This is the cover story of the January issue of AVN magazine.
LOS ANGELES—No matter what she’s doing, Kayley Gunner tends to find the humor in it.
“I think that’s my issue,” she says. “I like to make people laugh. So when I’m on set they’re like, ‘Hey, you’re supposed to be hot’—and I’m trying to be like a funny, blonde bimbo.
“They’re like, ‘Be sexy.’”
Five years into her thriving porn career, Gunner glides between both—going from comic relief to glamorous sex symbol—often in the same scene.
It’s one of the reasons why the former cam model and Army Sergeant from Hawaii aligns so well with Brazzers, where she’s been headlining productions as an exclusive contract star since May 2024.
“I’m just putting my all into my scenes lately and I feel like it comes with the confidence that I’ve gained,” Gunner tells AVN. “And I think Brazzers really has something to do with that because they do give me that creative freedom and make me feel so comfortable. So I’m really proud of my scenes, lately… I’m like, is that me?”
Without question, Gunner has come into her own with Brazzers—the industry powerhouse with which she has racked up almost 60 of her 390-plus credits since her splashy porn debut in 2020. Kayley starred in 21 scenes in 2025 alone on ZZ. In her most recent outing she channels Cowboys cheerleader vibes in a locker-room boff with Derek Savage.
“Kayley had been on our production’s radar the moment she stepped on the scene in 2020,” a Brazzers rep tells AVN. “She brings a classic elegance that we don’t often see in the industry landscape today. It didn’t take long to see that not only does Kayley have the right look, but also the intensity and energy in her scene work that was deserving of having the contract conversation.
“The sky truly is the limit for her.”
Gunner landed her first opportunity with Brazzers during her rookie year, squaring off with Brazzers super stud, Keiran Lee, in a scene titled “Gift That Keeps on Fucking.”
She tells AVN that Lee, the man with the million-dollar penis, was “one of the first people to really believe in me.”
“Because every time I was on a Brazzers set with him, I would tell him, I want to be a Brazzers girl so bad,” Kayley recalls. “And he always told me, ‘You can do it, I don’t see why not.’ … And I think because of that push, it helped me get to where I am today.”
The British charmer Lee, who was a 2022 inductee into the AVN Hall of Fame, tells AVN, “Back in COVID, when the world was shut down and everything felt uncertain, we shot our first Brazzers scene together—raw, quiet, no noise around us.
“And in that moment, I saw it clear as day. Not just talent, but presence. The kind you can’t teach and only a few have. Kayley carried herself like a future star in every scene after that. Five years on, that spark I saw hasn’t changed—it’s just grown brighter.”
Brazzers veteran producer/director Lea Lexis agrees, telling AVN that Gunner has become a seasoned professional who always delivers.
“Kayley is a beautiful girl,” Lexis says. “The camera loves her, but there is also a softness that comes through that makes her even more eye-catching. In the last few years I’ve seen her ambition and drive crystallize and she definitely knows what she wants.
“You can absolutely understand why fans get obsessed with her. There is a bit of ‘giving it her all but also not fully letting go’ that I think leaves the viewers always wanting more.”
Gunner won her first AVN trophy for her performance in the sensational Brazzers “20 for 20” orgy that was named the Best Foursome/Orgy Scene at the 2025 AVN Awards Show.
A year earlier, she took the AVN stage with her fellow cast and crew members from Digital Playground’s Machine Gunner to celebrate the Grand Reel award—the industry’s highest honor for a narrative movie—at the 2024 ceremony.
This month Gunner will roll into Las Vegas with four individual nominations for the 2026 AVN Awards Show, including Best Three-Way Sex Scene for her terrific throw-down with Luna Star and Christian Clay in Brazzers’ “Make ‘Em Squirt!”; and Best Solo/Tease Performance for her tantalizing seduction in ZZ’s “Big Titty Threesome” with Violet Myers. In addition, Gunner will contend for the Favorite Female Porn Star and Most Spectacular Boobs awards that are voted on the fans.
She tells AVN the three-way with Luna Star and Christian Clay—which was directed by Toni Ribas—was “a ridiculous scene, in a good way.”
“That was a dream scene for me,” says Gunner, who admired Star before she even got into adult and since has become a dear friend. “It was so good. Oh my god, I remember Luna was giving me squirting techniques. On set, she was giving me tips and showing me what to do and how I would get some range. And then there’s Christian Clay. He’s an amazing performer. He really brought it out of me.”
Luna Star, the ZZ exclusive who co-hosted the 2024 AVN Awards Show and was on the cover of the June 2023 issue of AVN magazine, tells AVN that Kayley “has this aura around herself.”
“She’s so classy and such a hard worker,” Luna says. “She has an aesthetic about her that nobody can measure. I just love her. She’s been there for me, I’ve been there for her.
“She’s just so good at touching people’s heart… I hope we can be friends for the rest of our lives.”
The Italian deal-closer Clay, who is the 2025 International Male Performer of the Year, had never met Kayley or Luna before their three-way.
“When I first saw Kayley—blonde, beautiful, big boobs, big ass—I was like wow, today I’m going to have a lot of fun,” Clay tells AVN. “But I was not expecting she was then nasty. And I know of Luna Star, but I don’t really know her, so I would not expect she was such a good performer—very beautiful, angel face and very nasty.”
“It’s always nice to shoot for this kind of a story that Brazzers does,” Clay adds. “Then the scene start to be a crazy mess. Everything was beautiful. The girls start to squirt like crazy and kissing. That scene was wonderful. Everything was perfect, the location, the vibes, everything…”
Gunner tells AVN even though she wasn’t the most studious kid growing up in Hawaii, often skipping school to go surfing, she still managed to graduate one year early.
During what would’ve been her senior year, she took waitressing jobs while trying to figure out her next move. Then her parents divorced, lost their house and everything changed.
“A reality check hit and I was like no one’s paying for me to go to college and I have to figure out how to navigate the world on my own,” Kayley recalls.
“And then my parents told me about the Army. I tried to join the Air Force, but I wasn’t smart enough. So the Air Force was like, try the Army, and it worked.”
Already fit from being on the cheerleading team, Gunner not only had what it took to make it in the Army, she even emerged as a leader.
“I looked at the Army standards for the physical part and I exceeded it before I joined,” she says. “I would run every day and do sit-ups and push-ups. Eventually, I was doing more than the guys. Because my dad and mom kind of told me, when you’re a female in that kind of field, you don’t want anyone to have any room to judge you or belittle you.
“So I made sure I was the strongest female so that when I went in, nobody could say shit to me.”
Gunner tells AVN she was based in a combat unit in Hawaii for her initial four-year contract. By her fifth year she had earned a promotion to sergeant, overseeing the training for four soldiers while she was stationed at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif.
But what her superiors didn’t know was that she also was moonlighting as a cam girl after finding out about MyFreeCams from one of the military wives.
“And she showed me camming and I went home and I did it with her when I was still serving, which is like a big no-no,” Kayley explains. “But I was like, wow, the money you’re making in one hour is like what I make in a week. It was insane.”
Gunner streamed on MFC and sometimes CamSoda.
“I would wake up at 5 a.m., do PT and then I would go to work until 5 p.m. and I would get off, and then I would hop on cam until like midnight. And I’d do it every day, secretly,” Gunner reveals. “And I made so much money. So I was like, you know what, I can actually afford to go to school. And when the pandemic hit, I was like, OK, I guess I have to cam full time because I can’t just go get a normal job.
“Especially in the Bay Area, during that time all the businesses were shut down. And then school was online, and I already hated school. So the fact that it was online was terrible because I’m a social person, I need to be in an environment with other people. So then my cam fans were like, ‘You’re so good at this, why don’t you try porn?’ And they started giving me links to AVN.com and they were like, go on AVN and look for agents, like look for legit porn. They took care of me. It was like a friendship…
“To this day the people who are my most loyal fans are the ones who saw me cam back at the beginning. And they come to all the AVNs and all the conventions and they’re like, ‘I remember when you were just a cam girl.’”
Gunner says the day after receiving her honorable discharge, COVID hit.
“Which is a huge shock because when you get out of the military, it’s already scary. And then on top of that, I couldn’t go be a waitress like I was before,” she says.
Kayley managed to do about 25 pro scenes during her pandemic-shortened first year—more than enough to establish herself as one of adult’s most promising newcomers. In 2021, she did more than 100 scenes, figuring out the industry landscape at her own pace. As she looks back on those early days, she says there never was anything resembling a five-year plan—in fact, there was no plan at all.
“I didn’t know that I was going to make it one year,” Gunner says. “I just thought, I’ll just jump in and see what happens. But then as soon as people started recognizing me, I had soldiers reach out to me after my first scene. Because the first scene I did was titled like ‘Machine Gunner’ or something like that. But people in the military started talking about it.
“And so I had soldiers reach out to me and just say, wow, we’re actually really proud of you. And I didn’t expect that reaction. Even my family messaged me that they were really proud of me. And I think without their support, who knows where I would be? But that was like a green light for me.
“It was like I need to go hard and make them proud. I’m going to be the best I can and maybe someday become a Brazzers contract star. And then I just went for it.”
Did she ever.
Now Gunner is becoming known not only for her must-see ZZ TV, but also her regular appearances in mainstream comedy skits, where she has collaborated on viral videos with comedians such as Trevor Wallace and streamer Kai Cenat. She gets recognized the most from the skit she did with Wallace in the fall of 2024, poking fun at guys who drive Tesla Cybertrucks.
Fellow Brazzers contract star Ricky Johnson has taken notice of Gunner’s comic flair.
“Kayley is one of the funniest performers I know,” Johnson tells AVN. “She has amazing timing with her jokes and her dark humor is so funny because she’s drop-dead gorgeous. She has this superstar aura about her to where she can catch everyone’s attention in a room so effortlessly. It makes sense as to why Brazzers contracted her. She’s extremely fun and easy to work with and always a pleasure to be around.”
It comes as no surprise that Gunner is widely respected by her peers; and she’s forged friendships with many of the women whom she looked up to many years ago.
“Kayley is the definition of an adult film superstar—smart, driven, disciplined, and deeply committed to perfecting her craft,” AVN Hall of Fame performer Nikki Benz tells AVN. “From the moment I met her, I knew she was destined to become a household name.
“I see a lot of myself in her. Kayley knows exactly what she wants and goes after it without hesitation. I’m incredibly proud of her and of the place she’s earned in the adult industry. She’s also grown tremendously as a content creator, sharpening her voice, her brand, and her impact.”
Nikki adds, “She has so much more to offer to the industry in the years to come. I can’t wait to witness her journey. I’m proud to call her a friend.”
Adult star Savannah Bond, who graced the cover of AVN magazine in July 2022, calls Gunner “incredibly hardworking and dedicated, with great taste.”
“She’s truly one of a kind, and I always have so much fun with her,” Bond tells AVN. “We clicked right away when we met—which is rare in LA—and we’ve been close ever since. I think it’s because she’s genuinely down-to-earth, yet she also keeps the bigger picture in mind and is always setting goals to grow and evolve as a person. We motivate each other and inspire each other.”
Brazzers contract performer Xander Corvus teamed with Gunner on an homage to Pamela Anderson & Tommy Lee—doing a scene where they get nasty in a bar.
“Absolute champion, Kayley,” Corvus tells AVN. “Looks like a goddess, fucks like a succubus. Chef’s kiss…”
Gunner, who also is a Fleshlight Girl, is preparing for a big week in Vegas, Jan. 21-24. For starters, she modeled in the ad campaign for the 2026 AVN Show for her second straight year. And she also will be the official AVN Awards Show red carpet co-host along with Jasmine Sherni.
Not bad for someone who felt like “an underdog” for the first three-plus years of her industry journey.
“I don’t know if it was Brazzers reaching out to me or what, but something just clicked and now I’m so confident with where I am and comfortable on set,” says Gunner, who at press time had accumulated more than a million followers on Instagram and another 663K on X. “And I feel like it shows in my performances, too.
“I feel like it took me time to feel comfortable in my own body and I feel like I’m there. I’m really confident and I think that’s because of this job.
“Porn has made me the most confident version of myself.”
Photography by @benjixbenji
