Belladonna (born Michelle Anne Sinclair on May 21, 1981) is an American pornographic actress.

Early life

Michelle Anne Sinclair was born in Biloxi, Mississippi of German, Scottish and Cherokee ancestry. She got her first tattoo at age 12, and at age 14 she attempted suicide. She dropped out of high school and moved out of her parents' house at the age of 15. She also stayed in Utah for a short period of her life.

Career

The pseudonym "Belladonna" came in part from a friend in Utah named Bella; later, an early agent suggested Bella Donna as it meant "beautiful woman". Belladonna got into the adult film industry after she moved to Los Angeles to become a nude model. Her career began in 2000 when she was 19. She has appeared in over 250 adult films. She now owns and operates Belladonna Entertainment with her partner and husband, Aiden Kelly. She produces her own movies under the Belladonna Entertainment and Deadly Nightshade Productions labels, exclusively distributed by Evil Angel. She has appeared several times in the reality television series Family Business, which focuses on the life of porn director Adam Glasser a.k.a. "Seymore Butts". In 2004 she was one of a number of porn stars photographed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders for a "coffee table book" on the adult industry, XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits; she also appears in the HBO documentary Thinking XXX about the making of the book.

Media Attention from Primetime

Her career in the pornography business was followed for two years by a crew from ABC Television, culminating in a January 2003 interview with Diane Sawyer as part of a Primetime Thursday segment on pornography. During the interview she broke down in tears. Following its broadcast she condemned what she felt had been unfair treatment at the hands of Sawyer and the ABC staffers, saying the segment had portrayed her as a victim and that the interview was edited to convey the misleading impression that she had been forced to perform against her will. One topic discussed in the interview was the fact that she had contracted chlamydia. The interview has since been used by a number of anti-pornography groups to support their case that pornography is exploitative of the women who appear in it; nevertheless, Sinclair remains an active performer in the industry. In later interviews, Sinclair claimed that she had never intended to make "anti-porn" statements, and that Primetime had deliberately taken many of her statements out of context to give the segment a negative slant. In one interview, when she was asked if she was happy how the interview came out, her reply was: “I am not happy about Primetime but I would love to see the whole story air one day so everyone can see how much I had to say that was FOR the porn industry. If you know me you know that I LOVED shooting!” ABC contacted her once to do a follow-up to the interview; she refused saying, "No thank you. I don't want to be embarrassed again."

Semi Retirement

In August 2007, Sinclair decided to semi-retire from performing with other people over concerns of STDs, specifically herpes. She contracted herpes in 2002 and was worried the disease had spread. However, according to her blog, she has since come out of retirement, and has filmed a number of hardcore scenes . She appeared in Digital Playground's Pirates II, the sequel to their top-selling DVD, Pirates. She also will be appearing in "Genital Hospital", the third episode of the spoof porn, PG Porn, opposite Sean Gunn.

Personal Life

She was formerly engaged to fellow porn actor Nacho Vidal. On April 11, 2004, she married Aiden Kelly in Las Vegas, Nevada. She has a daughter Myla who was born on January 11, 2005.