REPORT: Late last year, when several women accused adult star James Deen of rape and sexual assault, it seemed the porn industry’s golden boy had fallen. The details of the disturbing allegations made international news. Two major porn studios blacklisted him. He lost his advice columnist gig at The Frisky. A columnist at the Observer wrote that his “career seems effectively over.”
But it isn’t. Nearly four months after the allegations first surfaced, Deen’s career appears to be doing just fine. Fans are searching for his scenes just as often as they did before the accusations, and studios are releasing just as many movies featuring him, according to data obtained by Vocativ.
On November 28 of 2015, Deen’s ex-girlfriend Stoya took to Twitter to accuse him of rape. In the days that followed, several other women came forward with stories of sexual assault, abuse, boundary violations and excessive roughness, both on and off set. The following month, searches for “James Deen” on xHamster, a major porn website, more than tripled from the month before, leaping from 338 to 1,083 searches, according to data provided by the site.
That spike appears to be an anomaly, perhaps in response to the media frenzy around Deen. In January, that number dropped by more than half to 559 searches—but last month, it was back to the three-hundred range, just as it was in September, October and November.
Deen, who owns his own production company, James Deen Productions, is getting just as many outside gigs as before, according to a representative. “James is continuing to perform in scenes for other companies the same amount as he was before,” said Howard Bragman, chairman of Fifteen Minutes Public Relations, which represents Deen, in an email. When asked about companies like Kink and Evil Angel, which cut ties with the performer in response to the allegations, Bragman said, “Any defections were made up by new partnerships and his business is growing as it has been for a number of years.”
