An adult performer who began at 18 says the hardest part of eight years in the industry is that nobody uses her real name any more – not her friends and not her family.
Candy Scott has built a following of more than 94,000 fans making hardcore and gonzo scenes, and has worked with some of the biggest studios in Europe.
But the 27-year-old says the character she created has slowly taken over the woman who created her.
She also has a warning for anyone thinking of following her into the job for a quick payday, because she believes most of them will be gone inside two years with nothing to show for it.
“The hardest thing is that people have an image of you,” Candy told NudeNewz.
“For relationships, my parents, and many friendships, they don’t call me by my name – they call me Candy.
“You become a character and not yourself.”
Candy never planned a career in adult films. She was 18, trying to get modelling work, and producers began approaching her through her social media.
She said: “It was my first job. I came to do some modelling, I was just 18, and producers contacted me on my social media.
“They said, ‘Hey, would you try to work?’
“I had a great thing to say in the beginning, which is that if you choose this career, don’t do it just for money or just for fun – because don’t forget, the image stays.”
That line is the heart of the advice she now gives to new creators, and she says watching young women ignore it is the most frustrating part of the industry.
She said: “The big mistake is when you come into this job and you think, ‘I will make money’ or ‘I will have some fun’, but you don’t think long term.
“I see so many young and pretty girls do that just for one or two years and after, they disappear.
“That’s a shame, because the pictures stay. Always.
“When you have done that, it is very hard to have a normal job after. So try to do something intelligent with it.”
Her own answer has been to turn eight years of adult work into something else.
She said: “Right now I try to use what I have. I do my shows, I have found runway work through an agency.
“I have found agencies that accept me because I do exhibitions for my clientele.
“Don’t do this just for fun or for money.”
Originally from France, Candy started out in Paris – where she says the money was almost non-existent.
Everything changed when she moved to Prague, where she spent three years and still describes the city as the best thing that happened to her career.
She said: “In Prague I came to do a lot of scenes. I went into the niche, I went into hardcore, and I came to have my customers.
“That was really my big peak.
“In Prague I discovered myself, I could test myself, I saw a new culture. It was very free in this industry.”
Asked what she would do if she had to start over tomorrow with no following at all, her answer was immediate.
She said: “I would go directly to Prague again.”
From Prague she moved on to Budapest, and for the last two years she has been based in Los Angeles, where she arrived to sort out her paperwork and ended up building a second career in modelling alongside the adult work.
She said: “I came here to continue my career, but it has already been eight years since I did that.
“I was always doing modelling besides this, so I thought, why not try that too?
“I am not the type of woman who regrets. Many people say they regret it and I don’t know what happened to them, but I am not regretting and not running from my past.
“Travelling gave me a voice to express myself, to meet people. And right now I’m here.”
Covered in 27 tattoos – one for every year – plus several piercings, Candy says her look pushed her towards hardcore and fetish work rather than the glossier end of the business.
The two platforms that bring her fans shift depending on which version of her career is in front of the camera.
She said: “When I was doing very hardcore p*rn, I was more on Twitter.
“Right now I do more modelling stuff, runway stuff, so I am more on Instagram.”
Then there are the fans. Candy says the strangest thing she has dealt with was a man who decided he was going to marry her – and told his entire family.
She said: “There is one fan who was in love with me. It came suddenly and it was very extreme.
“He was sure he was marrying me and he wrote to me every day.
“I had never met him. He sent me pictures of himself as a teenager.
“And every member of his family followed me and knew me as the future wife.”
She said: “I was like, my God, that’s crazy.”
Not every encounter has been unsettling. One of her favourite memories is being stopped in the street in Paris by a man in his 70s.
She said: “He was so cute. He stopped me in the city and said he had seen my hardcore scene and it was amazing.
“I said ‘that’s so cute, but you could be my grandpa’.”
Candy says she shares a lot of her life with her following and answers her fans personally, but insists the person they are talking to is still a role.
She said: “I am very expressive and very open. I share a lot of my life on social media.
“Every time I write to my fans I say, ‘Yes, that was my day – how was your day?’
“So my fans know me on a deeper level.’’
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