LOS ANGELES—Melody Kush felt a wave of emotion as she was logging off Chaturbate last month after her camiversary broadcast.
She reflected on the past eight years, reliving some of the memories she made and thinking about all the friendships she forged.
What came to mind was overwhelming gratitude.
“In the very beginning, it’s hard to project that far ahead, especially in an industry that can be so volatile at times,” Kush tells AVN. “This year more than any of the others, I feel so humbled and so grateful.
"Every year that gets added onto my experiences and the relationships I’ve built over the last eight years, everything is getting stronger over time.
“So I had a little cry on cam just out of gratefulness—a single tear at the very end. … We celebrated on Friday [October 23] but my camiversary was actually a week prior.
“It means the world to me that I made it this far. And now that I’ve made it this far there really is no end in sight.”
That’s great news for the live-cam community, not to mention Kush’s legions of fans whom she lovingly refers to as the “Kushoholics.”
The Canadian cam star notes that her camiversary marks when she decided to start her solo camming career; she dabbled on other cam sites two years prior to that, doing duo shows with other girls.
She remembers how Chaturbate was “a baby" at the time that she decided to venture off on her own.
“So I kind of considered that as well,” Kush adds. “I saw that as an opportunity to grow with the platform and I tried my first solo show there. Then I found my home.”
Now she is representing her home as the co-host of “Sex Tales,” the new Camming Life podcast sponsored by Chaturbate alongside her fellow broadcaster, Lana Del Bae.
Melody and Lana chat with porn stars, cam models and other industry insiders about working in adult entertainment on “Sex Tales,” which unveils new episodes every Tuesday on the Camming Life YouTube channel and wherever you listen to podcasts.
Today Melody and Lana welcome special guest Sophie Dee—one of the top social media influencers in adult entertainment—to the fourth episode.
Melody and Lana landed the co-hosting assignment after emerging from a five-week audition process in which they each conducted two test interviews a week with other broadcasters.
Kush received an invitation to try out for the job from Chaturbate Chief Operating Officer Shirley Lara.
“I was so thrilled that Shirley approached me,” Kush says. “I was really thrilled to even have the opportunity.
“… Eventually I got matched up with Lana and it was magic. Lana is amazing. I absolutely love her.”
Coincidentally, about two weeks before Kush was approached by Chaturbate, she was offered her own podcast by another company.
“I was considering it and then Shirley presented me with this opportunity,” Melody explains. “I have a loyalty to Chaturbate. It’s thanks to them that I’m still here today.”
Melody says Sophie Dee, the Welsh superstar who has 9.4 million followers on Instagram, was “super bubbly” during their sexy banter.
“She was a trooper, too,” Melody adds. “We had a little technical difficulty before the show started and she kept a positive attitude all through it and kept her energy up.”
In the 47-minute episode, Sophie talks about her longevity in porn, her boobs and some of her new business ventures that include ShoutoutExpress. In addition, Dee, the owner of MySexyAuctions, also gives viewers an inside look at her notorious topless movie reviews and her adventures at industry conventions.
“She just was really impressive,” Kush says. “Kudos to her for all her success.”
Melody and Lana kicked off “Sex Tales” by interviewing AVN Hall of Fame performer/producer Tera Patrick; they followed that with the entrepreneurial Dani Daniels and then last week welcomed Chaturbate sweetheart Mary Moody.
“Their guest selection has been fantastic,” Melody says. “Tera Patrick—talk about a legend. That was our very first one and naturally I was a little bit nervous in the beginning. We kept in touch afterwards on social media. She’s such a positive person and so fun to talk to.
“Then Dani Daniels—this girl is so funny; she has such a great sense of humor and she’s so accomplished. We could’ve talked all day because she had so many things to talk about I wasn’t sure how we were going to squeeze it all in.
“And I’ve always loved Mary Moody. We’ve kind of come from the same background. We were both part of the earlier days of Chaturbate. She’s so approachable and she’s always giving off that vibe that she’s out there willing to help. With Mary it was just three cam models shooting the shit.”
Kush appreciates the chemistry she already has developed with Del Bae.
“Lana is absolutely hilarious,” Kush says. “We enjoy working together. We have these pow wows before every podcast, where we each do our own research and come up with these questions and delegate them in a way that will flow.
“Sometimes there are questions that I want to ask and sometimes there are questions that she has her heart set on asking. It helps that Lana has such a positive outlook on life in general.”
Kush worked in medical esthetics, assisting doctors with Botox and other skin procedures for a few years before entering adult. She started writing an erotic blog in 2010, two years before launching her solo camming career. Her blog name was a play on an Audrey Hepburn movie—and the fans noticed.
“Social media back then was still a bit of a baby,” Kush says. “I think just based on my blog following I managed to gain about 5000 followers on Twitter.”
The 2017 winner of Outstanding Cam Model of the Year at the Live Cam Awards in Barcelona originally hails from Vancouver, but spent her teenage years in Ottawa, where she graduated from high school. When she was 18, she moved to Montreal, where she already was coming every couple weeks to party.
A skilled poker and cribbage player, Kush also plays backgammon, billiards and darts—she likes bowling, too.
“I’m a bar games person,” Kush jokes. “Poker is probably my specialty.”
She learned how to play cards from her father.
“He loved cards as well and used to have friends over every Saturday to play cards,” Kush says. “They would bet money and I was the daughter who would get tipped to request songs on the radio. … Then eventually he brought me in and taught me how to play cribbage and 5-card.
“The second weekend I played cribbage I was one point away from the best hand you could make. My father couldn’t believe I did that. It sparked my interest.”
After her legendary cribbage hand, she was gifted a crib board.
“It was such a special moment for me,” Kush says. “I love cards; I’m competitive by nature, so cards are my happy place.”
An admitted Ottawa Senators fan living in Montreal Canadiens territory, Kush reveals her favorite kind of music is classic rock.
“I am obsessed,” she says. “I love The Stones, Zeppelin, Supertramp… It goes back to my younger gambling days. It’s all connected to just who I am. My close second is techno. That’s also part of who I am. I’m a sexual girl and I love to dance.
“I will listen to everything though. There’s a time for blues, there’s a time for country…”
She’s also been known to bake naked—one time she concocted a “bukkake cake” with “penis-shaped gummies facing inward and a big trail of icing in the middle.”
Her booty is called the “Kush Kush,” courtesy of her members.
“They named my booty many years ago,” Melody cracks.
Meanwhile, she’s in the process of phasing out her current official website to make way for a brand new one that she’s building from the ground up.
“I’m actively working on it. That’s going to replace my current subscription site. I’m transitioning more into selling my content on OnlyFans,” explains Melody, who cams at least once a week on Friday afternoons EST.
She says her specialty is “riding shows.”
“If you’re into riding—booty bouncing on top of a suction cup dildo—then you’d like my room,” Melody teases.
Kush has become known for her signature “mirror ride.”
“The first time I did a mirror show, the mirror wasn’t the right size and right as I was having an orgasm I was hanging onto the mirror and I swiped my finger and cut it on the edge of the mirror. So it was pain and pleasure all at the same time,” she says with a laugh.
A natural conversationalist, Melody tells AVN some of her members have been with her since the beginning.
“I talk to everybody and welcome everyone in my chatroom,” Melody says. “I’ve never muted ‘basic’ accounts, or grays. Everybody has always had a fair chance in my room. I’ve treated Twitter the same way. I always saw a real importance with making that connection.”
Photography by Melody Kush (1 & 5) and Vixen Vu (7 & 8)
