Alex Henderson

 Hollie Stevens: 1982-2012

The Adult Entertainment Industry 

Hollie Stevens, The Queen of Clown Porn, Has Died at 30

Her Battle with Cancer Underscored the Need for Universal Health Care in the United States



By Alex Henderson
RealmNoir, July 6, 2012

On July 3, adult entertainment star Hollie Stevens died of cancer, a disease she had been battling since her initial diagnosis last year. She was only 30.

Stevens, who was born Tia Kidwell in Kansas City, Missouri on January 4, 1982, and lived in Northern California, got into the adult entertainment industry in the early 2000s. She appeared in a variety of erotic videos, ranging from some BDSM erotica for Kink.com (one of the top BDSM websites) and DungeonCorp.com to an esoteric genre known as “clown porn” (which is porn in which the performers wear clown makeup). Stevens involvement with that esoteric genre started in 2005, when she appeared in the San Diego-based Ramco Productions’ cult favorite “Clown Porn.” Although clown porn was not her sole focus, Stevens became one of the top performers in that genre and described herself as “The Queen of Clown Porn.”

Stevens was first diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2011 and underwent chemotherapy, radiation therapy and a mastectomy last year. But the cancer proved to be extremely aggressive, spreading to her liver, bones, right leg and rib. Stevens received additional chemotherapy and radiation treatment as well as more surgery, and in April 2012, her friend January Seraph (a California-based dominatrix, fetish model and provider of BDSM erotica) launched a very creative fundraiser to help Stevens with her cost-of-living expenses. Seraph held special BDSM sessions in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles; if clients made a $50 donation for Stevens, Mistress January added 30 minutes to the session.

Like many people in the adult entertainment industry in the United States, Stevens was a self-employed independent contractor/freelancer—and when she received the initial diagnoses in March 2011, she was among the 50 million Americans who lacked health insurance. But Stevens was able to receive coverage through Medi-Cal, a state-funded program in California. When Seraph was asked how much of Stevens’ treatment was being covered under Medi-Cal, she said “pretty much all of it, with the exception of some pain medications.”

During an April interview with SeXXXandPolitics.com, Seraph had a lot to say about the challenges that people in the adult entertainment industry—or for that matter, mainstream entertainment—face when it comes to health insurance. The adult industry is largely an industry of self-employed freelancers, and many of them lack health insurance if they live in the U.S.; some cannot afford the ridiculously high premiums, and some cannot obtain insurance because of what insurance companies call a “pre-existing condition” (which could be anything from high blood pressure to asthma to hypoglycemia to Type 1 diabetes).

Seraph cited her own situation as a perfect example of how problematic the American health insurance system is for the self-employed. Unable to obtain an individual health insurance plan because of a “pre-existing condition,” Seraph knew that one possible option was looking for some type of full-time job in the hope of getting on a company’s group plan. But why should she have to give up being a freelancer when she was earning a good living at it? Seraph’s situation shows just how anti-business and anti-entrepreneur the health care system is in the United States.

In 2011, Seraph and adult performer Nica Noelle started an adult industry-oriented organization called the Adult Performers Association (APA), which Seraph is hoping will eventually be able to offer some type of group health insurance plan for adult industry professionals. During that April interview, Seraph told SeXXXandPolitics.com, “One of the goals of the APA is to put together something akin to the New York Freelancers Union, which has a group health care plan its members can opt into. The APA is still a fledgling organization; so it will most likely be some time before that comes to be a reality, but it’s a goal regardless. Adult performers literally put their health on the line for their chosen careers and should all at least have a realistic option to have health insurance.” 

Seraph, at the time of that interview, had been closely following the health care debate in the United States and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to evaluate the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPAACA), also known as “Obamacare” (or “Romneycare” because it was greatly influenced by the program that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney promoted when he was governor of Massachusetts). Back in April, it remained to be seen whether the High Court would: (1) strike down the “individual mandate” portion of the PPAACA but uphold other parts of it, (2) strike down the PPAACA in its entirety, or (3) uphold the PPAACA in its entirety. Seraph, hoping the justices would not strike down “Obamacare,” explained: “I personally have been waiting for the Affordable Health Care plan to go into effect because I am considered an independent contractor, as are most adult performers—and as such, it is incredibly difficult to get a reasonable health insurance plan. I have a pre-existing condition that is manageable but excludes me from being accepted for an individual health plan. I have been told that my best option for getting into a health plan is to get a job with a company that has a group health care plan. But I like what I do and don’t feel I should have to sacrifice my chosen career just to have access to affordable health care. I know many other adult performers who feel similarly, and have had similar struggles with the current systems that are in place and end up having to be uninsured.”

As it turned out, the Supreme Court went with #3, essentially upholding “Obamacare” in its entirety and ruling that the individual mandate was constitutional—and surprisingly, the swing vote in its favor turned out to be Chief Justice John Roberts (a George W. Bush appointee). Many judicial scholars had been predicting that if “Obamacare” survived the Supreme Court’s scrutiny, the swing vote in its favor would come from Justice Anthony Kennedy. But Kennedy said that he would have been in favor of striking down “Obamacare” in its entirety. Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito joined Kennedy in opposing “Obamacare,” while justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor (an Obama appointee) and Elena Kagan (another Obama appointee) voted with Roberts.

Hollie Stevens was with her husband, Eric Cash, and porn performer Morgan Bailey when she died. On his Facebook page, Cash wrote: “On Tuesday morning, at 10:05 am, Hollie Stevens took her last breath while I held her hand. I had heard her breath hitching, and walked into our bedroom and kneeled with her. Morgan Bailey was also there. After a long, hard fight, she died peacefully, and surrounded by people she loved.”

 Que descanse en paz.

Alex Henderson is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, Billboard, Spin, XBIZ, Creem, Skin Two, The Pasadena Weekly, JazzTimes, Cash Box and a long list of other well-known publications. He can be followed on Twitter @alexvhenderson.



Hollie Stevens in 2005. Photo by Luke Ford.