This is the cover story of the January issue of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital edition.
LAS VEGAS—Abella Danger and Reya Sunshine share a common theme when talking about their preparation for the biggest event of their respective careers.
The hosts of the 2023 AVN Awards Show tonight both want “to make sure everything is perfect.”
“Mostly, I’m just so nervous,” Danger admits.
“There are definitely a lot of high expectations from fans and performers to have a really great show since it is the first one that is in person in three years, so I really hope that it lives up to everyone’s expectations. I am excited but mostly just so nervous.”
Sunshine jokes that she’s been approaching this first Saturday of January 2023 “like it’s my wedding day.”
“I keep explaining to everyone that this is the big night, everything in my career has been building up to this,” Reya says. “I’m super excited.”
The superstar duo will take the stage in just a matter of hours today at Resorts World Las Vegas, presiding over the 40th annual ceremony in which winners will be crowned in more than 130 categories across every major facet of adult entertainment.
Sunshine in late December shared that finishing touches were still being placed on her custom AVN Awards outfit.
“It’s being made just for me to be extra sparkly and sexy and show off my best features,” teases Reya, an accomplished pole dancer and national draw on the feature circuit who also has been a top model on MyFreeCams since 2016.
She says the process of finding her AVN attire entailed “a lot of looking for inspiration.”
“And fitting it to me and my look and also thinking about what will look good over time, too,” Reya explains. “I didn’t want it to be too trendy so that maybe it wasn’t so flattering years from now. I wanted something that I’ll like forever.”
Abella, meanwhile, says she already selected more wardrobe than she even will need.
“Honestly, I’ve gone ahead and picked too many because it was so hard to choose,” Danger says with a laugh. “I’m so excited about all my shiny outfits. I’ve picked out all my outfits that I’m signing in, my outfit for presenting at GayVN and my outfits for AVN.”
In addition to the sexy mistresses of ceremonies, the AVN Awards also will feature live musical performances by Kehlani and Shenseea along with comic relief from fast-rising stand-up personality, Matt Rife.
“Matt is so funny,” Danger says. “He’s a breath of fresh air. I just think he’s a really authentic person and he doesn’t try to be funny. He really appeals to the masses. All my friends from different walks of life, everybody I know who has heard of him really likes his comedy. He transcends different age groups.”
Danger calls Kehlani’s music “incredible.”
“I’m very excited that she’s performing at this year’s AVN Awards,” Abella says. “I feel like she fits in really well with the brand. She’s very sex positive and she’s a big feminist which really aligns with all the female performers. I love Kehlani… I don’t really have a number one [favorite song], I’m just excited to see what she’s going to bring to the stage. All the girls are going to go wild when they see her perform. They’re all going to be rushing to the front of the stage.”
The Brazzers contract girl Danger—who has won the Fan-Voted AVN Award for Most Epic Ass the past four years straight—says one of the highlights of her past year was being named the No. 1 most watched porn star on Pornhub, generating national press from outlets such as the New York Post.
“I was really shocked by that when I saw the article in the NY Post. I was like, whoa!” Abella says. “I was quite content with being No. 2….I had been No. 2 for so long, that had kind of been my spot. So I was actually flabbergasted with how I rose to the top of the ranks. It was so crazy.”
The 2016 Best New Starlet and Fan-Voted Hottest Newcomer from Miami, who started her career in 2014, now is a pre-law major. She managed to juggle classes while also doing content creation and expanding her mainstream entertainment profile in 2022.
Danger tells AVN she recently made it to the finals of a debate tournament in what was the highlight of her year at college.
“Me and my teammate got third,” Abella says. “The people who got first and second have been debating for years and years.”
Danger says she also placed fourth in the competition for The Speaker award for the top debaters in the competition, which was contested in British Parliamentary style.
“So I was the fourth highest speaker in the whole tournament,” Danger adds. “I’m going to be doing a lot of debate tournaments next year.
“I chose to join the debate team because I really needed an extracurricular activity and it looks good on my transcript. I found debate through my speech class and just fell in love with it. I’m really big into philosophy, I even tutor. My Ethics professor made me an Ethics tutor so I get paid for doing five hours of tutoring a week.”
Danger continues, “I learned the best way to win a debate is to take it to a philosophical level. So I use different philosophical theories to win my arguments.”
Abella says sometimes the organizers choose what side of an issue her team has to debate regardless what her personal belief is, so she has to fight for something that is opposite of her morals.
“It teaches you to gain the other person’s perspective,” Abella says. “It’s just a fun community. I enjoy it thoroughly.”
Sunshine, a native of Northern California who now resides in Miami, graduated with a degree in Psychology from the University of California prior to breaking into adult. She made an immediate splash on MFC—her first AVN Show was in January 2016—and five years later she graced the cover of the April 2021 issue of AVN CAMStar.
In the past few years she also has established herself as one of the industry’s premier independent content creators and YouTubers while amassing millions of followers on social media.
Sunshine raised her content creation game to another level in 2022, collaborating with multiple fellow A-listers such as J-Mac, with whom she recently did her first outdoor oil scene. She also recently got down again with AVN Award-winning performer Abigail Mac.
“It was obviously a big year for my career because I was selected to co-host the AVN Awards—that was super exciting—and I also did a lot of professional, quality boy/girl videos this year, girl/girl and solos as well,” Sunshine says. “I’ve been focused on releasing two new boy/girl videos every month.”
She says in 2023 that fans can expect more quality hardcore content on her private platform.
"That’s the goal to definitely keep the momentum up,” Reya continues. “I want to keep putting out the same amount of content and I’m adding featuring back into my schedule. … I’m going to be booked out all year at least one a month.”
That’s great news for anyone whose ever seen Sunshine’s energetic stage presence. She took all of 2022 off after dancing on occasion in 2021.
“Early 2020 was the last time I was consistently feature dancing,” Reya says. “I miss it. I miss performing live in front of people. I had a lot of fun doing that. It doesn’t reach as wide of an audience but you do deepen the connection with the fans you do meet there and that’s meaningful, too.
Reya continues, “It’s good to strengthen the relationship with your fans and I also like having different things to do within my business, so it’s not the same type of routine every day. I have a lot of fun performing.
“I will be making all new routines and that’s a whole process as well between figuring outfits, figuring out how you can strip them off and be extra engaging with the fans and which music to use.”
Photography by KogaFoto
