Fresh Faces: Tori Montana

A version of this feature appears in the January issue of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital edition. LOS ANGELES—It was three days after her 18th birthday that Tori Montana walked into a strip club for the first time, and she was there as a dancer, not as a curious, barely-legal teen. “I was terrified,” she says. “I could hardly walk on my high heels, I didn’t know how to dance, I was very socially awkward, and I left at the end of the night with 50 bucks.” So she donated her heels to the Salvation Army and left dancing forever? “No,” says Montana, now 20, “I came back the next night and did better. I was so scared but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.” That club was the Booby Trap in Pompano Beach, Fla. It was also at the Booby Trap that Montana, who originally went by the stage name Karma (“but that was boring,” she says) chose the name that stuck. “My (club) manager said, ‘You should be Tori Montana, like Tony Montana (Al Pacino’s character in Scarface) but Tori,” she says. Montana thinks very fondly of the Booby Trap, which she describes as “a big, happy, dysfunctional family” and credits the work ethic and the hustle she learned there with her success in porn. “If you have a bad night at a strip club, you go home with no money,” she says. “If you have a bad day on a porn set, you might not get called to work there again, but you still get paid. Women who get into porn from dancing give it their all, in my experience.” The Booby Trap is an all-nude, full-bar strip club, so Montana could only be there as an employee, not as a patron, considering her age. As such, she had to wear a wristband identifying her as too young to drink but old enough to give lap dances. Was that wristband the sexiest thing she wore, according to some of her creepier customers? “It was like being thrown into a pack of wolves,” she says. “But some of the older dancers took me out into the parking lot and told me what was up. They were very nice to me, and taught me the ropes. One of the things one of the dancers told me that I will never forget is ‘Scared money doesn’t make money.’ I think of that a lot. It helps to be confident.” Montana still dances there occasionally, in between shooting a handful of scenes a month as well as filming content with her boyfriend. Montana loves Florida, and arrived there a year before she started dancing. “I grew up in Orange County, California,” she says. “I know people in the industry tend to move from Florida to California, but for me it was the other way around.” One reason Montana loves Florida is because of the laid-back vibe. “I’ve shot a couple of scenes in L.A.,” she says, “but the difference between the Florida porn world and the one in Los Angeles is that everything is so professional in L.A. In Florida it’s more chill.” Another dancer at the Booby Trap introduced her to Hussie Models in Miami, and shortly after signing up with that agency, she found herself on her first porn set, for the site ShotHerFirst. “I remember there were a lot of dudes in the room and I walked to the bathroom to change into my outfit,” she says (it was a magenta tube top/mini-skirt combo). “And Riley [Reynolds, Hussie owner] said, “you’re going into the bathroom to change when you’re going to be naked in front of the same people later? “Now when I’m on set I don’t even care,” she says. “I’ll take it off in front of anybody.” For Montana, moving from stripping to porn wasn’t a big deal. It was more like a natural progression. “I thought that if I were going to be part of this industry, I should be all the way in,” she says. When she thinks about the things she learned from dancing, Montana says she saw potential and pitfalls early. “To anyone starting out, I’d tell her not to get lost in the lifestyle,” she says. “This is fast money, and easy money, most of the time. But the problem is that people sometimes spend it as fast as they make it. I love shooting scenes and I love dancing, but that is a one-shot deal. I want to build something and have something to show for it, so I want to shoot more of my own content.” When Montana moved from Orange County to Florida, she went with her family. She says her family knows what she does and continues to be her rock. “I feel sorry for girls who get cut off from their families,” she says. “I mean, my mom will keep momming me, but she lets me do me, and I am so fortunate to have a supportive family.” In fact, Montana only moved out of the place she shared with her family a few months ago. “They wanted me to stay!” she says. Montana’s boyfriend is also supportive. “I think one thing I learned from porn is freedom,” she says. “Everybody gets jealous, and I have that inside of me, too. But my boyfriend trusts me to do what I do during the day and come back to him, and the trust issues I have have never touched this relationship. He has never said that it is him or the job. The freedom has allowed me to flourish. “My boyfriend doesn’t just think he’s the luckiest guy in the world,” she says. “He knows it! That said, he only shoots content with me. That’s the rule.” Montana often wears glasses in her scenes, and presents as sweet and accessible. Would she say that is her brand? She thinks about it for a second. “I’m very approachable but you know you’re going to have a good time,” she says. Photography by @mayhemchild305