Belle Knox: Duke Porn Star Under Attack From Other Porn Stars
Belle Knox, the outed Duke University porn performer who has suddenly become the public face of the porn industry, is now facing a backlash from an unexpected source — her fellow porn stars. Though Belle Knox has appeared on such major media outlets as CNN’s Piers Morgan Live and ABC TV’s The View, some inside the porn business say that she is too young and inexperienced to speak for their profession — and that she is not the enthusiastic sexual performer she claims to be.
The Duke porn star, whose real name is Miriam Weeks, an 18-year-old from Spokane, Washington, was revealed to her fellow students and the public by another student in February. At first, she faced vicious and heartless online and personal attacks from other students, including death threats.
But rather than go into hiding or worse, Belle Knox went on the offensive.
She took the opportunity to defend her work of having sex on camera, saying that performing in porn videos made her feel “empowered,” and “free.” She attacked the hypocrisy of a public that consumes porn in large numbers, but condemns women who perform in porn films.
Now it turns out that many of her fellow porn performers do not appreciate Belle Knox appointing herself — or being appointed by the media as the public face of the porn industry
Ooh this Belle Knox thing got everybody in a tizzy. Don’t you wish you thought of pretending to go to college to get press too?
— Dana DeArmond ™ (@danadearmond) March 21, 2014
As an industry we have the right to choose who speaks for us… & it sure as hell shouldn’t be Belle Knox..I say James Deen for President!
— Jenna J Ross (@JennaJRoss) March 20, 2014
Why put a girl who knows nothing about the industry and is barely in the industry as the voice for our industry. Laughable! laugh it off!
— Bonnie Rotten® (@thebonnierotten) March 19, 2014
A recent essay on the site Short and Sweet NYC by porn performer Belle Noire claimed that though Belle Knox has described her enthusiasm for taking part in porn shoots, calling the experience “freeing,” behind the scenes she does not exactly embrace the job, which often involves performing a variety of exotic, occasionally distasteful sexual acts with total strangers who may or may not be physically attractive.
“This week after her Piers Morgan interview, Knox cried on set when she found out her scene partner was ‘so disgusting and too old’ for her tastes,” alleged Belle Noire, saying that Belle Knox feared that “her friends in school would make fun of her if she worked with this person.”
But Belle Knox went ahead with the scene anyway, said Noire, and in fact had approved the “disgusting” and “too old” male co-star days earlier.
Belle Noire also alleged that Knox refused to perform a scene in which she and another woman perform oral sex on a male performer, because she worried that she would share the other woman’s saliva.
“I didn’t know making other performers feel ‘rape-y’ so one could get college money was empowering or freeing,” wrote Noire, who called Belle Knox “a slave to her debt” for resorting to porn simply to pay her way through college.
She also said that Belle Knox is far from unique, stating, “I can name about 20 male and female performers in college right now. Is she so special?”
