The article originally ran in AVN Men magazine. Click here to see the digital edition. One of the trophy boys at the 2020 GayVN Awards, Riley Finch is nominated in the Best Group Sex Scene category and is also vying for a fan-voted award.
The only porn star Riley Finch followed before getting into the business was Joey Mills. Imagine his joy—and shock—when it was Mills who picked the newbie up at the airport for his first shoot ever.
“I had no clue he was going to be there,” says the gushing Colorado native. “I was completely nervous and star-shocked. I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s Joey Mills!’ And I didn’t say anything, of course. I was like, ‘I can’t let him know that I’ve seen him naked before. I need to be cool.’”
8teenboy saw something special in the newcomer, and the feeling is mutual.
“It was kind of like stepping into a brand-new world for me, figuring out who everyone was … it was huge, and it’s really cool to be a part of everything,” shares Finch. He was a chemistry major in college before switching to cosmetology school—along with working at an upscale resort in Colorado Springs. He got a taste of performing and he wanted more.
“I used to go on Omegle and I’d talk to other guys and basically find people around my age, and you’d jack off together. And one of them was a Chaturbate model. He was like, ‘When you turn 18, you should do this.’”
So he signed up as soon as he turned 18 and did Chaturbate on the side for about four months.
“I was making like $200 every night I did it. I’d go there twice a week after working just to get some extra spending cash, and all my fans were telling me to join porn. I was not really liking my job at the resort because I was working like 54 hours a week, and I was also going to cosmetology school for like 30 hours a week.”
So Finch applied online for 8teenboy, which contacted him the following day to send more pictures.
“After that we talked for like four days, and they offered me my first filming gig. So I quit my job at the resort and started filming,” he says, noting that his first shoot was in July of 2018. “I was super nervous my first time filming, but it was a lot of fun. I flew back the following week, and I filmed a lot when I first started—and it just kind of stuck. I did that while I was in cosmetology school to kind of finance myself.”
It doesn’t hurt that Mills was waiting for him at the airport.
“I remember them flying me out, and my best friend was texting me the whole time. She’s like, ‘If anything happens, I’ll fly out in a second and come save you!’ Basically, I was just chatting with her the whole time, and I told Max [Carter] she was my wifey, and I was living with her at the time. She was just making sure I was comfortable and everything was going good. I was just dazed by meeting all the models, and we all went cliff diving—me, Angel [Rivera], Joey and Max—my first week. It was a lot of fun. Honestly, I was just happy to be there. I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is crazy!’”
Finch found himself in 8teenBoy’s smash hit Winter Break, which required him to sharpen his acting skills.
“I’d done musicals and stuff before, so when I was out in Breckenridge, I was like, ‘How can I become a better actor? How can I do this better?’ I’m always thinking even now, ‘How can I portray this to be as good as possible for the fans, and how can I become better myself and further myself in this career?’”
The shoot solidified Finch’s confidence in his decision to shift his career focus.
“The highlights have just been the relationships I’ve formed with some of the models. Me and Trevor [Harris] text back and forth, and I just have friendships with a lot of the models, and Winter Break was a big part of that. Taylor Coleman was my little movie boyfriend, and we’d have group video calls to learn all our lines. And just seeing Blake Mitchell and everybody being a part of it, and knowing what was going to happen before it got put out there … I was super excited when the videos finally got released.”
When the gang went to Breckenridge, Finch drove to the airport with Carter to pick up all the models. “I drove up to Breckenridge, and basically it was just all of us hanging out at the house. We had a lot of fun—we did karaoke night, and we just would tell each other about our lives. We got to know each other, and it’s really cool to be with a studio when you can connect to the other boys.”
His family, however, took a little longer to warm up to the idea.
“Basically everyone in my family knows except for my grandma, but I don’t want her to know. My mom knew the week I flew out, she was like, ‘I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this.’ She knew I was doing Chaturbate before, and she was not too happy with that. But now she’s come to accept it and she actually was like, ‘I want to come to the award shows and everything!’ She’s super cute about it; and my sister, she thinks it’s cool, but she doesn’t want to see any of my pictures online.” (He does, however, make her babysit his plants when he goes on a shoot.)
Finch recently got a job at a salon in Colorado Springs (“they’re pretty flexible when it comes to filming, so whenever I have go out and shoot they will make time for me”), which makes his recent GayVN Awards photo shoot experience all the more shocking.
“I was super excited to meet the photographer and everyone, and I was also super nervous because my hair was really messy. I usually do my hair in the morning, but I forgot my round brush. I was like, ‘Stupid cosmetologist!’ But once I got there and met everyone, I went into hair and makeup and was talking to her about cosmetology, and the hairstylist gave me a round brush. I did my own hair the way I usually have it, as authentic as possible,” he laughs.
Finch has also focused on growing his Twitter and social media presence (“I’ve been trying to be better with producing OnlyFans content”) and putting himself out there.
“I’ve had the biggest crush on Ben Masters since I started Twitter, he’s super cute; and Sven Basquiat is pretty cute, too. It would be cool to meet them and see what they’re like in person, along with many other people I’ve seen on Twitter since I’ve started.”
Finch has shot exclusively with 8teenboy since entering the business in late 2018, and it has helped him grow not just as a performer, but as a person.
“I honestly just want to do more stuff with the studio, and just make sure my performances are better than they were (last) year—and meet new people. I want to do some crossover scenes with the Helix boys; I’m really hoping that I can do that,” he says.
“Through this process, I’ve definitely become a lot more confident with who I am, and not being as nervous as I used to be—just putting myself out there, not hiding who I am and being myself as much as possible. Because when I first started, I was definitely scared to be who I was. I was like, ‘Maybe people won’t like who I am.’ But learning to be myself has been one of the most important things I’ve learned. People respond way better to you just being yourself and being out there than when you try to be someone you’re not.”
