Hey Hey, My My: This is the story of Bonnie Rotten [interview]

I talked with Bonnie Rotten about knowing she was sexy, and how she chose to use that knowledge for good and not evil.

Here’s the thing about growing older (I’m now 23): You notice the younger people who have the savvy, sass, and sobriety to make the world interesting after you’re dead. I knew Bonnie Rotten was someone to pay attention to when I heard her say, “I want your fat cock in my 19-year-old ass.”

The movie was Mike Adriano’s “Tattooed Anal Sluts” [see Fleshbot review], a POV endeavor, and we hear Adriano saying, “Please don’t stop telling me how old you are.”

How did Rotten know to address the porn consumer’s need to recharge his mortality by referring to the age of her ass?

“Men are my fans,” she says. “I’ve been modeling since I was 16, and I know they like me. I can’t pretend that they don’t, but I’m not going to get a big head about it. I’ll just say it’s always been insane and I appreciate it.”

Rotten grew up in the Cincinnati area and landed early modeling work at the massive car show Autorama. She began dancing at 18, working in the Dayton club managed by Tim Case, who is married to fellow Ohioan porn star (Ret.) Felicia Fox.

“And I started writing to Nina Hartley a year ago,” she says, “just asking her all sorts of questions about the porn business. I told her ‘I really want to do this.’ Then I sent her this ridiculous list of things I wouldn’t do, like ‘No Boy/Girl’ and ‘No Midgets.’

“And Nina says, ‘Uhh, until you’re ready to do boy/girl you have no point in being in this business.'”

So what changed her mind?

“I just realized that she was right.”

Rotten did her research, and appreciates the mentorship of veteran photographer Ken Marcus in helping her navigate Porn Valley’s muddy passes.

“Ken Marcus has been a wonderful bug in my ear providing me with knowledge that most 19-year-olds would be lucky to hear. He has taught me different ways to handle people, about business, about bondage and techniques, and the weird and kinky.”

Rotten doesn’t hang around with other performers too much, she says, but admires Lisa Ann for her business acumen and Janine Lindemulder for being “a beautiful tattooed woman who didn’t get categorized as just a “tattooed broad” but as [someone] who could do extraordinary things.”

Rotten landed in Porn Valley in March of 2012, having decided to represent herself. It is rare for a porn hopeful to book jobs without representation from one of the handful of porn talent agents in town, but she got work quickly.

“I’m going to set up my own Go Sees (the Porn Valley term for meeting with studios, producers, and directors), and be selective,” she says. “I’m not the kind of girl to do 40 scenes a month.”

While “Tattooed Anal Sluts” was a great (if on the nose) introduction to Rotten’s blend of Irish, German, Polish, tattoos, and anal, it was Digital Sin’s star vehicle “Meet Bonnie” that was unprecedented.

If the witches from “MacBeth” were Belladonna, Bobbi Starr, and Stoya, their brunette creation would likely be Bonnie Rotten.

“They took a huge chance on me,” says Rotten of the 4-scene Eddie Powell movie, which spends a long time just letting Rotten talk. She is charming and self-assured throughout (she just won Miss Congeniality at the stripper-centric NightMoves Awards in Tampa), and looks utterly at home.

Speaking of home, how did her family react to her jump from car show pin-up to porn cover girl?

“Oh, they really weren’t that surprised,” she says. She talks to her “Gramaw” often and has dissuaded her father from coming to the AVN Awards (“I told him No Way,” she says, “that would be too weird”).

Rotten goes about the business of her newfound fame with a little smile, something also apparent in her movies.

“I’m not trying to be Scarlett Johanssen,” she says. “If anything, I’m really bad at acting (*NOTE: I do not believe this, and immediately offered her a part in my porn version of “Suspiria,” which she accepted), but I’m happy to be doing what I’m doing.”

What about the Hollywood Dream-lite that is being an in-demand teen porn star?

“Ugh,” she says. “I’d drive myself crazy if I were always Googling myself. I don’t get caught up in the status aspect of porn. I mean, I worked in a strip club and I have a really good perspective on crazy Hos.”

So behind that Mona Lisa smirk and spiderweb tattoos, there’s no Porn Valley drama?

“It’s not for me,” she says. “I just like to mind my business.”

I had a bunch of beautiful hardcore images of Rotten that I’d used n the review to “Meet Bonnie,” and I needed some new ones.

“Let me send you some with my new boobs,” she says, and they appear in my inbox soon later, but I don’t look at them until I write the story.

Instead of the standard-issue boob-jiggling photos I receive every day, Rotten sends me four images of her being a cupcake-eating goofball. She is truly the whole package.

Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Porn scenes from an Italian restaurant; Meet Sadie West; Jessie Andrews—her own skin
See also: Bonnie Rotten