LOS ANGELES—Aspen Rae admits taking a cake to the face is more difficult than it looks.
“It takes a little bit of willpower,” Rae jokes. “It’s kind of like stepping off to go bungee jumping.”
The popular cam star went head first into the chocolate tiramisu on her seven-year “camiversary” with MyFreeCams in March, fulfilling her end of the bargain she made with her members.
“I made a deal with them if we got so many people to tip this amount I would go to Whole Foods and buy a cake and then take a cake to the face,” she says. “Of course they did and they more than doubled the expectation.”
Rae even did the honors herself. Whether she’s camming, bodybuilding, flying helicopters or hosting the 2017 AVN Awards Show, Rae makes a habit of going for it. It’s why the enterprising native of Northern California embodies the modern-day cam model who is building her brand and living life on her own terms.
Sitting at the dining room table inside her immaculate luxury condo in Denver, the 26-year-old businesswoman recalls moving five times during the past seven years.
“I have my place here and I’m hoping to be full-time by next year as soon as I’ve completed my pilot’s license, which is taking a little bit longer than I thought originally,” Rae says. “The problem is I enjoy traveling a lot so I go on hiatus and then I have to catch up and revisit helicopter.
“I consider this my home. My family’s here and I’m absolutely in love with Colorado.”
This latest trip to Denver has been extra special for Rae because it coincides with the MyFreeCams community visiting for the city’s first Exxxotica expo. The night before, Rae went to the traditional pre-show MFC Model Meet-Up in the city.
“It was awesome because I got to talk with a lot of locals, a lot of girls I didn’t even know were in Denver,” she says.
One particular model joining in the Exxxotica festivities is Texas native Harli Lotts, who teamed up with Rae for a rare duo performance.
“It had been over two years since I had another female on cam with me and so Harli and I had a show here together in Denver and it was so much fun,” Rae says. “We just goofed off for probably eight hours. It was just talking, interacting—a little bit of sexiness.
“We had a really hot milk show. And her crowd and my crowd, they meshed really well. It was an awesome way to just feed off of each other’s energies and we just had a blast on cam. I would do that every day if I could.”
Rae says she has bonded with Lotts.
“We’d been getting closer and closer. I only like to cam with girls that I am close to because I believe in authenticity of the cam shows and the members can really see right through it if you’re only there for the tokens or if you’re just there to get content,” Rae explains.
“So the fact that we’ve been getting along for probably a year now it was just like let’s see how this goes. Let’s experiment with this. We get along great in real life, let’s get along great on camera now. It was just a fun time and she’s just absolutely amazing. I love her to death.”
To say Rae has learned a few things about how to not only adapt, but flourish on cam during the past seven years would be an understatement. She went on a legendary run of 70-plus months ranked among the top 20 models on MFC not long after she joined the platform. Now she wants to share that knowledge with other models looking to take the next leap.
What started as an idea for a cam girl “boot camp” of sorts has progressed into writing an e-book, Rae says.
“One of my biggest problems in life is I take on a lot,” she says. “I want to do everything. So I had this idea and I’m still going forward with it. I basically have the outline and I’m talking to a few people about the best way to get this out to people and to make it available for models.
“Because I have been in the business for quite some time and I’ve seen the changes and I’ve learned the tricks of the trade, I feel comfortable and confident that I can share that with other models and help them be successful. Because it’s a community and the more successful and happy everybody is, the better everybody else is.
Rae wants to cover it all, from lighting to privacy issues, to “how to make the shows go as you want them to.”
“I have outlined the topics and different kind of chapters and how I want to give that information out. It’s in the works,” she says. “I’ve got the bones set up right now. I just need to follow through and complete what I started.”
Not unlike her loyal fanbase, surpassing expectations is just what Rae does as she continues to pursue her passions both inside and outside adult entertainment. Now less than three months removed from being the first cam girl to ever host the world famous AVN Awards Show at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas—she partnered with Riley Reid on the big stage—Rae has only added to her repertoire.
In February she earned her personal trainer certification and she’s already looking forward to her next bodybuilding competition in July. In the meantime, Rae is getting closer to receiving her private helicopter license.
“I’ve started doing cross-country flights now,” Rae says, noting a cross-country flight in a helicopter must be at least 25 miles from one airport to another.
“So I’ve done two of those. I’m going to Morocco the day after tomorrow. When I return from Morocco I’ll be finishing up one more cross-country with my instructor and then I’ll be doing my first solo cross-country. And then after I get those cross-countries done I have to do a little bit of night flying and then I just prepare for my check-ride.
“As far as what I need to have, my hours are almost there. And then it’s just knowing everything front and back about the helicopter before I can get my license. It’s going to be a lot of study time.”
Rae, who had already accumulated 50-plus hours of flight time including four hours of solo flying by December, says flying cross-country “wasn’t too much different than flying to a different airport.”
“I’ve flown to various airports around the Bay Area many times,” she says. “This one was just a little bit further away than another one that I had been to. So it’s different because you haven’t ever seen that airport and you’re not familiar with way points to look for. So you’re having to rely on your navigation, having to rely on the compass, all these different elements that you’re not really used to utilizing while you’re in flight.
“So that was a challenge. My instructor is trying not to hold my hand. So when I fly, when I’m in the air I am looking for the way point that I selected on my flight plan. So I’m looking for this interchange; I’m looking for this mountain; I’m looking for this lake. And that’s how I know where to fly. Plus the direction of my compass—what that’s reading. So it’s just taking everything that I’ve learned and putting that into flying and utilizing it all.”
She continues, “So if I can do one cross-country flight then you can pretty much fly to any airport as long as you’ve planned it along the way. You never just get into the helicopter and say, ‘Well I wonder where I’m going to go today?’ Before a cross-country flight there’s about two hours of flight planning that I have to do. I have to check the weather. I have to check the winds. And then I have to see how the winds are going to affect me—if they’re going to blow me to the left, to the right—what my speed’s going to be. You have to be very precise and know exactly what you’re going to do, when you’re going to get there.”
Speaking of focus, Rae showed it last fall when she trained for and then won the biggest bodybuilding competition of her career, the National Physique Committee (NPC) San Francisco Championships on Oct. 15. Rae won the Overall Figure title in both the Novice and Open divisions as well as the Overall Figure title. The NPC is the largest amateur bodybuilding organization in the country.
Rae had been competing in the Bikini category of bodybuilding since 2015, doing three NPC shows before making her Figure debut.
“Gosh it was amazing. I have been in Bikini … I’ve done several years of Bikini shows and I never grabbed any title. I would always place OK, but I never got it. There was always something missing,” Rae says. “And when I finally made the switch to Figure the moment that I won the sword [given to the winner], it was just like—it was such an amazing feeling. I feel like all of the work that I’ve done in Bikini and the prior years was all for that moment, for that sword that I won—the Overall title. I trust my coaches with everything and I follow their plans to a tee. And they have directed me to go places that I didn’t think I’d be able to reach.
“So just all from their guidance and listening to them and trusting them has given me some fantastic satisfaction. And I’m so happy to keep on progressing with them and to see how far I can take my Figure career.”
Matt Allen—the co-owner of Team CyberBodyShop, who has coached three bodybuilding Olympians as well as action movie star Cung Le—has worked closely with Rae for much of the past two years, helping her transition from Bikini to Figure.
“She had always done relatively well,” Allen tells AVN. “She had cracked the top five. But she had a lot of goals and she had never won so she just wanted to take it to the next level and win a contest.”
He says one of the keys for Rae are her legs.
“She already had big shoulders and a nice wide back, but what we needed to do was help her build bigger legs to get the proportions right, so we did a heavier, more intense training especially on her legs to get the size on her legs to balance out the proportion in her upper body. She responded extremely well and she’s a natural at it.”
Allen, who has 18 years of experience in competition and training, knew going in that Rae had all the characteristics of a champion.
“I had seen her in the gym and how hard she worked and then I saw her on stage in Bikini and I thought she’s so good, she’s just in the wrong division. We just need to polish up a few things, do a little few tweaks and get her to win,” Allen says. “In her previous show she was fourth place in Bikini and to go to first place overall in Figure it was really rewarding to me as a coach when you get a client, who number one has the genetic aptitude to even deal with the response.
“The people with the great genetics tend to not be the hard workers. But to have the genetics and work ethic and dedication to follow through, as a coach I know she’s making the right adjustments.”
Another essential component to winning a competition is the actual posing.
“It’s almost like a muscle beauty pageant,” Allen says. “Your stage presence is equally as important as your muscularity.”
That’s where Allen’s wife and business partner, Wendy Fortino, comes in. Fortino, a two-time Olympian and U.S. national champion in 2011, is Rae’s posing coach.
“We get in actual workouts a couple times a week and then we all pose together a couple times a week. She does a lot of workouts on her own,” Allen continues. “Something we’re working on constantly is her diet. So at least once a week we have a meeting and I take a look at her physicality and decide exactly what she’s going to eat that week.”
Allen (CoachMattAllen on IG) and Rae work on carb cycling—alternating between high-carb and low-carb days to stimulate her muscles. She eats six protein meals a day on Allen’s program.
Rae will next compete at the San Jose Championships on July 1 before the NPC USA Bodybuilding Championships in Las Vegas July 28-29. That competition is an International Federation of Bodybuilders (IFBB) pro qualifying event.
She qualified for nationals by winning in San Francisco.
“From there you’re stepping on stage with everybody’s who’s won Overall, basically,” Rae says. “Everybody has been very successful with what they’ve done. It’s nobody’s first time. And you’re kind of playing with the big dogs up there. So those shows are where you can win your pro card, and that’s where you can get your pro status and you’re a professional bodybuilder.”
Rae adds, “So from what I’ve heard from my coaches and seen from everybody else in the bodybuilding community I’m not expecting to win that show but I am hoping for the best. It usually takes a few times to kind of get out there, get in front of the judges. This summer I’m just going to put my nose down, bring my best package and see what happens on stage.
“Figure posing is very different from Bikini. Bikini is more—I would compare it to more of a sultry kind of dance on stage—where Figure you are facing front on with the judges. You can’t cheat any sort of curves or anything. So everything shows and every detail matters.”
It’s shaping up to be an incredible year for Rae, who now counts sharing the MC duties for the 2017 AVN Awards Show on January 21 as “bar none, one of the highlights of my life.”
“I get goosebumps when I think about it. Just thinking about it I’m getting them right now,” Rae says. “The experience was just amazing, the lights, the action, all the activities. It was so thrilling just working with the most amazing people. It made it that much more—in one word—exhilarating.”
Rae no doubt knows how to make an impression, leaving nothing to chance on AVN night as she slipped into a pair of show-stopping dresses made of glass. It was almost a year ago to the day that Rae envisioned what could be.
“I was at some glass shows here in Denver and I saw some of the most amazing glass pieces,” Rae recalls. “There were like chandeliers. There were things you could smoke out of that were the size of a guitar—they’re insane. So these glass blowers are extremely talented and I thought it would be so cool if I could wear this art.
“And I hadn’t seen anything like it and I did a bunch of Instagram searching and kind of googling if it was even a possibility to do a glass dress. So it was like my version of Cinderella’s glass slipper. I wanted Aspen’s glass dress. So it was just from walking around the 420-friendly community.”
When she found the artist that could make her dream a reality he was more than happy to accommodate her “and create those masterpieces for me.”
Rae wore a red one and a white one during the adult industry’s most anticipated occasion.
“So the red one—he did that for a small fashion show a while ago but he brought it and I was able to use it. And then the white one that I wore toward the end of the show was a brand-new design just tailored for me—custom-made completely,” Rae reveals.
“It was a very complicated dress so he was actually backstage [at The Joint] with me fitting me and making sure everything was as it should be.”
Rae doesn’t want to say the price for both dresses, but she does offer a ballpark estimate of their worth.
“Like a nice car maybe?” she says with a smile. “They’re very expensive dresses but so much time goes into one. He hand-blows every little piece. They’re about the size of a pony-tail holder. And every piece is blown and then linked by him. So it’s a very tedious creation.”
The fashion statement only further cements Rae’s place in AVN Awards lore, says Gary Miller, the executive producer of the show.
“It was the first time we ever in history had a cam girl host the show and she was an absolute pleasure to work with and did an outstanding job,” Miller says.
