This Is How Much Porn Stars Get Paid - Cosmopolitan

Being a porn star might not be the kind of job you'd like to write home to your parents or your granny about, but it turns out it could actually be a pretty lucrative means of paying the bills - if you're into that kind of thing.

The Independent recently spoke to Derek Hay - former porn star and founder of LA Direct Models, which represents a number of the leading adult performers in the industry - to find out whether money in the bank is the real incentive for these professional sex-havers.

According to Derek, the money varies from porn star to porn star depending on their status, who their agent is and various other factors, but there is basic rate of pay to be expected. Female performers having sex with a male performer in a scene, for example, would usually earn approximately $1,000, which translates to around £800. This rate reduces in a female same-sex scenes, going down to about $700-800, or £550.

There are "premium rates", however, which could be anything between £1,600 to £5,000 per scene, which are paid out when the performer is asked to perform a sexual act they've not been filmed doing before.

"For the right girl, for whatever reason which could vary, to do acts like their first anal scene, first interracial scene, first scene with three, four or five guys, those scenes could pay premium rates," Derek explained to The Independent.

So how do the male salaries compare? Interestingly, porn is one of the only industries where female earnings are, on average, far higher than their male counterparts. Derek Hay says it's "universally known that women get paid a lot more" in porn, but he did note that men still get paid "what most people would think is a lot", and that they tend to work more frequently than women.

Overall, though, Derek notes that even the most famous of porn stars don't earn quite as much as many people might think they do.

"I don't think there's anybody, even the biggest stars, who are making more than half a million a year," he said. "But if some of the top stars are making $300,000-400,000 per year, by most people's perception that would still be a lot of money I think."

So I guess it just depends from person to person whether they think that kind of money is worth it for the daily requirements of the job...

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Catriona Harvey-JennerFeatures Editor

Cat is Cosmopolitan UK's features editor covering women's issues, health and current affairs. news, features and health. The route to her heart is a simple combination of pasta and cheese (somewhat ironic considering the whole health writing thing), and she finds it difficult to commit to TV series so currently has about 14 different ones on the go.