Photo courtesy of AnnaBellPeaks.xxx and Spizoo.com
Adult performers come and they go—and when they go, they often don’t say goodbye.
That’s not going to work for Anna Bell Peaks. She’s spent the past four years meticulously building a brand and a fan base. Now, she’s about to leave it all behind—not out of frustration, but out of satisfaction with a job well done.
“The biggest thing is, I don’t want fans to think I’m leaving for any bad reason,” Peaks says. “I came in, I had a plan, and I’m leaving. It doesn’t mean I’m bored or that I had bad experiences. I just thoroughly enjoyed it and am ready to try something different and do something different.”
She explains, “I started in one career and then I really fell into porn. And I’ve just loved every moment of it, and that’s something I thought was really important to say. There are so many stereotypes, and a lot of them are negative, about people in the adult industry and the adult industry in general—it’s this place where they get taken advantage of, these poor innocent girls. And I haven’t had a single bad experience the whole time I’ve been in. ...
“I’ve done four years of the industry and loved it all. I’ve loved every second of it. I’m not leaving because I don’t like it anymore. I’m leaving because I’m ready to move on to a different chapter.”
One of the hallmarks of Peaks’ career has been her take-charge attitude. An accountant before she got into porn, Peaks chose to run her own website, get her own DVD distribution deal and in general run her career like a traditional business. So she’s got an orderly progression set for her exit from adult.
“I’m going to stop shooting professional scenes in December. I won’t be shooting for Brazzers, I won’t shoot for Naughty America,” Peaks says, though she may end up with some bookings through to January, when she will attend the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo. And this month she will be at Exxxotica, hosting the Inked Awards.
“It’s big to me because the Inked Awards has always been something close to me. It’s for all us tattooed girls. And for AVN I hope I get to sign at a great booth and just enjoy all the people one more year, go to all the after parties, and have a blast. Just have a great time and say bye.”
She adds, “After that I’ll probably continue dancing maybe six months, maybe a little less.” Peaks will most likely continue to do some camming, but she’s definitely going to continue on social media. “I think I’ll always keep Snapchat and OnlyFans. OnlyFans is the only place that I have my private sex life. … I have a lot of fun in real life. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop that because I enjoy the voyeurism. I enjoy being on camera. I enjoy being watched.”
The pleasure she gets from being watched is what initially drove her to webcamming and eventually into shooting porn. She still gets a charge out of performing, but she muses that it has changed over the years—another sign that she was ready to move on.
“I actually started webcamming before porn, and I got a lot of satisfaction from that. That is probably where I built my confidence,” Peaks says, recalling that viewers didn’t care that she hadn’t gotten “her act together” with professional hair and makeup. “They liked me for who I was.”
Then, when she got into performing, Peaks says, “It fulfilled me in lots and lots of different ways.. … You get a lot of confidence when somebody’s looking at you on screen and saying you’re beautiful and all of those things.”
Now, she says, “What I found over time is that I don’t need that from others. I feel it from myself. Now I feel confident about myself, and maybe it’s because I feel successful. Maybe it’s because I feel like a grown woman who’s gotten to decide all of these things I’ve done in my life. But just as a whole, as a person, I feel like a confident, sexy woman. So that was my transformation, I guess, which is a great one.”
In her new transformation, Peaks says, “I’m going to go back into the business world—that’s the idea. By the end of the year I will be a CEO or a CFO or a CPA somewhere back in the business world. I’ll wear a three-piece suit, I’ll cover my tattoos, I’ll probably dye my hair so it’s not bright fuchsia.”
She’s also interested in writing a book about how to be successful in the adult industry. “So many people don’t go in with a plan. And I did. I came in with a plan and it was a five-year plan—I got it done in four years. … And if I write a book I want it to be because it’s actually a helpful, worthwhile book for others. Some sort of motivation, some sort of teaching. Here’s how you can be an empowered woman.”
She’s looking forward to the new challenges. “I miss using my brain. A lot. Like a lot. … And I’m excited about diving into something that’s going to be more brain power and less shaking my boobs.”
Right about those shapely breasts, Peaks sports a tattoo—one of many—that reads, “Judge me not.” Despite that plea, she fully expects to experience some judgment out in the straight world. Asked if there is a career path she would have liked to take but feels would now be impossible, Peaks muses, “I always wanted to be a senator. … In my mind, I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to affect people, and I didn’t really know how I was going do that. So I though I could be a senator and help legislate and I’ll help run this country and figure out ways to make it better.”
After her stint in adult, Peaks says definitively, “I’ll never be a senator. Just not in the cards with me. …
“But really, I was just a woman who loved what I did and I did it very well. I was confident, competent, and I was successful. Why is that a bad thing just because I did it naked?”
Anna Bell Peaks is featured in the November issue of AVN magazine. Click here to see the digital edition.
