This feature appears in the December issue of AVN magazine.
LOS ANGELES—If an aura can be a vibe, then that vibe is named Zariah (pronounced like “Mariah”). Ready to let her star shine, Zariah Aura first appeared on the studio scene in 2022 for Grooby and, since then, has been rising and sparkling along the way with positivity and gratitude.
“I took the jump,” Aura told AVN. “I wanted to experience the L.A. lifestyle. I came out and I was doing just some OnlyFans work. And then I started doing porn with Grooby. I ended up just deciding I wanted to stay out here. It was much easier than traveling back and forth. Then I worked with Devil's Film and then Evil Angel, and then it took off from there.
“It's been the best decision I've ever made,” she added.
Before arriving in L.A. three years ago with her bags and an OnlyFans account, Aura is originally from Texas, but grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
She wasn’t always so obviously a performer. Starting out as a drag artist in 2018, when the pandemic hit in 2020, she was forced indoors and, like so many others, started experimenting with her sexuality online. In the beginning, she said she was quite shy and used the OnlyFans platform to become more confident.
“I started transitioning in 2021, at the beginning of the year, and started to show my face. Because, at first, I was just showing my body—I was a faceless creator. And then I finally started to show myself as a trans woman. People loved it, and then I took the jump.”
Since her professional debut, Aura has earned more than two dozen nominations from top awards and been recognized for scene work. She won Best New Face at the 2023 Trans Erotica Awards and the TEA’s 2024 Hardcore Performer of the Year trophy. She is now also a brand ambassador for leading trans label Grooby Productions—and she loves being watched.
“I am a big attention whore, so I love, love, love eyes all over me,” Aura revealed. “I love people staring at me, down the street. So, I already was doing, you know, live performing and doing stuff in clubs and in front of audiences. I just really wanted to do that.
“I wanted to be in front of people and it was very freeing. I found this confidence in myself outside of putting on this wig and makeup and stuff. I started to see myself, my real true self, which is just this very hypersexual being. I've always been very hypersexual my whole life and so being able to express that freely was really, really important for me.
“And I just needed to be seen,” she added. At 5-foot-10, the statuesque brunette is hard to miss. On-screen, her natural acting style leans into a talent for hardcore performances.
Aura said she feels seen and feels that it’s important for people who are transitioning or even just curious to see positive models of trans life and, more than ever, as part of real life.
“I feel like cis people nowadays are opening up their minds and diving into feminine and masculine attributes of themselves due to people being able to show themselves in this day and age. It brings up a lot of different things that you might not have thought even about yourself. I have men who come up to me and just being myself has shown them, ‘Oh my God, like I didn't know that like it was okay for guys to wear nail polish,’—because they're not seeing me as a man, but they're hearing me as a woman talking about how I think it's so sexy when a man wears nail polish and when he does makeup, and they're like, ‘Oh really? That's okay?’
“Then you have other women, cis and trans, who are saying, ‘Yeah there's nothing wrong with showing that feminine side of yourself.’ So, men are now starting to find a feminine side of themselves that they never knew was there, or that they weren't allowed to express because they've been told they can't show emotions. They can't wear that shirt because it's for girls. They can't wear that color because it's for girls.
“When you have people out there doing things that are outside of the norm, outside of the box, it really helps everybody,” she said.
Growing up in Colorado Springs, Aura was confronted by ugly reality with the 2022 mass shooting at Club Q that made national headlines when five clubgoers were killed and 17 injured. The shooter was finally subdued by two people in the crowd, an Army veteran and a club performer.
“We only had our one safe space and that was Club Q,” Aura recalled. “And of course, they messed that up, you know, with what happened with the shooting and stuff. So, it's horrible. Yeah, those were my friends. That's where I started drag. That's where I started my whole everything. I lived across the street from there. Club Q is still home for so many of us and even though it's not open now...”
After moving out west, Los Angeles feels like home for the starlet on the ascent.
“I know that I have this community here and I don't think I've ever experienced so many trans people in my life, than moving to California. It's the mecca for trans people. This is where all of us are and it's where we thrive.
“We run shows, we run businesses, we model, we get in front of cameras, we do all the things here. I think when you come to L.A., you get to see the real world. Because you have a mixing pot of just all the culture, all of the different kinds of people, different kinds of ways of living, the clean eating, and just all of it,” she said with a smile.
“I just feel like I've been thrust into a new way of living and I don't ever want to go back.”
As awards season commences, Aura is currently nominated at the 2026 AVN Awards in the following categories: Trans Performer of the Year, Best Trans Acting Performance, Best Trans Group Sex Scene, Best Trans One-on-One Sex Scene and Best Foursome/Orgy Scene.
For more, follow Aura on X.com and visit her OnlyFans page.
Photography by @kogafoto
