Belle Knox, an 18-year-old Duke University student, is suddenly the most popular freshman girl in the history of college after revealing her side job.
She’s just a porn star on the side to pay those stiff tuition bills. No big deal.
With a dozen flicks under her belt, the “Duke porn star” is sleeping her way through college, but only to pay for it. Not that the work doesn’t have perks.
“I really enjoy sex, and I’ve always loved watching porn, so it just seemed like I could pay my way through college doing something I really love doing,” Knox says.
The women’s studies and sociology major told the N.Y. Daily News that her parents were supposed to pay for school, which costs $47,000 a year.
When that didn’t work out, she considered loans, but didn’t want to strap her family with debt and typical student jobs just didn’t pay enough to move the needle.
“I didn’t feel like I had a lot of options,” she said, then it hit her.
“I literally just Googled, ‘how to be a porn star.’ It came up with all these modeling agencies, and I literally just sent in my pictures and my height and weight.”
“I was getting calls literally within days with people wanting me.”
She hopped a plane to Los Angeles a month later and immediately started her career as “Lauren.” Naturally, the occupation took some getting used to.
“Within two days of meeting people, I was shooting. The first porn I did was nerve-racking because it was really weird to have a photographer watch me have sex.”
“I was super self-conscious, but then I just got into it.”
Belle Knox is her porn alias. She wouldn’t say what her real name is or how much she makes per film, but she has no problems paying her bills.
Several blogs have identified the Duke porn star’s real name as Miriam Weeks, the daughter of a doctor in Spokane, Wash. This has not been confirmed.
She revealed herself as Belle Knox on the website xoJane (dot) com after a male friend spilled her secret to members of the Duke frat he was pledging.
She has no shame whatsoever, even after being outed.
“It’s hard for people to understand the people who do [porn],” she said. “They’re not always desperate or drug addicted. Some of them really, really enjoy their jobs.”
“The rhetoric that you hear is that pornography is bad, and it’s degrading to women. So I was almost expecting people to take advantage of me.”
“But the people I met were all sweet, professional people.”
Asked what her family thinks of all this, Knox said, “I’m leaving my family out of this, but they are aware of what I do” and she has no plans to let them down.
They still want to be a lawyer, she says. As does she.
“I want to be a women’s rights or civil rights lawyer. Maybe start a foundation for sex workers,” she said … begging the obvious, million-dollar question:
Belle is paying for college with porn: Right or wrong?