Tera Patrick - Sinner Takes All

I had no idea what the fuck I was doing, or if I’d even have any fans to sign those glossy photos for. But lo and behold, fans knew who I was and were coming to see me. It was the first time I met any of my fans, and I loved them immediately. I jumped right in and started signing “Tera Patrick” in my chicken scratch. I didn’t know what or how to sign an autograph. I was thinking about how Marilyn Monroe signed her name.

I said to my new friend, “Hey, Teri, how do you sign an autograph?”

“Awww, sweetie. Here…” and she took a blank piece of paper out and proceeded to write my name in all different ways with different lines like “Love, Tera Patrick,” “Love & Lust, Tera Patrick,” “Fucking Fuck Me, Tera Patrick.” She wrote out all of these little signatures and I started signing them one after another. When there wasn’t a line of fans, I’d practice my signature on paper. My name was still new to me, so I wasn’t used to signing it yet.

Teri took me under her wing. She taught me how to do my makeup for the bright lights at a signing like this. She taught me how to handle my fans. She basically taught me how to “do AVN” and how to be a porn celebrity.

“Girl, you are going to have this down and you are going to be a huge star,” she told me after our long day of signing. I’ll never forget her kindness, and I tried to be like Teri to the new girls that came into the business after I got more famous. There were times when I’d be bitchy to the new girls, but I’d catch myself and think, “Teri would be so disappointed in me if she knew I was being a bitch.”

Things were happening fast with Digital Playground. They got me the Playboy TV gig on Night Calls 411 Live show next. It was a live, call-in television show where horny guys and gals phoned in their sex and relationship questions, talked about their fantasies, and interacted with the show’s hosts, who would masturbate on air or demonstrate sex toys and other things like that. I went through a whole round of auditions and finally landed the role of the Net Nympho. Crystal Knight and Flower Edwards were the show’s hosts, and they couldn’t have a third host, so I became the Internet girl and I’d read e-mails from viewers, banter with them, and give a little striptease as I did my thing. I was the Net Nympho for the first year and then I became the cohost with Crystal Knight after Flower got pregnant and left in June 2001.

I loved being on TV, but I loved it a little too much. Every day was a party for me, and I was drinking more heavily than I ever had. I didn’t do a single episode of Night Calls sober. Every night on the set, the production manager would come up to me and say, “All right, Stick”—they called me Stick because I was so thin at the time—“what’s it going to be tonight?” And I’d name my drink of choice. I’d often get a fifth of Jack Daniel’s and a two-liter bottle of Coke and it would either be half gone or entirely gone before the night’s end.

I’m shocked I didn’t get fired. I was smashed on every episode of that show. The director, Jeff, and my producer, Jamie, would have to give me direction in my earpiece to keep me alert. “Tera, your eyes are closed. Tera, open your eyes. Tera, sit up straight. Tera, put your shoulders back. Tera, Tera, Tera!” It was always something with me. But I was happy. I was becoming the biggest porn star out there. I was on TV; my webcam show, The Tera Patrick Show, in front of a live audience on TeraPatrick.com, was up and running and going strong; and I was just drinking out of celebration. Or so I thought at the time. I was a party girl and I wanted to party like a rock star.

Looking back on it now, it was a pretty depressing existence, but I wasn’t aware of it in the moment. As far as I was concerned, I had accomplished my New Year’s resolution and took it to the next level. I was going to be Penthouse ’s February 2000 Pet of the Month. I became a Hustler Honey. Digital Playground was keeping me busy with photo shoots and lots of press—they even hired me a full-time publicist! I knew I had made the right decision. Something really good was happening here. I was getting my $5,000 a month from Digital, plus I was getting about $3,000 an episode for Night Calls, and I was shooting for all the magazines. I was bringing in about $20,000 a month.

And on top of that, I had my first experience of truly feeling like a star. Sam and I flew to France for the 2000 Hot d’Or adult film awards, which, at the time, were part of the Cannes Film Festival. I was there to win Best American New Starlet. When we got off the plane, I couldn’t believe how many fans gathered at the airport to greet me with signs that read WELCOME TERA! and HELLO TERA! and TERA’S NO. 1 FAN! and WE LOVE YOU TERA! As if that wasn’t overwhelming enough, when I got in the car to head to an interview, there were two police cars with sirens escorting us to the TV studio. I couldn’t believe it. Only a year in the business, and I had a police escort!

My publicist looked to me and said, “Oh my goodness. It’s like you are Demi Moore!”

I was loving it, but I was also turning into a spoiled brat. When Samantha showed me my Penthouse issue, she was bursting with excitement.

“I have a surprise for you!” she said excitedly, pulling the magazine out from her bag with pride.

I looked at the magazine and my first thought was, “I’m not on the cover.”

Samantha was like, “Ta-da!”

“I’m not on the cover,” was all I could say.

“But you’re Penthouse Pet of the Month!” she said.

“I’m not on the cover.” I was pissed.

Samantha explained to me the reason I wasn’t on the cover was because the Penthouse Pet of the Year is always on the January cover and the runner up was always on the February cover. So, if you get Pet of the Month in January or February (I was the February Pet), you don’t get the cover. But I got over it. I was so happy with the spread. It turned out really beautiful, so I called up Suze Randall and said, “Thank you for making me look so beautiful, Suze!” Suze said, “Oh, Popkins”—that’s what she called me because it rhymed with my real last name, Hopkins—“you’re the one that looks smashing. I didn’t have to do anything, my little piggy. My little slut.”

Sure enough, two years later in 2002, I landed Penthouse Pet of the Year Runner-Up and finally got on the cover of the magazine. And around the same time, as fate would have it, I found myself with a new shot at Playboy , the magazine I really wanted to be in. This is what I wanted my entire life and it was finally happening. Playboy was doing a big porn-star special. I was officially a big porn star by then, and they wanted me to be part of it. We shot it in November 2001 for the March 2002 issue dubbed “The Women of Porn,” featuring me, Kira Kener, and Dasha on the cover. And not on the cover, but inside, were Jenna Jameson, Taylor Hayes, Julia Ann, Chasey Lain, Lacey, Janine Lindemulder, Brittany Andrews, Juli Ashton, and Asia Carrera.

Jenna Jameson was clearly the biggest porn star in the room, but Janine and I were hot on her tail. I think most people at the shoot assumed it would be Jenna, Janine, and me landing the cover together, but that’s not exactly how it turned out. The photographer was shooting us in all different configurations, and as I was being shot with Kira and Dasha, I had butterflies in my stomach hoping it would be the shot. Then I heard the editor, Marilyn Grabowski, say to an assistant, “Oh, that’s my shot.” My manager, Samantha, kept telling me I would be on the cover, so I already had my hopes up for it. She was right.