This is the cover story of the August issue of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital edition.
LOS ANGELES — Whitney Wright calls them “peak moments.”
When she recognizes one, she savors it.
“Like being a Twistys Treat, or Cherry of the Month for CherryPimps,” Wright says. “Those were peaks when I first got in.”
Wright reached another personal milestone in May, when the iconic French studio Dorcel flew her to Paris, France, to star in a full-length feature.
The former nursing student from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, performs in four sex scenes in Whitney Desires of Submission, commanding the lead role of an American filmmaker working to adapt a successful book.
“To shoot for Dorcel in Paris—I was telling my friend—this is a huge deal,” Wright says. “They’ve only done this for certain people.”
But now almost six years after her debut, the enterprising Spiegler Girl continues to prove she’s one of the most versatile talents in the adult industry today—a creative force who can carry a high-stakes drama, perform hardcore sex, write twisted screenplays and direct movies with equal precision.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to say Wright even surprised herself with what she has achieved since Day 1 in September 2016.
“It’s crazy to think about,” Whitney says. “It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long. I always knew I wanted to be with Spiegler—I did know that. I knew I wanted to work. And I knew I wanted to keep on building towards something.
“… I don’t know if directing was necessarily something in my mind at the time. But I always did want to keep building momentum—I did know that. I didn’t just want to stay in one place. But I think looking back I’m definitely grateful.
“It’s crazy to think of everything that led up to that and everything that’s happened since. But Spiegler has been amazing—he’s been so amazing.”
Wright is referring to Mark Spiegler, the AVN Hall of Fame agent who has guided seven of the past nine winners of the AVN Female Performer of the Year award. Spiegler agreed to represent Wright on November 12, 2017.
“I remember the day, too,” Whitney says.
“She’s the consummate professional,” Spiegler tells AVN. “She does great scenes, she’s super smart, she can act and she’s also a great director. She covers the gamut from A to Z pretty much.”
He adds, “She kind of had it in her but to be honest, she needed a little push. Once she got going, she really went.”
Did she ever.
After joining Spiegler Girls—another benchmark in her industry journey—Wright says the new opportunities came early and often.
“Oh yeah, he pushed me,” she says. “Once I got with Spiegler I already had been in for a year and I literally took off. Companies that I always wanted to shoot for but never had the access to wanted to book me. Doors opened up. So I’m so grateful.
“I met people from there.”
People such as Bree Mills, the chief creative officer for Adult Time who is the mastermind behind blue-chip studio labels such as PureTaboo and Girlsway.
It didn’t take long for Mills to realize Wright possessed a flair for acting as she cast her several times in unconventional scenarios for the unapologetically dark PureTaboo. At press time Whitney had racked up a whopping 29 credits for PureTaboo since 2018, and another four for sister site Girlsway, where she was crowned Girl of the Month in June 2018.
“When I think of Whitney and the timeline of everything, we really in a way kind of came up at the same time—between 2016 to 2019, those few pre-pandemic years,” Mills tells AVN.
“She was one of those key players. I always like to think of having a close roster of people I work with a lot, especially during that time, and she was definitely one of them. So when I think about my own career and the milestones that I achieved, her face and her presence and her energy and her talent were very much part of my own journey.”
Mills continues, “So when I think about Whitney, especially in those years, I think about somebody I could approach with any crazy idea. Some of them were pretty crazy and I remember a few of them in particular being kind of infamous and writing her… Like I would have an idea for a story and before I went too far I would stop and I would write her and say like, ‘Hey, listen… this is the idea I have for a story but I’m definitely not going to do it unless you’re into it and you’re down for it.’ And I remember there was one particularly infamous one where she said, ‘As long as I don’t go to the emergency room we’re good.’”
Mills added, “I always was impressed by how funny she was.”
Abigail Mac knows Wright’s sense of humor as well as anyone. She got away with cracking a raw egg on Whitney’s forehead in 2019, when they were making TikTok’s with Luna Star.
Everyone knows Wright always is up for a good laugh.
“I’ve met a lot of great people,” Whitney says. “I love it out here. And I love being in the industry.
“And I’m still friends with the people I met—not like when I was first coming in—but when you like fish through the party friends and you actually find your good, good friends in LA.”
Friends like Mac, who moved to Miami last year but remains one of Wright’s most enthusiastic supporters. The 10-year industry veteran from Baltimore calls Whitney “an unstoppable force” and “the life of the party.”
“When I first met Whitney and saw her and performed with her, I knew she was going to do something big with her career,” Abigail tells AVN. “I thought she had a fantastic look and a fantastic attitude and one thing I always told her is she has this unique, amazing personality that needs to be shared with the world.
“She’s hilarious, witty and smart. I feel like everybody needs to experience Whitney.”
“Abi was one of my first really good friends,” Wright adds. “Even when I was brand new when I had first signed with Spiegler I remember talking to her and she was like so nice, when I was essentially like no one really. I didn’t have like a name.
“And she was such an inspiration. She was always just positive when I was talking to her. She would tell me, ‘You can make your own name. You can make your own rate. You can demand this… You can basically have your cake and eat it too in the industry—like the world is yours, if you want it.’
“So she’s been amazing. I love her.”
As Wright diversified her resume, delivering in acting roles that were both lighthearted and serious, she also blossomed as a sexual athlete. The performer at press time had racked up almost 740 credits, according to IAFD, including more than 160 anal scenes—and almost two dozen DPs for some of the biggest gonzo porn producers in the world.
“Whitney Wright is one of the most versatile performers out there,” says AVN Hall of Fame producer/director Jules Jordan, who has produced and/or directed at least 10 anal scenes featuring Wright since 2018. “She is a great actress and an anal gonzo superstar. We have and will always cherish her performances for JJV.”
Wright also has amassed close to 60 directing credits—more than 40 for story-driven, heavyweight studios such as MissaX, AllHerLuv and PureTaboo—since her breakout year as a shot-caller in 2019.
Her first directorial effort for Dorcel, Vanna 4 You, came out in November and her next one, a feature titled Torn, is set for release in the first week of August.
Wright shot Torn in November in L.A., casting Skye Blue, Ana Foxxx, Damon Dice, Dante Colle, Gianna Dior, Aria Lee and Violet Starr.
“Skye Blue is the main character. It’s really like about how Skye and Ana fall for each other,” she says.
Whitney admits that writing and directing a love story for Dorcel was somewhat of a departure from a lot of the more “sinister” fare for which she has become known.
“And the characters have always been a little bit more—or a lot more—deceptive, kind of driven by their own selfish desires,” she says.
Wright took on the controversial topic of conversion therapy in The Path to Forgiveness in 2019 for MissaX’s all-girl studio AllHerLuv. Then in the suspense thriller Adelaide for MissaX—which Wright shot that same year— the title character (Gianna Dior) broke up a marriage.
“I like writing darker things like that,” Whitney says.
“So writing this one where I have to make the plot a love story was a challenge, but I liked it.
“It was something I had to step back and look at and be like, ‘No, people don’t say that.’ But it was fun for me. I still got to include some drama in it.”
Dorcel is happy with the results—to say the least.
“Whitney Wright is a great actress and it was with Adelaide, the movie produced by MissaX for which we are exclusive distributors, that we discovered another facet of her talent as a directress,” Gregory Dorcel, chairman and president of Dorcel, tells AVN. “We were blown away by the professional maturity, which was obvious on screen, so we suggested to Whitney to write and direct an American-style feature movie, mixed with the DNA of our own productions.
“So was created Torn, her first collab with Dorcel as a directress. We are thrilled with the result and with this first collaboration. Whitney is, without a doubt, an extremely talented directress!
“Also, as she says herself, her situation as a ‘still working actress’ is interesting because it allows a respectful, serious and complicit relationship on set between her and the artists. So many values and commitments that we share and defend at Dorcel.”
The AVN Hall of Fame executive continues, “Then, last spring, Whitney honored us with her presence in Paris to shoot, this time as an actress, in several Dorcel projects including Whitney Desires of Submission, one of our most popular series in which she will be the heroine.
“And again, it was a pleasure to work with Whitney. It'll always be!”
Veteran stud Kristof Cale agrees. The seasoned performer from Czech Republic played Whitney’s husband—a screenwriter—in Desires of Submission. The pair shared a lot of screen time, including two sex scenes—one of which also included Yanick Shaft, Axel Reed and Ricky Mancini—in May in Paris. When they weren’t on screen, they shared a couple meals together off the set.
“My experience with Whitney was very good,” Cale, who started his porn career in 2004 and has more than 1500 credits, tells AVN. “Working with her was very easy and I enjoyed all because she helped me in story lines a lot.
“The highlight with Whitney? Honestly her sexuality is very good and I enjoyed a lot, but best part was when we were in the club and we shoot in club—three guys and Whitney.
“Whitney is calm person, but she knows when ‘to be here.’ She was always polite and very friendly with me!”
Cale, who worked in a carpet store before adult, points to how level-headed Wright was throughout the entire production.
“She did not stress when I missed something or I did not say my line how it was exactly,” he adds. “And she was always polite with me and trying to explain me how to manage my lines. We practice before shooting which helped me a lot also.”
Cale admits he had no idea who Wright was before the shoot.
“Honestly, I am not watching porn and I am very bad with social media so I never heard about Whitney before we met in Paris,” he confesses. “But I felt she is a nice person from the beginning. That’s why I asked her if she want to spend some time together like as friends after the shooting. I am not French, she is not French. So like two foreigners we matched perfectly I guess.”
Indeed, it was another trip abroad that Wright will never forget—in part because just two days before she arrived in the French capital she thought there was a chance she wouldn’t make it there.
In a freak accident, Wright had just stepped out of her friend’s apartment in Morocco to walk to a restaurant when she fell through a hole in the ground that was covered by a doormat. She suffered big scratches on her right leg from the fall.
“The building managers of [my friend’s] apartment had covered up a hole in the ground with a doormat because they did not want to fix it,” Wright says. “They didn’t put up a sign. They didn’t put up anything. Two days before I fly to Paris.
“At the time I didn’t know if it had gone to the bone. It’s like a rusty metal hole in the ground. … It literally looked like I had been in a wreck.”
Wright offered to postpone the trip, but Team Dorcel wanted the show to go on, deciding they’d be able to cover her scratches with makeup and stockings.
“There was one time where I looked at it and I started to like tear up because… I don’t know, I don’t consider myself dramatic but it all just started to get to be like too much,” Whitney says. “Because I had been like dreaming of this… and everything had been going perfectly until two days before Paris and now I look like I had been hit by a car. And that was just not the way I wanted to go to Paris with like a huge, giant thing.
“I wasn’t drunk off my ass and fucking around and doing somersaults in the street, it was a freak accident where I just fell in a hole and just like, oh god, I felt so bad.”
She adds, “All the lingerie looks great and everything but there’s not a single scene in the movie where I don’t have makeup and thigh-high black stockings.
“We did what we could under the circumstances.”
Wright says she was relieved that Dorcel responded the way they did.
“That was reassuring to me. Because yeah it wasn’t ideal for me to go in that way but I was a little emotional after that and I was like, ‘They’re gonna cancel the entire thing. I’m not gonna even get to go now.’ So going that way is better than not at all,” she adds. “The whole thing did turn out great. I can’t wait to see the photos.”
An avid traveler, Wright has visited more than 20 countries for leisure—and she goes by herself. In addition to Morocco in the spring, she has visited Belize, Brazil, the Middle East, Thailand, Korea—and several places in Europe. She would like to go to Ecuador, Japan, Vietnam and Iran in the future.
“I really love the Middle East,” Whitney says. “I also think there’s a ton of South America and Asia that I haven’t seen yet.
“And I love Mexico.”
She went to Guadalajara, Mexico, in July for the first time to shoot her AVN cover at a penthouse overlooking the city.
As usual, she traveled solo.
“I extended my trip because I was having so much fun,” Whitney says. “It has a really fun nightlife scene, a lot of museums. It’s a really culturally diverse city.
“There’s a lot of really good restaurants and food. It has a lot of beautiful churches and old buildings there. I think that my first night I went out just for dinner and I ended up just meeting people and then went bar hopping with them. And I didn’t go to sleep until 8 a.m.
“I hung out with those same people for like three days. It was cool. The people there are so nice, too.”
Wright says she’s part of a solo women’s travel group on Facebook.
“I wish more people would do it,” Whitney says. “If I can do it, anyone can do it. If you want to, don’t put road blocks in the way.”
She tells AVN her wanderlust has made her wiser and kept her grounded.
“It makes me appreciative of other countries. It makes me see other countries in a new light,” Whitney says. “I always am going to fantasize about just selling everything and moving to Marrakesh or somewhere in Mexico or something. But also it makes me really appreciate here, too.
“I do love it here. I feel like it’s given me a lot of opportunities. I was just talking to the makeup artist in Guadalajara, telling her how it was for me going into the industry and how it’s been for the last six years. I was telling her how lucky I feel and how happy I am to be where I am now.”
In between her upcoming trips, Whitney wants to stay the course in adult.
“I’m definitely still continuing in the direction I’m going,” Wright says. “I don’t want to quit directing and writing any time soon. I’m not quitting OnlyFans, it’s like my bread and butter.
“And then performing—I still like performing because I feel like it helps build my brand as well and that’s kind of how new fans discover you on different sites. And I love performing.
“I don’t see myself stopping those any time soon but then I also want to keep traveling and doing all of that.”
Whitney says ideally she someday would like to start her own small business.
“I think of having like a rooftop restaurant or bar—I know it sounds farfetched—in like Mexico or Marrakesh. Just like a place that I love going to,” she says. “Sometimes I can literally see myself living here six months and there six months. That would be the dream to me if I could just do that.”
Photography by @el.bojorquez