they didn’t know how to work it anyway, so I didn’t really worry about getting caught.”
But when Snow came out, his life took off in a different direction—both literally and figuratively.
“I came out when I was 17, and my dad chased me out of the house with a shotgun. He was not having it. So I moved to Key West and in with my great uncle. He was a retired command sergeant major from the Army, a retired prison guard, and a retired postal worker. I was just leaning how to be openly gay, and that it was okay to be gay there, because my whole life I grew up in an area and a place and around people who forbid it. It was like, I could not even think of being gay—it was a sin. I was gonna go to hell, all this stuff. So when I was finally able to live that life and be free, it was a lot for a 17-year-old.”
But any plans Snow had for a fully free new life were quickly put on hold.
“My uncle had talked to my parents and been trying to coerce me to join the military, because my parents thought that that would ‘set me straight’—that they could throw me into the miliary and that would just beat the gay out of me. So my uncle eventually convinced me to join, and I joined the Navy when I was living in Key West. And four days after I turned 18, I shipped out to basic training in Great Lakes in Chicago. This was during ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ so I was thrown right back into this whole life that I tried to leave.”
Snow soon went to Airman Apprenticeship Training school in Pensacola, then got sent to Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach. He was then assigned to work the USS George Washington and the VFA 136 Knighthawks Squadron, then sent to Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom—when he spent time stationed in Bahrain, Dubai, Greece and Naples. His service came to an end in 2005.
“I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to do it anymore. And I had gotten in trouble for drinking and throwing parties on base, so I had a meeting with the captain and we both agreed that it wasn’t a place for me. I didn’t want to be there anymore, so he let me leave.”
Those experiences had two unexpected outcomes for Snow. First, it rid him of his accent: “Once I got into the Navy and started traveling more, I kinda lost it because I wasn’t really around people who spoke that way anymore. But occasionally, if I get drunk or if I’m around my family, it comes out. It is a very thick southern accent,” he laughs.
Second, it reignited a passion for travel that had eluded him since he was a kid.
“Up until I was a toddler, I had traveled all my life. And then after that, we weren’t able to as much because my parents weren’t loaded. But once I was in the miliary, it rebooted that in me. One of the reasons I travel so much is I love experiencing new cultures, and I love learning new things about places and people. And even though I don’t speak any other language but English now, I am still able to understand a lot of languages.
“I’ve also done some Habitat for Humanity work and their Global Village program. I’ve helped build two houses in Bali and Indonesia, and then I helped build a townhome in Macedonia. So I’ve done some really cool stuff—not just traveling for fun, but traveling to actually make a difference. Traveling is the one thing I always hope to do. Rehoboth Beach, Delaware is my home base now, but I’ve only been there about 26 days this whole year because there’s a lot going on.”
Snow counts Tahiti, Bora Bora, Bali and Dubai among his favorite destinations, with Australia atop his list of places to visit.
“I’m very much a beach boy—I love the sun,” he laughs. “I was just in Palm Springs—it was the first time I’d ever been there, and I’ve already got two trips planned to go back. I really like that desert heat.”
A New Family
Once out of the military, Snow moved back to Tennessee and worked at a chemical plant for several years, starting out in the field as a journeyman painter before moving up to foreman. He went to college and got his degree, then went back to work at the same company as a database administrator for three years—until he wrote programs that completely automated his entire job. “And then I got really bored. I needed something that was more stimulating than sitting at a computer all day.”
He was also doing personal training and painting houses on the side for extra money. That work increased when he left the plant, “and it just got so annoying trying to deal with contractors, so I decided to just do it myself. That’s pretty much where it all picked up.”
Snow moved to Maryland for a few months, living with a cousin who was a builder and had his own company. After working on a few projects there, he moved to Rehoboth and started his own business in 2016. Soon, his life took another turn.
“A lot of times when I had sex with anyone, they would always ask, ‘Have you done porn?’ I was like ‘no.’ They were like, ‘Well, you should.’ I grew up in the south, and it was kind of a thing that people looked down on, so I never really considered it as a viable option. And then in January of 2016, my husband passed away; he had committed suicide. So after that, I was like, I’m tired of always worrying about what everybody else thinks. I’m just going to start doing what I want to do, and I’m not going to care anymore because I’m not going to try and please anyone.”
So without having anywhere to post them, Snow started filming his sexual encounters. “Anytime I would hook up with somebody, I was like, ‘I’m gonna eventually go into porn, so would you want to record this?’ And to my surprise, a lot of people wanted to record it.”
Then in 2019, he started his OnlyFans (as TarzanTopXXL) and uploaded almost 1,000 videos (half of which he has since deleted to comply with the platform’s changing rules). He started his subscription price at $50 a month (“I didn’t really want everybody to be able to see everything; I thought I would just do it for people who had a lot of extra income who really wanted to see it”)—until Rocco Steele convinced him to lower it. “Then I did a video with him—he and I DP-ed someone. After that, things really kind of took off.”
Snow then dipped his feet into studio work, including a group scene for RawFuckClub (“at the time, I didn’t really know that was a studio thing; it was a group thing in a hotel room in Chicago, and I later found out it was a legit studio”) and two scenes for Raging Stallion’s Scrum: Balls to the Wall. Both projects earned him 2023 GayVN Award nominations,
“It’s been fun. I didn’t know anything about the awards last year until I heard I was nominated, so that’s when I started paying attention. I was like, ‘Oh, I can actually do this?!’ So I would like to try to win some awards, now that I know it’s a thing. It’s like motivation to try to do more and be better, and I take constructive criticism. I want to excel.”
Then while in Mykonos, the soon-to-be renamed Adam Snow was messaged by a scout from Carnal Media. He promptly met Legrand Wolf and filmed a scene for the studio—which offered him an exclusive contract the next day.
“I was like, you know what, why not? It felt like a family. Everybody’s super chill, and everybody gets along very well. We all hang out together—even now when we’re not shooting, we meet up and hang out and go do stuff. I was even just in Vegas at another exclusive’s place,” Snow shares, stressing that it isn’t just about the work.
“I feel like I’ve extended my chosen family. I’ve met a lot of people who maybe wouldn’t have opened themselves up as much had they not met me. They have also heard my story and how I’ve gotten to where I am, and how I’ve continued to move forward and grow and bring people in close to me. I let them know that they’re not alone, and love to share in experiences and just have that emotional connection with people that want that and can’t find it anywhere else. I don’t know if that makes sense,” Snow laughs.
“I’ve met a lot of really cool people doing this, and I’ve become really close with them and have great friendships. We travel around the world together, and that’s my favorite part about it. I’ve been to all these places all over the world, but I’ve usually been there alone. But now I have the opportunity to bring people with me and show them things they’ve never seen before, so it’s fun to share those experiences.”
A New Spin on Life
Back home in his small gay beach town of Rehoboth (when he’s actually there), Snow spends his time indulging in his inner foodie and hosting gatherings for his friends.
“I like to cook as well, so if I’m doing a big group thing, I’ll usually cook at least one night—I’ll do steaks for everybody. And also in my backyard and on the beach, I like to do a bonfire. I used to do them every full moon, but I’m not home that much anymore, so now I just do them randomly whenever I’m home. I’ll send out an Instagram message, and whoever is in town just shows up. I’ll have music and fire spinning, and everyone just hangs out on the beach. It’s fun.”
Ahh, yes…the fire spinning—another hobby of Snow’s that most mere mortals would steer clear of. It all started with…glowsticks?!
“When I was younger in high school, I used to spin glowsticks for fun. Then later when I was 17, I snuck into a club and was spinning glowsticks in the back by myself. Someone that worked there came up to me and asked if I wouldn’t mind doing that on stage. Then they asked me to come back and do it again, and they would pay me—so I would start doing these little gigs spinning glowsticks,” he laughs.
“It wasn’t until way later when I was in Bora Bora or Tahiti where I first saw a fire-spinning show. They were doing this dance, and then they come out with fire and start spinning it. And I was like, ‘Holy shit! I could do that!’ So I went back home and got all the stuff to do it. At first, I was a little nervous—but I just treated it as if it was glowsticks, and it worked.”
He hopes to attend a retreat in France to improve his skills, and wants to learn some new moves.
“I would love for other people to teach me some things. I have picked up a couple of things along the way: I learned how to do the dragon staff, which I had never thought about until I met someone who had one. He showed me how to do it, so I bought one. And I’ve done the ropes and the whip—but I don’t have a whip and it’s not my favorite, so I just stick to the ones I really like.”
Snow has spun on stage for shows like Xlsior Mykonos and the Utopia Festival in Mexico. And yes, he has burned himself before—but not how you might think.
“I did burn all the hair off on my face once, but that wasn’t from fire spinning,” he laughs. “I was opening one of those Big Green Egg grills. I was grilling on it on the top of a houseboat, and I didn’t know that you’re supposed to vent it before you open it. So I just opened it and this big ball of flames went right in my face, and it singed all the hair on my face. I jumped off the top of the houseboat into the water, and all of my eyebrows and beard hairs were burned off.”
Snow has also swum with whale sharks multiple times at the aquarium in Atlanta. Fellow Carnal exclusive Eddie Patrick said no thanks, despite Snow’s attempts at convincing (“He didn’t want to do it; he was afraid,” Snow laughs), but the two did engage in some cliff jumping.
“We just went jumping off the Colorado River, but that wasn’t too high—some higher places in Tennessee that I used to go jumping when I was a kid, I don’t think I would do that again. I didn’t always land perfectly, and I know how it feels when you don’t land just right.”
But none of those are the craziest adventure Snow has had in the water.
“I cannot believe that I did this, and I would never try to do it again. When I was in the military, my group of friends and I rented some Jet Skis in Dubai, and we went out around the base of the Burj Al Arab, which is the hotel that is shaped like a sail. In the ocean, we got into some really big, heavy waves—and we were literally jumping over each other on Jet Skis. Like, my Jet Ski was jumping over top of another person on another Jet Ski, and we’re doing that for a good five or 10 minutes. I would never do that again. I was in my 20s—actually I was probably even 19. I was super young and super stupid.”
But that didn’t stop Snow from flying again—this time in planes, a hobby that started around 2011 as he was learning to get a private pilot license.
“I would fly around this little Cessna 185 for a couple hours every day. One time I flew over my parents’ house in Virgnia. I had flown the plane from Knoxville, and I called my mom and said, ‘Mom, come outside!’ And she comes outside, and I was like, ‘Look up!’ I was ‘waving’ the plane—basically making it so the plane wing was ‘waving’ at her—and she started freaking out on the phone. She’s like, ‘Get off the phone! You’re not supposed to be driving on the phone, much less flying! Are you crazy?!’”
He and his mom talk occasionally, about once a month (“her first words any time she calls me are always, ‘Where are you?’ She knows I’m never home”), but Snow notes that he doesn’t talk much with his dad anymore. “And my sister, there’s not really much to talk about. She just doesn’t understand the way I live my life, and it’s all foreign to them. We’re cordial, but we see each other maybe once a year.”
But Snow has embraced his new family in the industry—and being single.
“I have no interest in a relationship. I have a lot of really close friends that I have great relationships with, and I don’t really plan to just have one specific person. I like having close relationships with multiple people,” he shares. “I’m very personable, I’m down to meet people and travel and share experiences. I think the people who have met me or know of me in person, I think they all have pretty good things to say. I’m never mean or full of myself. I’m very chill and love to have fun and share fun with other people…I hope that comes across.”
