KEY WEST, Fla. — Veteran adult performer Mariah Milano is leaving the video world to manage and exclusively shoot for her own website network.
In an interview with AVN.com, Milano said she's been planning the shift for some time.
"It’s been coming for a while. I pretty much stopped shooting for everyone except for my favorites Brazzers, Bang Bros, Elegant Angel and Reality Kings," she said. "It was 100 percent a decision made by me.
"Nothing specific happened to cause it. I have learned through mistakes that I can only really count on myself. I know I can make things happen and the only way to market the real me is by doing it myself. My fans always tell me they love getting to know the real me and when I shoot a scripted movie it’s not me. It’s someone else’s vision of a character and as interesting and entertaining as it may turn out, it’s not me."
The move also comes after more than a decade in adult and two different industry runs.
"I got in the business nine days after I turned 18 in 1998 and did so mainly for the money to be perfectly honest," Milano said. "I liked the attention and the sex in front of the camera and all of that, but the money was the biggest draw at 18 years old. I left after 240 movies in just two years because I was sick of it — it wasn’t fun and I never felt like I was doing it my way. So I quit while I was ahead and only 20 years old and healthy."
Milano, who was just called "Mariah" on that first go-round, launched her site Mariahxxx.net in 2004 and then jumped back into the business.
"I started the site mainly because this asshole had put a site up claiming to be my official site owned by me after he had asked me and I said no. I wanted to shut him down out of spite and honestly had no clue about the reach of the Internet and the amount of fans I still had who were looking for more Mariah," she said.
"Once I realized I still had fans and began to interact with them through my site I started doing live shows and getting to know many of them and loved being Mariah again."
A deluge of fan e-mails requested new movies beyond her previous material.
"It took some time to warm up to the idea, but I realized if I was going to be successful I needed to introduce Mariah the woman to the porn world, with big tits and hips and not the skinny little girl I was in my first go-round," she told AVN.com.
Most of her initial work was girl-girl.
"I got a few scenes but now it was almost all Internet shoots which was so weird because everyone before had said never to shoot Internet!
"Immediately I was offered boy-girl shoots and I declined until one offer was too good to pass up. The shoot was good but I got fucked out of my money and nearly decided to go back to my sites and forget it but decided to give it another try."
She also went with a new name when she returned to adult productions.
"There were other Mariahs out there, so I added a last name and decided on an Italian surname, since I’m Sicilian, and chose Milano," she said.
"I started working constantly traveling from my new home in Florida every other month to shoot and my site blew up. There was always someone asking me to shoot and I loved it. I chose what I wanted to shoot and I turned down a lot of jobs, which was really liberating."
Milano said she used to take nearly every shoot offered, but that has changed.
"After another 200-plus movies in the last two years, I’m ready to focus on my sites, which now total over 60," she said. "I have a traffic network and my membership sites and there are constant updates and shooting new exclusive content and live cam shows that now I think shooting for other companies is not doing a service to my dedicated members and is not in my best interest business-wise. I want to give myself to my members and offer only one place for my fans to see me."
Milano is never saying never, however, when it comes to shooting for other site networks, such as a Bang Bros. or Brazzers, but has a plan mapped out for the rest of the year.
"If something happens between now and 2010 where I get a good offer to shoot for only one company I won’t rule it out completely and I would consider it, but as of now I would say no, I won’t shoot for anyone else," she told AVN.com. "Those are my favorite companies and I would certainly consider them before anyone else for sure."
The new content will branch out from her flagship site, Mariahxxx.net.
"My other sites are simply alternate marketing sites like MariahMilano.com, which is more of a traditional solo-girl site but leads to the same members area as Mariahxxx.net," she said. "It’s just a different tour that’s all.”
Her network also includes MariahVision.net, which is a portal with links to a lot of her favorite sites she's shot for and thumbnail galleries geared toward search engines and traffic.
One of her newest projects is FuckedWithAStrapOn.com, which she'll focus on during next year.
"It’s basically self-explanatory. It features me either fucking or getting fucked by other girls with strap-on cock," she said. "It’s a fun one because it’s generally a fun shoot and can get pretty intense, which is very sexy."
Other project sites include FeatureVideoExchange.com, a video-on demand clip store and MariahLoves.com, which will be an episodic video site about Milano and the people — or objects — she loves.
"One episode is ‘Mariah Loves Jasmine Byrne' and another is ‘Mariah loves Puma Swede and Sandee Westgate.' Or ‘Mariah Loves Big Hard Cock.’ I’m serious."
Milano told AVN.com her biggest project site is SeducedByAPornStar.com in which she'll seduce newbies into shooting their first sex video.
"Be it a girl or couple or guy, it will be 100 percent real, not staged and very hot," she said.
As if all of the above wasn't enough, Milano also has a somewhat-secret "A-list project."
"I am going to be monitoring the search results on FreeOnes.com and the other top resources for the porn star fan base to find the top 10 stars not contracted and shoot them in various scenarios," she said. "It will be from my own perspective and experience as what is the hottest situation for a good scene and allow each one to choose the person they fuck. I’ll be shooting it and interacting during the scene. That’s pretty much it. I just am not telling you who the four girls I have already lined up are."
Milano recently shot with Holly Randall for Hustler and Club magazines and also plans to leave her current status in the business with something landmark — her first real anal and DP scenes.
"I am definitely going to go out with a bang and think that a really hot anal scene or even a DP would be the best way to do it," she said.
"I have never done a DP in my life on-screen or off and think that would be fucking smoking-hot. I shot an anal scene back in 1998 but it was lame and there was a condom and I wasn’t into it at all. I was thinking of what I was going to blow the money on while I was shooting it. Seriously, I was. I have had a ton of requests from fans to do it and although it might end up for my members-only if the project isn’t right, I think it would be a great Mariah Milano good-bye scene."
