NEW YORK CITY—As just about everyone must know by now, one of the "eight to ten women" to whom New York mayoral candidate (for the moment, at least) Anthony Weiner aka "Carlos Danger" was sexting love notes and explicit photos to was 23-year-old Indiana native Sydney Leathers—who, according to the story and video posted on TMZ.com, recently took a meeting with Vivid Entertainment co-owner Steve Hirsch.
The TMZ video shows Hirsch and Leathers walking out of Vivid's building on Cahuenga Boulevard and getting into a white convertible parked at the curb—which led one commenter to speculate, "Yes this is an advertisement! Why else would Mr. Hirsch park at [a] metered parking space in front of his office building and why else would there be a TMZ guy with a shaky camera watching that particular doorway? Seriously?"
Admittedly, it's a good question... but not one Hirsch seems willing to answer.
"I don't really have anything to say," Hirsch told AVN when asked for comment on the meeting. "We gave her some options and we'll see what happens."
But while Leathers has been all over the news recently, to say that her background is a bit muddled is putting it mildly. For instance, shortly after the news came out that Weiner, despite protests to the contrary, had continued his sexting activities even after his resignation from Congress in 2011 in the wake of a previous sexting scandal, the UK's Daily Telegraph described "victim" Leathers as "a left-wing activist from a small Bible Belt town in southern Indiana" and " a college student who said she never met Mr Weiner." And in an interview on CNN's Inside Edition, she stated about Weiner that "I cared about him a lot, he was very important to me," but that she "felt manipulated."
But more recently, reports have surfaced that Leathers may not have been an innocent victim in all this. The UK's Daily Mail (whose stories should always be taken with a grain of salt) has reported that in some Facebook conversations with alleged Leathers' "friend and confidante" Lou Colagiovanni, Leathers "admitted to having been on sugar daddy websites 'on and off' for a year and claimed, 'I get money from dudes I’ve never even met.'" She also allegedly admitted that as of June 6, she had been seeing one "sugar daddy" who "pays me $1000 to go down on me for half an hour," adding, "He isn’t very good at it but I can fake it. Haha."
If such allegations are true, it certainly puts former porn star Aurora Snow's most recent column for The Daily Beast in a new light.
After noting that Leathers doesn't have "a built-in following" as did Teen Mom star Farrah Abraham, and that hence, she would have difficulty "scoring a similar porno paycheck," Snow advises, "Think about where you might want to be five or ten years from now. Selling yourself out for one sex tape hardly carries the hard-earned prestige of being a porn star. So unless you are ready to do your time—hundreds of hardcore scenes—all you might hope to gain from a sex tape is a fat check and a soiled reputation sans the porn star perks. A sex tape will follow you forever. If you should one day decide to be a teacher, or seek a public office, this is a surefire way to block such endeavors."
But if those recent reports are true, Leathers doesn't have to worry about a "soiled reputation"; she already has one, albeit only among the "sugar daddies" who've seen her on the internet, and perhaps the die-hard fans of Anthony Weiner—but her name's been all over the press, and not in a good way, so it would seem that Snow's concern for Leathers' welfare is misplaced.
Moreover, we can't help but wonder if Snow's warning that, besides appearing naked and having sex "in front of strangers," including "a camera man sniffing distance from your girl bits," her admonition that, "Any 'normal' job you may attempt to have in the future will come with a gaggle of co-workers who have already watched your sexcapades. Any man you date will eventually know about (and probably watch) your solo contribution to the world of porn," may have been colored by Snow's own post-porn experiences and her belated apparent attempts to separate herself from the industry that gave her steady employment and big paychecks for a dozen years.
Sure, acting in porn isn't for everyone, and depending on whether Leathers, who's a fairly cute brunette, can pull off a hot scene or two, she just might have a future in porn. After all, look at Amy Fisher, who's got half a dozen titles under her belt—and Traci Lords, who's had her share of hit Hollywood movies that many think are due in large part to the public's awareness of her (underage) porn past. And considering how public acceptance of porn and its participants has grown over the past few years, the likelihood that there will be lasting repercussions from a brief dalliance in front of the camera is small and getting smaller by the day.
So, Aurora, give the gal a break—and if you really are worried that doing a sex tape for Vivid will adversely impact Leathers' future life, why in hell would you suggest that instead, she "[m]aybe aim for reality TV"???
