The Richest Pornstars, Ranked by What We Can Actually Verify

Career

Miles Long — a stage name he trademarked in 2011 — has built one of the more diversified outside business portfolios in this industry. He founded Sights & Sounds Productions, a record label focused on EDM and house music, and established the Little Dragon Pictures film imprint by 2016. From 2022 he began shooting photography for FHM and Playboy, and he produces the Lingerie Fighting Championships for Roku alongside his own vehicle-customisation show, Modz & Bodz. His award record includes Hall of Fame inductions from AVN, XRCO, NightMoves and the AAIA, plus a NightMoves Lifetime Achievement Award and Triple Play Award.

Signature: Operates a record label and a film imprint simultaneously, and produces a Roku series with no connection to the adult industry at all — the broadest outside business portfolio ranked on this list.

Beyond performing

• Founder, Sights & Sounds Productions, an EDM and house-music record label
• Founder, Little Dragon Pictures film imprint (established by 2016)
• Producer, Lingerie Fighting Championships (Roku)
• Trademarked the stage name "Miles Long" (2011)

Mainstream credits

• Photography for FHM and Playboy (from 2022)
• Modz & Bodz, a custom-vehicle television show

Career

Holly Randall works as a photographer, director, producer, publisher and podcast host rather than as an on-camera performer. She founded Holly Randall Productions in 2008, co-founded the Holly Randall Agency with Jeffrey Hart and Andrew Nagle in January 2026, and launched Wet Ink Magazine the same year. Her weekly interview podcast, Holly Randall Unfiltered, launched in 2017 and features performers, directors, educators and sex-positive public figures; it has carried her into mainstream media appearances on The Rachel Maddow Show, The Daily Show and CNN, as well as Netflix’s Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On and Vice TV documentaries. AVN inducted her into its Hall of Fame in 2024 and named her among its Most Influential Women in the industry in 2013; she won three separate 2025 awards — AVN Best Featurette, AVN Best Screenplay for a Featurette, and XBIZ Featurette of the Year — for a single production.

Signature: Founded three separate companies in three different launch years — a production house, a talent agency and a magazine — while also hosting a podcast that has put her on The Daily Show and CNN.

Beyond performing

• Founder, Holly Randall Productions (2008)
• Co-founder, Holly Randall Agency, with Jeffrey Hart and Andrew Nagle (January 2026)
• Founder, Wet Ink Magazine (2026)
• Host and producer, Holly Randall Unfiltered podcast (launched 2017)

Mainstream credits

• The Rachel Maddow Show
• The Daily Show
• CNN
• Netflix’s Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On
• Vice TV documentaries

Career

Colby Keller — born Richard John Sawka II — holds a BA in Anthropology from the University of Houston and an MFA in Visual and Performing Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and has run his adult-industry career alongside a genuine art practice. He created and hosted In Bed With Colby Keller, a 62-episode sex-advice series for Manhunt (2012–2014), and since 2014 has self-produced Colby Does America, an ongoing project built around filming in every one of the fifty US states. His 2013–2014 collaboration Myth as Object produced a 30-foot silicone merman sculpture exhibited at MICA. He was the face of Vivienne Westwood’s "Mirror the World" campaign in spring/summer 2016, appeared in HBO’s High Maintenance (2016) and Netflix’s EastSiders (2017), and has been profiled in Mic, Jacobin and The Advocate.

Signature: Self-produced a fifty-state filming project and built a parallel fine-art practice culminating in a museum-scale sculpture — a business model built around owning an ongoing, self-funded body of work rather than working scene to scene.

Studios

Beyond performing

• Creator and star, In Bed With Colby Keller — a 62-episode sex-advice series for Manhunt (2012–2014)
• Creator, Colby Does America — a self-produced project built around filming in all fifty U.S. states (2014–ongoing)
• Collaborator on Myth as Object, a 30-foot silicone sculpture exhibited at the Maryland Institute College of Art (2013–2014)

Mainstream credits

• Vivienne Westwood "Mirror the World" campaign (spring/summer 2016)
• HBO’s High Maintenance (2016)
• Netflix’s EastSiders (2017)
• Profiled in Mic, Jacobin and The Advocate

Career

Dana DeArmond has directed the documentary-style features Dana DeArmond Does the Internet and Dana DeArmond’s Role Modeling, and since retiring from full-time performing has co-hosted Dirty/Nerdy on Vivid Radio for SiriusXM. AVN inducted her into its Hall of Fame in 2016 and XRCO followed in 2022. She has built an unusually broad mainstream footprint for a performer of her generation: profiled in Michael Grecco’s photo book Naked Ambition, featured in a January 2014 Cosmopolitan piece on how performers stay fit, cast in the 2021 drama film Pleasure, and invited as a guest lecturer on the adult industry at both UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara.

Signature: One of a small number of performers invited to guest-lecture on the industry at accredited universities — a direct, documented form of institutional recognition outside the industry’s own award bodies.

Beyond performing

• Co-host, Dirty/Nerdy on Vivid Radio (SiriusXM)
• Director, Dana DeArmond Does the Internet
• Director, Dana DeArmond’s Role Modeling

Mainstream credits

• Featured in Michael Grecco’s photo book Naked Ambition: An R-Rated Look at an X-Rated Industry
• Cosmopolitan, "4 Porn Stars on How They Stay Fit" (January 2014)
• Cast in the drama film Pleasure (2021)
• Guest lecturer on the adult industry at UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara

Career

Born Adam Glasser, Seymore Butts began performing in the late 1980s before adopting the gag name — "see more butts" — as a pseudonym and founding his own production company, Seymore, Inc., in the early 1990s. Rather than working under contract for an existing studio, he built and ran his own label from the start, winning AVN’s Best Gonzo Series in both 1999 and 2000 for the self-titled Seymore Butts line, and was inducted into the XRCO Hall of Fame in 2004 and the AVN Hall of Fame in 2005. From February 2003 he starred in Family Business, a Showtime reality series that ran four seasons and 37 episodes through June 2006 — corrected from a previously stated five seasons, which neither Wikipedia nor the series’ own episode record supports — in which his mother Lila Glasser and his cousin Stevie Glasser were shown helping him run what the network called his "porn empire." The series itself won the 2005 AVN Award for Best Alternative Release, an unusually literal piece of mainstream documentation for how one of these companies actually operates day to day.

Signature: The rare adult-industry business whose day-to-day operations were filmed and broadcast on a mainstream cable network for four seasons, rather than described secondhand.

Studios

Beyond performing

• Founder, Seymore, Inc. studio (early 1990s)
• Owns and operates his self-titled production label

Mainstream credits

• Family Business (Showtime, February 2003 – June 2006, four seasons, 37 episodes; won the 2005 AVN Award for Best Alternative Release)
• Featured in a PBS Frontline documentary on the pornography industry

Career

Bree Mills joined Gamma Entertainment in 2009 as its Marketing Director and rose to head its creative content by around 2015; she now heads Gamma Films, the company’s production arm, and created the Girlsway and Pure Taboo websites for the network. In 2021 she founded Disruptive Films, a gay-focused content label, adding a fourth distinct brand to a portfolio she oversees rather than performs in. XBIZ has named her Director of the Year — Body of Work in both 2018 and 2019, she won AVN’s Best Dramatic Screenplay in 2020, and the XMA Creator Awards named her Director of the Year again in 2025. XCritic gave her a Special Recognition Award for Mainstream Crossover in 2019.

Signature: Oversees content strategy across an entire streaming network and four separate brands within it — Adult Time, Girlsway, Pure Taboo and Disruptive Films — rather than running one studio or one label.

Studios

Beyond performing

• Head of production company Gamma Films, within Gamma Entertainment (joined 2009 as Marketing Director; head of creative content from around 2015)
• Founder, Disruptive Films, a gay-focused content label (2021)
• Created the Girlsway and Pure Taboo websites for Gamma Entertainment

Mainstream credits

• XCritic Special Recognition Award for Mainstream Crossover (2019)

Career

Casey Calvert holds a degree in telecommunications, with minors in anthropology and zoology, from the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications. She has directed features for Adult Time and Gamma Entertainment since 2019 — including Maid for Each Other, Dance with Me and Overprotective — and ran two long-running television-style series in the same stretch, directing 65 episodes of Girlsway Originals and 37 episodes of Mommy’s Girl across 2019–2020. She co-wrote The Starlet: A Casey Calvert Story for Pure Taboo, won XBIZ’s Director of the Year — Feature in 2023, and offers custom video production commissions priced up to $10,000 per request. She has also written for The Huffington Post and Cosmopolitan.

Signature: Ran two long-running episodic series at once — 65 episodes of one, 37 of another, in the same two-year stretch — a volume of directed, owned output rare even among performers who direct.

Studios

Beyond performing

• Director, Maid for Each Other and other Adult Time/Gamma Entertainment features (2019– )
• Directed 65 episodes of Girlsway Originals and 37 episodes of Mommy’s Girl (2019–2020)
• Co-wrote The Starlet: A Casey Calvert Story for Pure Taboo
• Offers custom video production commissions priced up to $10,000 per request

Mainstream credits

• Contributing writer for The Huffington Post and Cosmopolitan

Career

Jill Kelly — born Adrianne D. Moore — founded Jill Kelly Productions in October 1998, one of the more prominent performer-owned studios of the period. The company filed for bankruptcy in April 2005, and Penthouse magazine subsequently acquired its assets — the entire JKP back catalogue plus nearly sixty unreleased features — for $1.765 million. That is a genuinely rare thing in this industry: a performer-founded company with a documented, dollar-figure sale, even though the sale followed a bankruptcy rather than a voluntary exit. She won XRCO Female Performer of the Year in 1998, was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame in 2003 and the NightMoves Hall of Fame in 2007, and received the Free Speech Coalition’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. She also appeared in Spike Lee’s He Got Game (1998) and more than fifty other low-budget mainstream films.

Signature: The clearest documented, dollar-figure company sale in this industry after Jenna Jameson’s ClubJenna: $1.765 million for the JKP catalogue, following the company’s 1998 founding and 2005 bankruptcy.

Studios

Beyond performing

• Founder, Jill Kelly Productions (October 1998)
• JKP assets — full back catalogue plus nearly 60 unreleased features — acquired by Penthouse for $1.765 million following the company’s 2005 bankruptcy

Mainstream credits

• He Got Game, directed by Spike Lee (1998)
• Appeared in more than fifty low-budget mainstream films

Career

Jacky St. James holds a BA in Theatre with a concentration in Film, and spent thirteen years in mainstream entertainment and online advertising before entering the adult industry at twenty-seven. Her screenplay Dear Abby won a writing contest and launched her career as a director in 2011; she has since written and directed The Submission of Emma Marx series and multiple sequels, and works as director, screenwriter and publicist for the studio New Sensations. In 2016 she co-created Submission, a scripted series for Showtime, with Paul Fishbein — a mainstream network commission built directly on her adult-industry writing and directing record, for which she wrote and directed all six episodes — and in 2019 co-created Bellesa House, a studio imprint. XBIZ named her Director of the Year — Body of Work in both 2015 and 2016.

Signature: Co-created an original scripted series for Showtime, a mainstream premium network, built directly on her adult-industry writing and directing credits rather than as a separate career.

Studios

Beyond performing

• Director and screenwriter for New Sensations since 2011
• Publicist for New Sensations
• Co-created the Bellesa House studio imprint (2019)

Mainstream credits

• Co-created Submission, a scripted series for Showtime, with Paul Fishbein (2016)

Career

Nicki Hunter performed for eleven years before retiring in 2014, but she moved behind the camera years before that: her directorial debut, Psychotic for Python Pictures, was released in December 2005 while she was still an active performer, rather than after retirement in the more usual pattern. She won XRCO Female Performer of the Year in 2006 and the AVN Award for Best Makeup in 2010, and was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame in 2020. Since stepping back from performing she has hosted a program on Vivid Radio, SiriusXM channel 791, and appeared in the 2004 television documentary The Porn King Versus the President and a 2010 Free Speech Coalition public-service announcement on copyright infringement.

Signature: Directed her own feature mid-career rather than waiting for retirement, and built a second career in satellite radio once she stopped performing.

Studios

Beyond performing

• Director, Psychotic (2005, Python Pictures)
• Host, a program on Vivid Radio, SiriusXM channel 791

Mainstream credits

• The Porn King Versus the President (2004 television documentary)
• Free Speech Coalition public-service announcement on copyright infringement (March 2010)

Career

Steven Scarborough relocated to San Francisco in 1974 and opened a health food store on Castro Street before entering the adult industry through his connection to Chuck Holmes. He served as Executive Vice-President and a director at Falcon Studios from 1987 to 1993, directing his first film, Perfect Summer, in the summer of 1988, then left to found his own company, Hot House Entertainment, in 1993. He built the new studio around a consistent safe-sex, condom-use production policy at a time when that was not the industry default. GayVN inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 2002, and he later received lifetime-achievement honours from the Free Speech Coalition, XBIZ and the Grabby Awards.

Signature: Left an executive role at one of the gay industry’s largest studios to found a direct competitor built on a production policy — condom use — that the studio he left did not follow.

Studios

Beyond performing

• Executive Vice-President and director, Falcon Studios (1987–1993)
• Founder, Hot House Entertainment (1993)
• Established a condom-use production policy across his studio’s output

Career

Aubrey Kate has won AVN’s Transgender Performer of the Year four times — 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2026 — the most of any performer in that category’s history, alongside category wins for Best Trans One-on-One Sex Scene (2018, 2020) and Best Transgender Group Sex Scene (2019). In 2022 Pornhub itself named her its Most Popular Trans Female Performer, a platform-published rather than critically-judged title, and her own reported viewer numbers on YouTube run into the hundreds of thousands alongside a six-figure Twitter/X following. She operates her own official site, officialaubreykate.com, and maintains independent OnlyFans and YouTube channels alongside studio work rather than working through a single exclusive contract.

Signature: The only four-time winner of a Performer of the Year title anywhere on this list, and one of the few entries with a platform-published popularity title — Pornhub’s own pick, not a press or peer vote — to go with it.

Beyond performing

• Operates her own official site, officialaubreykate.com
• Maintains independent OnlyFans and YouTube channels alongside studio work

Career

Princess Donna — born Donna Dolore — majored in gender and sexuality studies and photography at New York University, and began her adult-industry career doing professional BDSM shoots for Insex.com while still a student. She went on to create and direct three of Kink.com’s flagship fetish labels: Wired Pussy, Public Disgrace and Bound Gang Bang, effectively running three distinct branded product lines under a single studio’s roof rather than working across several outside companies. Wikipedia records AVN nominations for her work as both director and actress, though no specific year or category for those nominations is documented in any source available to us, so none is listed in the award record below. She was featured in Brian Lilla’s documentary Tale of Two Bondage Models, which premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.

Signature: Created and ran three separate branded content lines for one studio rather than working across several — an unusually vertical business structure for a performer-director.

Studios

Beyond performing

• Creator and director, Wired Pussy (Kink.com)
• Creator and director, Public Disgrace (Kink.com)
• Creator and director, Bound Gang Bang (Kink.com)

Mainstream credits

• Featured in Brian Lilla’s documentary Tale of Two Bondage Models, which premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival