Sasha Grey (born March 14, 1988, in Sacramento, California) is the stage name of an award winning American porn star. She is also active outside of pornography through modelling, acting and music.

Early life

Grey grew up in a working-class family in Sacramento, California and her mother worked for the state of California. Her parents divorced before Grey finished middle school, and her mother remarried in 2000 when Grey was 12. She attended four high schools before graduating, unhappy in each one. In fall 2005, she attended junior college and took classes in film, dance, and acting. She waited tables at a steak house through March 2006 and saved $7000 for a move to Los Angeles.

Adult Career

In May 2006 Grey moved to Los Angeles and started her career in adult films just after turning 18. Originally she toyed with the name Anna Karina (the name of Jean-Luc Godard's ex-wife) before deciding on her present name. She has stated the name "Sasha" was taken from Sascha Konietzko of the band KMFDM, and "Grey" represents Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and the Kinsey scale of sexuality. Her first scene was an orgy with Rocco Siffredi for The Fashionistas 2 by John Stagliano. It has been reported she "shocked" her fellow performer by requesting to be punched in the stomach during fellatio, stating it was "an exercise in improvisational fantasy." When she was younger, prior to her video career, she had earlier dated a cook at the steak house where she worked, who had, during sex, introduced her to slapping, punching, and other kinds of consensual degradation. Nearly six months after entering the adult industry Grey was featured in the November 2006 edition of Los Angeles where she was flagged as a potential major star, perhaps the next Jenna Jameson. Less than a year after entering the industry (January 2007) Grey was the recipient of awards for Best Three Way Sex Scene and Best Group Scene at the AVN adult movie awards. She was also nominated as Best New Starlet, but lost to Naomi. Grey was named Pet of The Month for July 2007 and was photographed by fashion photographer Terry Richardson. In 2008 she became the youngest person to win the AVN Female Performer of the Year award.

Media Attention

In December 2006 Grey was interviewed on the syndicated entertainment industry news show The Insider. In February 2007, she appeared on The Tyra Banks Show to participate in the topic of teenagers in the sex industry. She later claimed through her own blog and YouTube that the televised interview represented her poorly and the show's staff changed her clothing and hairstyle to make her appear younger, which became the target of criticism by Tyra Banks for Grey's choice to go into adult film. On the show, Banks expressed her theory that there had to be a "reason" related to abuse that caused Grey to make the choice of pornography despite Grey's insistence that entering the adult industry was a calculated career choice. Banks described Grey's disposition as "...cold, distant and hard," although she thanked Grey for attending the show. In an interview Grey stated: "Despite the controversy that surrounds this industry, I felt I could ultimately bring an enigmatic quality to it. I decided that if my instinct continued to push me toward the reality of this, and the dissatisfaction with my education continued, I would seize the opportunity on my own." Grey was profiled in the Rolling Stone "Hot Issue" for the December 2008 edition.

Modeling

Grey was featured in the art work for The Smashing Pumpkins 2007 album Zeitgeist, and appears in their 2008 music video "Superchrist". Grey was also featured in the music video for the song "Birthday Girl", by the Roots. She has modeled for American Apparel and Richard Kern for Vice Anti-fashion spread and appeared in a three part VBS program, "Shot by Kern". She also appeared in Taschen’s 25th anniversary re-print of Terry Richardson’s: Terryworld. Among other collaborations with Richardson she was also appeared in Wives, Wheels, Weapons (a companion book to James Frey's Bright Shiny Morning). She has also modeled for artists James Jean, David Choe and Frédéric Poincelet.

Acting

Grey has appeared in one episode of James Gunn's PG Porn with James Gunn, as well as a cameo role in Dick Rude's independent film Quit, and stars in the upcoming Canadian low-budget black comedy/horror film Smash Cut from the Ottawa based Odessa/Zed Filmworks, where she plays a TV news personality who goes undercover as an actress in a horror film only to discover the killer of her older sister. In October 2008, it was reported that Steven Soderbergh has cast her as the lead actress for his upcoming film The Girlfriend Experience.

Music

In 2008, Grey began a music project, ATelecine, with Pablo St. Francis. ATelecine practices a style indebted to industrial music founders such as Throbbing Gristle, Boyd Rice, and Coil. Their first (7 inch vinyl only) EP, AVigillant Carpark, was released by New York label Pendu Sound in December. She also contributed vocals to Lee "Scratch" Perry's 2008 album Repentance, on the track "Pum Pum".

Personal Life

Grey represents herself in the adult industry through her own agency L.A. Factory Girls, while The Spread Group manages her mainstream affairs. Since 2006 she has been developing a documentary that illustrates her experience from the age of 18 to 21. She is engaged to her photographer Ian Cinnamon, which Fleshbot announced in January 2009. Grey has claimed to have a strong interest in existentialism, in reference to which she boasts, "how many 18 year-old porn stars are existentialist?" She cites either Jean-Luc Godard or David Bowie as the biggest influences on her life and career.