Janine \nVAN NUYS, CA - Vivid Video is still declining detailed comment, but top contract girl Janine has confirmed - she's leaving the adult video business to pursue a career as a kindergarten teacher and concentrate on raising her eight-year-old son.
Vivid Video spokesman Brian Gross - who earlier said he could not confirm or deny Janine's rumored departure - since says Vivid has no comment, "(and) that's all I have." But Vivid head Steve Hirsch says they'll stand by her decision.
In a conversation with our Gene Ross today, Janine says her departure was really a question of reality check. "The whole Janine persona-thing never really fit well with me," she tells Ross. "…I just kind of want to get rid of that. (And) it seems that the more money you make, the more problems that come along."
The 30-year-old, seven-year Vivid veteran says she'll go to Sacramento, continue some adult dancing, and phase herself out of adult entertainment.
"My son's 8, and I got to…address what's been happening for these last seven years," she says. "A couple of years down the road he's going to want to know, and I'd like to say it was something I had done in the past. I don't regret doing it, but it's just not where I'm at, now."
She tells Ross she's always wanted to teach kindergarten. "It was always a fear that I'd be rejected as a school teacher," she says, because parents might say a porn star can't teach their children, "but I'm going to try, anyway."
But she may also try to keep open a chance to do some mainstream film work in the future as well, she says, though she adds quickly she's not unrealistic about it.
Speculation had been snaking around the Internet that Janine might be waving porn goodbye, ever since she apparently dropped a tantalizing hint about it during a live online chat appearance last weekend.
