Jenna Haze, one of porn’s most distinguished performers and most prominent women, announced her retirement from on-camera adult performance on Tuesday, informing her fans via a YouTube video posted on her Tumblr page. In the video, Jenna first thanks her fans for their love and support before announcing her retirement and declaring that, although she won’t be performing anymore (and in fact hasn’t performed on-camera in about a year), she will continue to direct for her Jennaration X Studios company, as well as keeping busy with “a bunch” of non-adult projects that she’s working on, the most immediate of which can be seen in the current issue of FHM – a photo spread in which Ms. Haze appears with her gal-pal Taylor Momsen. She also clarified that she will continue for feature dancing work.
So, what does this mean for the adult industry? Clearly it marks the closing of one era and the opening of another. Jenna Haze wasn’t just consistently popular with fans throughout her ten-year career as a pornstar, she won the approbation of the larger industry bodies, too. Nominated three years in a row for AVN Female Performer of the Year, winning that award in 2009. That same year saw her take home similarly high-falutin awards from XBIZ, XRCO, FAME, Nightmoves, and Hot d’Or. Clearly Jenna Haze was the queen of porn.
Of all current performers, though, who seems most likely to assume Jenna’s former position at the top? Now that Sasha Grey is well and truly finished with performing in adult films, it seems likely that said successor will be either Japanese-American superstar Asa Akira or the winner of 2012 AVN awards for Best Porn Star Website, Best All-Sex Release, Best POV Sex Scene, and, Female Performer of the Year, the insatiable, the relentless Bobbi Starr.
As long as Jenna directs both Asa and Bobbi, who is now also a director, it’s clear that, although we’ll be nostalgic for Jenna’s glory days in front of the camera, we’ll also be extremely happy that she’s still making hardcore porn, just doing it on a new career path.