HOLLYWOOD—Easily the biggest news of Wednesday night's inaugural presentation of The Sex Awards was Asa Akira's announcement while accepting the ceremony's grand Porn Star of the Year prize that she has signed an exclusive contract with Wicked Pictures.
"I was told that if I won this award tonight, I could officially make this announcement on stage," Akira said after collecting the trophy and the diamond-encrusted bracelet that came with it courtesy of sponsor Vivid Cabaret. As the other Wicked Girls in the crowd (including show host Jessica Drake, Kaylani Lei and Samantha Saint) screamed their excitement at what they knew Akira was going to say next, she exclaimed, "I just signed an exclusive contract with Wicked Pictures, so you will now see me exclusively in Wicked movies. I have wanted to be a Wicked Girl since the day I started in this business, and I couldn't be happier."
Akira hinted at the impending news earlier in the evening when she took the stage with Drake to jointly claim the award for Porn's Perfect Girl/Girl Screen Couple (an honor they shared in the ceremony's only tie with Remy LaCroix and Riley Reid). Responding to Drake's remark at the podium that she hoped the two would be working together again, Akira intimated, "I have a feeling that's going to be happening."
Following the awards show, Akira explained to AVN, "We were discussing how we would announce it, but The Sex Awards happened to be coming up and I knew I was one of the finalists because we shot footage for broadcast following around the five finalists, so I knew I have a one-in-five chance of winning. And Steve [Orenstein, Wicked's CEO] said, 'OK, so why don't we plan to announce it the day after the awards, and we'll have two press releases ready to go, one if you win it and won if you don't, but if you win why don't you announce it on stage?' As soon as I won the other two, I was like, 'Oh shit, am I supposed to announce it if I win anything? But luckily I won the Porn Star of the Year, so I was able to annoucne it on stage."
Akira said she's been in talks with Wicked for several months about the contract, and clarified that while it is an exclusive performing contract, she will continue to direct for Elegant Angel Productions.
This announcement and her three Sex Awards wins (in addition, her star showcase Asa Akira Is Insatiable 3 from Elegant Angel scored the trophy for Adult Movie of the Year) capped off what has been a jaw-droppingly banner year for Akira, which started with her co-hosting the 30th annual AVN Awards Show and being crowned AVN Female Performer of the Year the same night.
"I found this list that I had made in 2011, because my mom called me and she told me that it was a new moon that night and she told me to make a list of things that I wanted in life that night," Akira shared. "And I had totally forgotten about it, but I found it recently, maybe a week or two ago, and it had a lot of stupid things on it like get rich, be successful, but it had win AVN Performer of the Year, and the last thing on the list was get a Wicked contract. So a lot of the things came true. In general, I've wanted to be a Wicked Girl since I got into the industry. It was the first thing I told my first agent at Gold Star Modeling, so this is really, really exciting for me."
Photo of Asa Akira on the set of Wicked's Underworld by Rick Garcia.
