Tera Patrick - Sinner Takes All

Around this time we were shooting Island Fever 2 for Digital Playground in a rain forest in Hawaii. Perfect, a tropical setting, my favorite. It ended up being my worst filming experience ever. I was working with a Canadian porn actor named Erik Everhard, whom I worked with before on a Penthouse photo shoot with Suze, on the movie White Panty Chronicles and many other things over the years. I remember him being a genuinely nice guy when I first worked with him.

I was in cowgirl position on top of him, and all of a sudden something in him snapped. He started fucking me violently, so hard that I bled everywhere. He actually tore my vagina. It was embarrassing and violating. I didn’t even realize I was bleeding; I just knew that he was pounding the shit out of me and it hurt. I was so tired of working at this point that I just shut off my emotions, turned that “switch” on, and went through with my job. The director saw the blood and stopped the scene. He had to take me off the set. I wasn’t able to work for the rest of the movie. I had other scenes planned but was only able to shoot this one scene. It was a horrible experience. He didn’t even apologize. No one there even comforted me. There’s no comforting in porn, I guess.

I went back to my room that day and thought, “Wow. Is McDonald’s hiring?” It left such a bitter taste in my mouth. This was not what I signed up for. For a split second, I thought, “I don’t want to do movies anymore. I just don’t want to do it.” I loved having sex, but this episode left me feeling violated and used. However, I felt like I was in too deep and I couldn’t quit even if I wanted to. It’s who I was, and I didn’t want to lose all that I had built up over the years. I didn’t want to lose my fans. I didn’t want to lose my livelihood. And my “boyfriend” Erik had me convinced that I was just some stupid porn chick who couldn’t do anything else. What was I going to do if I quit? So, I didn’t. Not yet.

I started sinking lower and hitting the bottle extra hard. Up until this point, I drank with a party-girl attitude. It was celebratory drinking because life was indeed going pretty damn well. But eventually I was drinking myself to bed every night and needing booze to get through Night Calls. I was lonely and I wanted a good man to be with. I never regretted what I did for a living because it was always my choice, my way, my fantasies lived out. But the outside factors were starting to take their toll on me.

My lowest moment during what was supposed to be this “stellar year” for me came on the set of Night Calls one random evening. I had downed a fifth of Jack Daniel’s and could barely stand. I don’t remember much from the night, but I do remember that R&B singer Brian McKnight was in the studio audience watching the show. We’d often have celebrities pop by to watch us tape and I always had fun interacting with them, but not that night.

“Are you OK?” Crystal Knight, my cohost, asked repeatedly. Crystal really looked out for me. She could tell by the glazed-over look in my eyes that something was way wrong.

“No. I’m not OK. I don’t think I can do the show,” I told her.

“You can do the show. I’ll carry you. Don’t worry. I’ll do all the work,” she assured me. She had my back. She knew I’d get fired if I couldn’t do the show because I was too drunk.

I was making it through the shoot, but my condition didn’t go entirely unnoticed. My producer Jamie kept saying in my earpiece, “Stick! What’s wrong with you? Wake up!” My eyes had been rolling back into my head. I couldn’t believe how wasted I was.

It was then that I realized how fucked-up I was getting, and how I was about to fuck up my career and life if I didn’t get myself together. I was drinking myself to sleep every night, having bad hang-overs, feeling like crap, acting cranky to people around me, and starting to fuck up at work—the one thing that I loved. After that bad night on the Night Calls set, I vowed to take some time off from drinking, but it wasn’t easy or immediate.

There was also the money issue. Here I was the most famous porn star in the world, and I was still living in a small condo and driving a leased Infiniti that I would later find out was in my manager’s name, not mine. I just wasn’t making the money I thought I should be making. I was making about $20,000 a month between all of my gigs, and that sounds like a lot, but in the porn industry it isn’t. It’s a lot of money in comparison to a civilian lifestyle, but not for an entertainer. Most actresses make a lot more than just a quarter of a million a year. And the number-one porn star in the world is only making $240,000? Bankers make more than that! People thought I would be driving a Rolls-Royce, and I wasn’t. I started seeing girls in the industry making a ton more money, wearing fancier designer clothes, and driving more expensive luxury cars. I had none of that, and I didn’t understand why.

I just wasn’t reaping the benefits of working as hard as I did. I always had money to pay my bills, but not as much as I should have. Erik was the one who started me getting suspicious of my situation. He said, “You know, your manager is driving a brand-new Mercedes and a brand-new Denali and she dresses really well and lives in this huge mansion and is always taking vacations. And you rent this condo. Your manager shouldn’t be making more than you do.” That was a big wake-up call for me.

One day, I called my manager Samantha and I told her, “Listen, I want to have lunch and there’s some things I want to get off my chest.” She agreed that it was time for a serious talk. She clearly had things to get off her chest too.

I’ll admit it. I was becoming difficult to work with and was growing angry toward her and Digital Playground. I was showing up to work on time and never looking like a hag or anything, but I was bitchy and becoming difficult and demanding. I’d be like, “Fuck you all. I fucking hate you. I need a drink. I’m not going on until you bring me a fucking Coke. I don’t want this makeup artist, I want that one.” And on and on I’d go. I turned into a full-blown diva.

It wasn’t just about the money. We were growing apart, and I wanted more out of life. I wanted a fuller life—a real relationship with a good guy, a social life, and, yeah, a nicer house and nicer car. It was always work, work, work, work, work. I was overworked, underpaid, stressed out, and exhausted. There was always a store signing or an appearance or a shoot or an interview. The schedule was too much. I was Digital Playground’s only contract girl between 1999 and 2002. I was the face of Digital Playground, so all of the promotion fell on my tired shoulders. It was “Tera, we need you in Minneapolis. Tera, we need you in Europe.”

I appreciated the work for a while, of course, but it was taking its toll on me, and I wasn’t taking care of myself. It was a battle with my manager and production company, but it was also a battle with myself. I was drinking heavily to mask my true feelings, which were loneliness, pain, depression, and sadness. And underneath it all was this hunger for love and a deep connection with someone. I just wanted to be loved and have someone to love, and at the time I didn’t know if staying in porn and working at the pace I was working at would get me to that goal.

At the end of Night Calls on Wednesday nights, there’d be a social gathering at a bar or on the set to celebrate. Instead of participating, I would drink alone in my dressing room, get in my car, drive home drunk, and then drink more at home by myself. I was becoming very antisocial and experiencing a lot of highs and lows.

On the days I was feeling high, I’d shop like crazy, spend what money I had, and fuck my neighbor, a grip on a shoot, or sometimes even Erik. And on the days I was low, I’d sleep for twelve hours, not answer the phone, watch MTV2 for hours on end, drink my Jack and Coke or wine coolers or gin and tonic, and pass out.