Fresh Faces: Jada Kai

A version of this feature appears in the September issue of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital edition. LOS ANGELES—As she glided across the ice, slowing her pace as she caught her breath, 16-year-old Jada Kai peered into the sold-out stands at the Spokane Arena. She’d just finished her routine at the 2007 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, and now the 12,858 fans in attendance were on their feet. They were clapping. And cheering. And pumping their fists. A standing ovation at its finest. All for her. Kai stopped in the middle of the rink, raising her arms as she absorbed the moment. It was her first competition as a senior-level skater. She placed eighth. “There’s nothing comparable to that feeling,” Kai said. “It was one of the highlights of my career. I can’t even explain it because it was so surreal. The energy in the arena was completely maxed out. It felt like electricity.” Kai pauses. “I loved being on the ice and looking at people’s faces and seeing their reactions,” she said. “It was such a turn-on for me. I love entertaining people.” More than a decade later, Kai is still rousing fans by the thousands. Only now, instead of a live audience, the former figure-skating luminary is performing in front of a camera as one of the adult industry’s most buzzed-about new stars. Kai—who retired from skating in 2015 with a trophy case filled with national championship medals—got her start as a cam model three years ago before transitioning into amateur content. In May she appeared on a podcast hosted by AVN Hall-of-Famer Asa Akira, who then connected her with super-agent Mark Spiegler. One month later, Kai became the newest Spiegler Girl. She shot her first professional scene July 7. “She’s obviously very cute, very pretty,” Spiegler said. “And a cute pretty girl is good. But a smart pretty girl is way hotter. She’s smart and reliable and responsible. You have to have a lot of determination and willpower and sticktoitiveness to make it in a professional sport like she did. I’m sure she’ll approach her new career the same way.” Not many would’ve pegged Kai for a life in the adult industry during her formative years. Bashful and soft-spoken, most of her days were spent on the ice. It all started when Kai was six. Searching for entertainment on a Saturday afternoon, Kai’s family loaded up the car and went to the skating rink at Penn’s Landing in their native Philadelphia. Her parents were big fans of skating standouts Michelle Kwan and Oksana Baiul and they were hoping young Jada would take an interest in the sport, as well. Almost immediately after stepping onto the rink for the first time, Jada began zooming and zig-zagging across the ice with grace. “The rest of my family was struggling,” Kai said. “I was skating circles around them.” After a few more trips to the rink it was obvious Kai possessed a rare gift. Her parents signed her up for skating lessons, and it wasn’t long before her instructor conceded that she needed an elite level of training beyond what he could offer. He suggested Kai enroll at the High Performance Training Center at the University of Delaware—a year-round program aimed at grooming Olympic-level skaters. Without hesitation, Kai and her family packed up and moved to Delaware. Each morning, when it was still dark outside, Kai would lace up her skates to train. She’d attend classes during the day and head back to the rink, where evening sessions lasted until 6 or 7. Then it was time for homework and studying. “Every minute of every day was planned out,” Kai said. “I lived like that for years. It was good for me.” Kai struggled during the early portions for her time in Delaware. “In the beginning of my career, before high school, I was always in the middle of the pack,” she said. “They do regional, sectional and national events. They would have four groups of 16 people and you would have to place top four to move on. I couldn’t make it out of the first round at regionals. I used to think, ‘Oh my God, this is not the sport for me.’” Kai, though, refused to fold, and her persistence paid off when she finally started to qualify for national events when she was 14. A few years later came that memorable performance in Spokane, Washington at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. “Competition is what drove me throughout my competitive career,” Kai said. “Some people were like, ‘Oh, I’m just going to do the best I can do.’ I was like, ‘I’m coming in here to beat everyone.’ I loved standing on the podium.” Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, Germany, South Korea, Japan and countless cities across the United States. For more than a decade, Kai competed on rinks throughout the world. In September of 2011, Kai announced that, instead of the U.S., she’d be representing the Philippines in future competitions. She was the Philippines national champion in 2012 and 2013. But in a controversial decision, Kai was not chosen to compete at the 2013 Nebelhorn Trophy, the qualifying competition for the 2014 Winter Olympics. “I was already two-time national Philippines champion,” Kai said. “I called the president of the committee and I was like, ‘Hey, where’s my application for the Nebelhorn Trophy?’ He was like, ‘Well, we decided to send the other girl.” They decided to send the junior national champion. “I was so crushed. I know to this day I deserved that spot. I already had the senior-level experience. She hadn’t even done nationals as a seasoned competitor. They were sending a junior varsity athlete to a varsity event. She wasn’t on that level.” Her dreams ruined, Kai competed in one final event—she placed eighth at the “Four Continents” in Seoul, South Korea–and then retired in 2015 at age 25. For a long time, she didn’t know what to do. Kai moved to Colorado Springs, where she once trained, and dabbled in multiple jobs. She gave private skating lessons, but most of the top talent couldn’t afford her rates. She worked at a costume/magic shop in the heart of downtown and also became a bartender, a gig she credits for helping her become more open sexually. Kai says her sheltered upbringing limited her opportunities to engage in physical relationships. A “dorky girl with a bad haircut,” Kai said her parents forbade her from dating and even became upset when she flirted with the snack bar attendant at the club pool. At the Colorado bar, though, she met a girl she found attractive. Over time their talks became sexual and, eventually, the relationship progressed into the bedroom. “She was like a sweet butterfly,” Kai said. “She was very sexual, always talking about masturbating. She was so open. She was one of the first people I met that was very sex-positive and open about it. She made me realize it wasn’t so taboo for me to hook up with other people. I think she unlocked me.” Kai continues … “A few months, later, I actually started watching porn. I was with this guy, and I found porn on his Kindle. I remember I was so offended. I was like, ‘Am I not enough? You have to watch porn to get off?’ He was like, ‘No, that’s not it at all. I just like watching porn.’ So I started using his Brazzers subscription. I would watch Asa and Cindy Starfall. I was always watching Asian girls. I wondered if I could be their shoes someday.” It wasn’t long before Kai began taking steps to make it happen. When her boyfriend, Jackie Knight—the same guy from the pool snack bar back in Delaware—moved to Los Angeles, Kai decided joined him. She found herself masturbating to cam girls and then decided to try it herself. Kai made $200 the first night and the numbers only went up from there. “I was just jumping up on my bed, dancing around and stuff,” Kai said. “I was so surprised with all of the compliments I heard. ‘Wow! You guys really think I’m pretty?’ It felt really good. Everyone in those chat rooms was so nice to me. It really kind of shocked me. I thought, ‘Hmmm, I think I can do this for a while.’” With Knight as her scene partner, Kai eventually began filming her own amateur content and posting it on Pornhub. The videos caught the attention of Asa Akira, who interviewed Kai on her podcast and then connected her with Spiegler. “Asa has been so helpful to me,” Kai said. “She’s mentoring me a little bit, because being in porn can be really tough. Like she said, ‘There’s some things you just can’t ask Google.’ She also said she wouldn’t have been able to have the career she’s had if it wasn’t for Mark Spiegler. I told her, ‘OK, I’m ready to take that next step.’” Kai, who now lives in Las Vegas, drove to Los Angeles in June to interview with Spiegler at his home. It was almost a surreal moment, she said, sitting across the room from the super agent, chatting away while wearing face masks. “I was so nervous,” Kai said. “I was like, ‘I’m coming out of quarantine and the first person I’m meeting is Mark Spiegler? This is so crazy!’ I was worried I’d forgotten how to talk to people. I thought it was going to be such a disaster. But he was such an easy person to talk to.” Spiegler told Kai that he’d gone to high school in the 1960s with figure-skating luminary Peggy Fleming and that he’s always admired those who excel in the sport, even though he never dabbled in it himself. “Didn’t have the ankles for it,” he said. Spiegler signed Kai immediately. She filmed her first scene July 7. “We never recruit girls,” Spiegler said. "We never advertise. But I talked with Asa, and Asa said she’s bright. She’s living in Vegas, so that’s a little bit of a problem. But she’s totally responsible. When I tell her to get tested, she gets tested. She calls when she says she’s going to call. She shows up to everything on time. Those sound like little things but, in this business, they’re huge.” Kai said she performed in “about 15” scenes in July and August. The highlight, she said, was a B/G scene with Damon Dice for highly-respected director Jacky St. James. Kai said it was her first scene with scripted dialogue, she rehearsed her lines the night before. “I had so much fun doing it,” Kai said. “But I was nervous, too. I just wanted to make a good impression on Jacky. I was so excited to get to work with her.” Spiegler predicts Kai will be a huge success. He notes that “people in western cultures have always had an affinity for Asian women.” He also believes her former career as a standout figure skater could make her more marketable. Spiegler compared the situation to that of Lea Lexis, a former Romanian gymnastics champion who transitioned into porn. “As long as they’re good,” Spiegler said, “people will remember them because of it. Oh, that’s the ice skater. I warned her that people were going to find out her real name and she was fine with that. She just said, ‘Yeah, I know.’” It’s actually already started to happen. A few mainstream websites wrote small articles about Kai after she appeared on Akira’s podcast. And occasionally people will post hateful comments on the Instagram profile she maintains under her real name. Kai isn’t bothered. “I’ve been pretty open about it,” she said. “Some people say mean things but others have been really positive. Those are the people I pay attention to—the people who are being supportive.” Kai said her only regret is that she didn’t enter the industry sooner. Asked to name her favorite thing about her experiences thus far, Kai didn’t hesitate. “The orgasms,” she said. “Definitely the sex and the orgasms. I was sheltered for so long. Now I’m having a blast.” Photos by @totomarvs  (1, 2, 3, 4); @thephotographer (5); @sheer-pics (6); @rwphotographyshowcase (7)