A version of this article ran in the January 2020 issue of AVN magazine. Click here to see the digital edition. Photos courtesy Aiden Starr
Hanging out in downtown Los Angeles with Aiden Starr—could it get any better? Yes, it could. Because today the dynamo Evil Angel director is shooting a star showcase—the first one for her subject, trans performer Khloe Kay.
This may be Khloe Kay’s first star showcase, but that certainly isn’t the case for Starr. She’s already won critical acclaim for three Evil Angel showcases: Aubrey Kate: TS Superstar, Aubrey Kate Plus 8 and Chanel Santini: TS Superstar.
“I don’t do that many showcases—they’re enormous undertakings,” Starr says. “It’s heavy production value, it’s time intensive and time sensitive, and just crazy. There’s motorcycles and GoPros and drones and shooting on the street at night. It’s just crazy. I can’t do it every single time.”
But today she’s at it again, breaking out special lights, new equipment and a big cast for Trans Star: Khloe Kay.
The showcase features four scenes: twosomes with Dante Colle and Dana DeArmond, a gangbang (complete with double anal), and today’s scene: a threesome with Wolf Hudson and Michael DelRay.
“After we’re done shooting the sex we’re going to go out in the cityscape and shoot some exteriors,” Starr says. Kay will be wearing lingerie underneath a big overcoat as the small production team cruises the streets.
Khloe Kay
But inside, Starr is tinkering with lights, backdrops and furniture to get the set just right. “We’re going really, really dark for this scene with these crazy coil lights,” she says. She’s rented the latest Diva Ring Light and is using a bigger camera body. “It’s more ambitious, equipment wise, for sure. I shot one scene already.”
She looks forward to getting more ambitious with the showcases: “I like crazy lighting and droning music and crazy teases and nighttime sequences and big cameras and fucking ring lights and shit I don’t know how to use yet.” But at least she’s not shooting out in the desert, as was the case in Aubrey Kate: TS Superstar. “When we shot the Aubrey movie, there were flying fire ants, and I don’t need those ever again. They were all over, in the car. … I didn’t know they have flying fire ants.”
No fire ants today, but there will be visual fireworks. Starr has a chandelier that will be installed later in an all-white room for another scene. “I got very light crazy.” That scene will be called “Glass,” reflecting the mirrors and light fixtures used to set the mood. Kay will perform with Dana DeArmond, an “Evil Angel icon” and a longtime friend of Starr’s. “Her butt does crazy things,” Starr says with satisfaction.
“Dana’s super fucking excited to have sex with Khloe,” Starr says. “You can put Dana in everything. I’m hoping they will do some crazy butt acrobatics.”
Khloe Kay and Dana DeArmond
The gangbang scene, on the other hand, will be about darkness. “We’re going to black everything out and there are going to be red projection lights and crazy droning music—really dark and surrealistic and strange, but really fun.”
As for her star, “I love Khloe Kay. ... I felt Khloe was a good fit for me at this time,” Starr says.
The director enumerates Kay’s assets: “She is an amazing extrovert. She has such a wild personality. She’s also a little like me. I’m very attracted to really tall women, but I’m also attracted to women who are teeny tiny like me. So it’s nice to have that kind of balance. She has one of the greatest butts in the history of all butts. Her butt is so fucking beautiful. She has a striking look. She looks like a Kardashian to me. So it was, like, a dark, crazy Kardashian sex movie.”
The AVN Hall of Fame director confides, “Khloe and I really vibe on a special level. I shot her a ton of times. I shot her first gangbang. We both have the same idea of toeing the line between being glamorous and really trashy. We have an understanding. She gives it really hard in her scenes. She’s not fucking lazy. And she is like a mega slut and loves to fuck and suck cock, loves to get fucked, and she can’t come without something in her ass, so of course that makes me like her. I’m really into girls who like to have butt sex.”
Today, butt sex is definitely on the menu. But first there’s makeup and wardrobe. Starr says, “I want her to feel she’s happy with her makeup and feel good about it, and if she wants to change anything they have time to change it. She’s going to put 8,000 lotions on and feel all sexy. There’s like a process, girls getting ready in porn. … It’s ritualistic. Feeling sexy and creating sensuality and getting themselves in the mood. … I ask a lot of people—hey, double anal, you know. The more I ask out of people, the more time they need to center themselves.”
Wolf Hudson, Khloe Kay and Michael DelRay
DelRay and Hudson arrive shortly before the tease begins. Starr doesn’t want to keep the male performers waiting around. "If the guys are waiting, their energy gets low. They sit down, they get tired, they get sleepy. A lot of people go to the gym right before and get pumped because it makes their bodies look all pumped also, which I think is beautiful. And then they come right in and they can flirt with Khloe and get chemistry flowing. … I like the guys to interact for the shortest amount of time because I think it’s more explosive.”
Starr also puts a lot of thought into the cinematography. The tease sequence will be “stylized and fucking weird, shadowy and blown out, super dark and super contrasty. And then for the sex I like for it to be a little neater, because EA fans love that super neat hardcore,” she says. “We’re still going to give them the sex that they want because you can’t fuck with your fan base. ... Our fans are the ones who don’t steal porn. You can’t fuck with the people who spend the money.”
Kay has already caught the attention of fans and members of the adult community. Mile High Media had her sign last year at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo for TransSensual and TransErotica, and she was up for for Best Transsexual Sex Scene at the 2019 AVN Awards. And this year she’s again signing for Mile High and also Adult Time, and she’s a nominee for Transgender Performer of the Year.
But being on set today, as the center of attention, is “a little surreal. I feel like I’m only a year and a half in and everything’s happened so quickly. It’s humbling, you know.”
Kay first shot with Starr in October of 2018. “We work really well together. I think she’s an amazing director. She’s super sweet. She’s good to her models. She’s been one,” Kay says.
On top of that, she says, “I love shooting for Evil Angel. I love the gonzo style. I think you can really go for it and do your own kind of work and incorporate it as opposed to doing someone else’s vision. I like doing story-driven kinds of scenes but my favorite is just to do whatever I want to do and have someone just capture it.”
Kay was born in Las Vegas and still lives there. It was a fairly easy place to grow up as a trans person, she says. “It’s a tourist town. So they see everything. Everyone just doesn’t judge anybody. You can kind of be yourself. It’s very cultured, I would say. We have like a really big LGBTQ community there, so everyone’s super accepting about it.”
Kay recalls the exact date she started in the industry: June 4, 2018. Her first scene was with Christian XXX. The second was with Devil’s Film. “I shot for Jim Powers. I got the cover of that DVD and I was nominated for an AVN Award. My second scene ever got nominated. So that’s kind of cool.”
She first shot with Starr on October 4, 2018. “I think it was for TS Heartbreakers. It was on my birthday. It was awesome.” And Starr also shot her first big group scene in TS Gangbangs 2.
Khloe Kay's showcase includes a gangbang with (clockwise from bottom left) Michael DelRay, Johnny Hill, Pierce Paris and Dillon Diaz.
This showcase features Kay in a variety of scenes, which reflects what she likes. “I want to work with everybody.”
Kay admits she’s a little nervous about doing double anal for the first time. But she loves gangbangs. “I feel like I’m in my comfort zone. Even when I did my first gangbang, all the fans were like, ‘You seem so comfortable.’ … All the attention the men give me. I like being the one female all the guys dominate.”
Asked what she likes best about being a porn star, Kay says, “being in an industry where people love you for you. Not many trans people are loved.” She has found a community “where you have so many people who love you because you’re trans or look forward to your work because you’re trans. It’s awesome.”
As for what is the most challenging aspect, she says, “You have to watch what you say. … That’s the most challenging, because I have a big opinion about a lot of things and I like to voice my opinion. I think it’s my Italian side.”
Instead, she stays focused on giving the fans what they want on social media: “They follow me for pornographic reasons so I try to cater toward my fans as much as possible.” She also engages fans through OnlyFans and her own website, which is produced by Las Vegas-based TransErotica. Kay says TransErotica Director of Operations Dan Hogue “helped me a lot in the beginning. … It started off kind of gonzo and we moved it a little more story driven. It sets the mood so there’s something to go off of.”
Trans Superstar Khloe Kay is available now from Evil Angel.
