Beyond Alt: 2014 Female Performer of the Year Bonnie Rotten

LOS ANGELES—She’s the tattooed porn star’s answer to Jackie Robinson: Not only did Bonnie Rotten defiantly eschew the restrictive box of “alt” porn typecasting since breaking into the industry two years ago, she stormed onto the so-called “mainstream” turf of adult so thunderously, it carried her where no tattoo-spangled starlet had ever gone before—all the way to the throne of AVN’s Female Performer of the Year. Bonnie gives a lot of credit for this achievement to the New Sensations power team of Scott Taylor, Eddie Powell, Jacky St. James and Renae Orenstein, who with her breakout star showcase Meet Bonnie (released under sister label Digital Sin) she says “gave me my first real shot at being a performer in this industry. They didn’t look at me like just another tattooed girl. They opened the door for the rest of the companies to make my exterior a positive and to appreciate the performance I give.” Now that she’s hit the top of that totem pole in record time, Bonnie’s next step in her quest for total industry domination is, of course, beginning to direct and produce her own movies for her just-launched studio Mental Beauty, which Girlfriends Films will be distributing. In addition to doing it for herself, however, Bonnie revealed that she has a couple of directing efforts in the works for DreamZone Entertainment. “This spring is going to be packed with neat projects,” she teased. “So you will have to stay tuned.”  This article originally ran in the March 2014 issue of AVN magazine.