This feature is the cover story of the July issue of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital edition.
LOS ANGELES—Emma Hix remembers her days working the drive-thru window, taking orders and even cooking the food for two years at McDonald’s.
“I ate most of it,” Hix says with a grin. “I love McDonald’s. It was a lot of fun actually.”
She and her best friend used to “just goof off the whole time.”
“We used to make each other different combinations of McFlurries,” adds Hix, who grew up in Kelowna, a city in the southern part of Canada’s British Columbia province.
She not only learned how to make ice cream and Big Macs, she also received a crash course in how to calm down the occasional unhappy customer.
“People would get so angry for no reason,” Hix recalls. “So it definitely made me learn how to deal with angry people.”
No one is upset with Hix now.
Five years later the 22-year-old performer has emerged as one of adult entertainment’s biggest stars, racking up hundreds of thousands of followers on her official Twitter and Instagram pages and untold thousands more on her Snapchat and OnlyFans accounts.
She is also achieving her goals—such as becoming a Penthouse Pet of the Month in May, landing her first AVN cover in July and buying her first house.
“It just feels surreal,” Hix tells AVN. “It’s crazy to me because I don't think, ’Oh, I'm Emma Hix.’ I don't have a big ego like that.
“I'm always wanting to step up my game and do more. I know I should look at the glass half full, but I'm always like, ‘OK, I know I've worked for these companies, but there's still these ones that I want to shoot for.’ I'm still wanting to climb the ladder.
“Even though I get told a lot, ’Oh, you're successful.’ I'm like, ‘I want to do more.’”
Hix continues, “I think that’s a good thing to have. Because it makes me want to try harder and do more and achieve more.”
By all accounts—including her own—Hix started off quietly in April 2016, doing only about a dozen hardcore sex scenes during her first year in porn when she still was 18. Represented from Day 1 by veteran agent Chris Cane of Foxxx Modeling, it took some time for the petite, 5-foot-4 performer to find her rhythm in front of the camera.
Once she did, the bookings came in droves.
In 2019 she recorded more than 120 sex scenes—and has already done more than 340 in her career—making her one of adult’s most prolific performers in the past two years. Hix’s expanding list of accolades also includes being named Twistys Treat of the Month (June 2019), CherryPimps’ Cherry of the Month (November 2018) and Team Skeet’s first-ever “All-Star” this past January.
“I think Emma has come from Ground Zero really,” Foxxx Modeling owner Chris Cane tells AVN. “She wasn’t from the U.S. and until she had proper documentation a lot of companies wouldn’t shoot her, so she started off a little bit slow. She was a shy girl from Canada, a little introverted and I think it took her a while to get on her skates.”
He continues, “For the past year I would say she has just been incredible. I think she stepped up her game.”
A former real estate investor who got into adult in 1998, Cane produced his own movies for his studio Babylon Entertainment for several years before launching Foxxx in 2004.
“I think she really improved her game from when she first started to where she is now,” added Cane, who was born in Fullerton, Calif., and raised in Riverside. “I think she has shot for everybody in LA. It’s been all her doing and all her hard work.”
Hix admits she was nervous about her decision to get into porn, but it was Cane’s early guidance that was key to her overcoming it.
“Once I met Chris, I was very relaxed. I think it's because me and him have the same personality. We’re very similar,” Hix reasons. “So as soon as I met him all of my nervousness and all of my fears kind of just went away.”
“I have an excellent relationship with her,” Cane adds. “We’re as much friends as it is me working for her. I understand the pains and some of the things she goes through as talent, and she understands some of the things I go through while booking things. We’ll go out to lunch or dinner and discuss her career. I try to help her succeed.”
So far, so good.
Hix in May completed her move from LA to Las Vegas, taking her Husky/Akita dog Maya and three cats with her. The process of relocating kept her busy during the lockdown caused by coronavirus that was still largely in place at press time and has halted porn production since March. To finally settle into her new residence gave Hix a special sense of accomplishment after deciding she wanted to save money for a house two years ago.
“I’m still unpacking so at least I'm not going crazy by sitting and waiting for things,” Hix says. “I'm doing online shopping to furnish my place, so it's kind of exciting.”
Still though, Hix says not being on set with all her industry peers for three months is hard.
“Because I miss being around people. I'm very social,” she says.
The pandemic even interrupted one of her regular trips back to her hometown, a scenic city about 240 miles east of Vancouver that is surrounded by mountains, parks, lakes and vineyards.
“I'm so used to going out there maybe once every two months, so it really sucks because I get really homesick,” Hix says. “I try to go out there as much as I can.
“Right now I don't think I've gone back since Christmas. And I was about to drive there a week ago but my family's like, ‘We love you. But we're just worried that you're gonna give us corona.’ So I didn't end up going.”
Hix says what she misses most about Kelowna is “the lakes.”
“It's so beautiful,” she says. Hix likes to swim in the lakes at home, noting that her city is a “very relaxed and chill kind of vibe”—where the neighbors are friendly and “you could sleep with your doors unlocked.”
“It was very safe,” Hix says. “I had a good upbringing in my hometown. Everyone was so nice. That's the best way I can explain it.”
She credits platforms such as Snapchat—which she has monetized through FanCentro—with helping her attain another level of success in her journey. Some astute industry observers consider Hix’s premium Snap feed among the best in porn based on the way she mixes lifestyle moments with off-the-set sexual escapades.
"I wouldn't be where I'm at without it," Hix says. "It made me my own boss. It made me realize my worth. And I do love sharing my personality and my personal life with my fans. I feel like that's what they want to see."
Hix continues, “I think I've always been comfortable showing my personal life. My family's always like, ‘You shouldn't show that much. You should keep it private.’ But I'm an open book. And I feel like that makes me more personable and people can actually connect with me. When I see my fans at [the AVN Show] it's so easy to connect with them because they're like, ‘Oh, yeah your cat, Kevin…’ It’s like a conversation that we can just have.
“It’s never been hard for me to share my personal life. I love it. … It’s fun to share.”
When production resumes, Hix wants to land a star showcase—Evil Angel is on her radar—and maybe someday consider a business trip to Europe.
She enjoys being outdoors when she’s not on the set.
“I love going hiking and that's the reason I bought my house next to a hiking trail,” Hix says.
The performer, who will turn 23 in October, also often does "Netflix and chill by myself.”
“And I've recently gotten into cooking after this quarantine,” reveals Hix, who can play piano, too. “I feel like that's the only thing we can all do. And as boring as this sounds I love to clean. I'm like Monica off of Friends. It’s like a hobby.”
While Hix says she has matured as a person and as a performer during the past four years, she feels like the best is yet to come.
“I feel like I'm still learning about myself and learning different things,” Hix concludes. “The adult industry has definitely changed me. When I was new, I was very naive. I feel way more comfortable with who I am now.
“But I'm still trying to find who I am.”
Photography by Marcos Rivera
