Porn’s “boy next door” superstar James Deen has finally broken his silence regarding the nine women who have accused him of rape or sexual assault, saying in a new interview that he is “completely baffled” by the allegations.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Beast, Deen dismissed each of the specific allegations against him, including the claim made by his ex-girlfriend and porn star Stoya, who touched off an avalanche of accusations when she tweeted on November 28 that Deen had held her down and allegedly raped her as she pleaded with him to stop. Since then, eight other women have come forward with similar accusations, the most recent being MTV Teen Mom reality star Farrah Abraham who made a sex-tape with Deen and now alleges he raped her.
“I do not know at all,” Deen told the Daily Beast when asked why Stoya would claim that he raped her. “I am completely baffled. I also can’t speak to her motivations. There are public articles all over the internet, written by her, that make the exact opposite claims. She discusses how we communicated and how we were very careful with consent especially when involved with rough sex.”
Deen added:
The reason Stoya made this claim could be as simple as her finding out that my current girlfriend and I are moving in together. We have mutual friends, one of our friends notified Stoya of this information. It could be as calculated as Stoya trying to drive traffic to her website. Which I have to say is very well done and I am proud to have the movie I produced for her up on the site, but the same day this happened she pinned a tweet about her site that just so happened to have an update with me in it right above this madness. I can’t speak to her reasoning or motivations.
Stoya’s tweet prompted a number of other female porn stars to come forward with their own accusations. In an essay for the Daily Beast, Tori Lux claimed Deen struck her with an open palm “five or six times” during a particularly rough scene.
“I can safely say that did not happen,” Deen said of Lux’s claim. “All of the accusations are from either ex-girlfriends or events that happened on set. I always try to take responsibility for my actions and apologize when needed.”
Deen added that performing in rough sex scenes for BDSM porn companies like Kink.com, for whom he has made roughly 200 films, can blur the lines between fictional rough play and real-life sexual assault.
“If at any point I pushed boundaries past the point of comfort, I am sorry,” Deen said. “I have always tried to respect peoples’ limits and safe words and operated within that space. If someone expressed anything to me I honored the request with the fullest care.”
Deen also said he did not have any regrets about posting jokes about rape to his Twitter feed, the content of which appeared insensitive in the wake of the allegations:
I have never claimed to be a ‘feminist’ or ‘the boy next door.’ As always, I have claimed to be nothing other than a simple guy who likes to eat, sleep, and watch TV, who also bangs chicks for a living. I am not politically correct nor do I particularly care if people disagree with me. I live by the mission of wanting to change the way people think about each other’s opinions, and I adhere to it. I fully promote the mentality that people can say anything they want and do anything they want as long as they are not violating the rights of others.
Deen concluded by saying he won’t “play whack-a-mole” with each of the accusations leveled against him.
“I know some people will understand me and what I’m saying, and some may be offended by it and say even worse things as a result,” he said. “We live in a world where accusations get great attention and no one really seems to want to get the truth. I’m in porn, and when you take porn activity into polite society it sounds really twisted. The media needs stories and I can see how this is one hell of a story.”
“And finally, I want to remind people that I am not the subject of any lawsuits, I am not under criminal investigation, and at this moment I have no intention of filing defamation suits against false accusations.”
Check out the rest of Deen’s lengthy interview with the Daily Beast here.