Fresh Faces: A Dash of Pepper XO

This article originally ran in the July 2016 issue of AVN magazine. See the digital edition here.

Home State: Wisconsin | Height: 5-foot-6 | Weight: 125 pounds | Measurements: 34-25-36 | Hair: Brown | Eyes: Blue

Pepper XO is a fan of superheroes, and took her first name from Iron Man’s on-screen girlfriend, Pepper Potts: “It was a bit of a last-minute decision but I went with that,” she said, “and I needed a second part to the name and I thought of ‘XO’ just because I thought it was edgy, along the lines of comics, and I thought they went well together.” (Little did she know that Valiant Comics published a series titled X-O Manowar in the early ’90s ...)

Anyway, Pepper’s been making movies since November, just in time for her 24th birthday, and attended her first AEE this year, signing at the LA Direct Models booth. At the time we interviewed her, she was a veteran of 40 or 50 scenes; she’s not sure.

“My first shoot was with FTV Girls, and that was just really fun,” she recalled. “We ventured around and we were taking naked photos in public places; I really liked that, and he’s a really great photographer; I really like his work. More recently, she worked for Erotica X’s James Avalon, in a threeway with James Deen and Ana Foxxx.

And before her move to L.A. from her home in Wisconsin? “Well, I was webcam modeling for a couple of years, out of curiosity, but I became bored with that, and I followed some agencies on Twitter, and within a few hours, my agency contacted me, having no idea who they were, their place in the business or whatever—I had no idea. And so they contacted me and I just kind of snowballed into it, and I’ve been rolling with it since.”

Basically, Pepper considers herself to be an artist: “The industry gives me a lot of time to work on that. I enjoy illustration the most; painting, and I love character design and everything like that, but I also love painting on unconventional things like glass or just anything I find. I also love photography. For a while, I was actually a freelance photo retoucher.

It’s very tedious—lots of Photoshop skills and stuff—but I had fun with it as well.” And while she hasn’t decided what her “dream scene” would look like, she definitely wants it to be on a par with the “very beautiful, European-based” photography she’s seen on the X-Art and MetArt websites.

Though Pepper got A grades throughout her schooling, she wasn’t exactly a faithful student, having cut classes to waitress and contribute to the family’s upkeep from about the age of 16. But her parents were well aware of her webcam modeling, and weren’t surprised when she told them she was looking into adult talent agencies—possibly because “my mom was a blonde version of me when she was younger and wanted to be like a Playboy Bunny, so she’s excited about my new career but she’s also nervous because she doesn’t really know this world. She just has the perspective that as long as I’m happy and safe and healthy, then I can do whatever I want. I’m grateful for that.”

Still, she passes the time by reading comic books and manga, and has even delved into economics, sociology and political science texts. “I also love the outdoors; I love rock climbing and kayaking,” she said.

As to her philosophy on life, “My grandma always used to say, ‘Trust everybody but cut the cards,’ and for the longest time, I didn’t understand what that meant until probably a couple of years ago, I understood it meant something like ‘Have faith in things but do things yourself; keep things in your own hands; don’t depend on others.’ She was a very strong, independent woman, so I guess I’ve always held that quote close.”

Book Pepper through LA Direct Models. Follow her on Twitter: @PepperXO_