James Deen Finally Speaks Out Following Rape Allegations
The porn world’s “boy next door” breaks his silence.
Since porn actress Stoya’s original allegation that her former boyfriend James Deen raped her, a total of nine women have come forward with similar claims of physical abuse to unwanted sex acts. While these claims vary, they all paint Deen — known as porn’s “boy next door” for his friendly and accessible demeanor — as a violent performer who often crosses boundaries. In the days that followed, companies have withdrawn support, websites have vowed to stop producing further scenes with him, and websites which he wrote for have pulled down the columns.
Now, Deen has finally broken his silence. In an interview with The Daily Beast, he addressed the accusation of sexual assault levied against him by Stoya, saying “I do not know at all. I am completely baffled” as to why she might have come forward. He then suggested that a possible motivation for her allegations was to “drive traffic to her new website.”
He continued to raised some claims of his own against her: “What I do know is that Stoya and I did not have a clean break up…She made threats towards me and harassed one of my employees. She spit at this employee as well as sending very inappropriate texts.”
But that’s not where his shifting of blame stops. Nicki Blue, one of the many performers to point a finger at Deen’s disrespect of boundaries, had said that one of the reasons she hadn’t spoken out during her alleged assault was because Deen was physically choking her. When asked how she could have possibly told him to”stop” in those circumstances, Deen replied “I would recommend the word ‘stop.’…The director checks in and then is supposed to fix any issue that is creating the need for a stop.”
The only admission Deen actually makes is to being a “jerk” and “insensitive,” potentially undermining the seriousness of these allegations, hoping to be forgiven for the errors of his wayward, youthful ways. “I will absolutely continue to apologize to her for being a shitty boyfriend,” he says of porn actress Joanna Angel.
There’s more. Porn production company Evil Angel, which recently told their other producers that they won’t sell any new scenes featuring Deen moving forward, did in fact cut distribution ties with Deen a year ago. But in the interview, Deen claims to have fired them. Perhaps the feeling was mutual. “We parted ways with him, frankly, because he was difficult to work with, and he felt that he was ‘too big’ for our way of doing business, which has been in place for 27 years,” Evil Angel CFO Adam Grayson tells Maxim.
We will continue to update this post with new information.
Photos by Manfred Segerer / Getty Images