Underage But Man Enough To Tell

For porn star Brent Corrigan, public appearances aren’t safe.

In fact, the day before I sat down to chat with Brent over lunch, two men approached the handsome adult film star at a West Hollywood bar event and asked for a picture. While posing, oneof the men lifted up a copy of a new gay porn DVD featuring scenes from Brent’s last performance for a certain studio. Seems innocent enough, right? But Brent pushed the fan away, words were exchanged, security was called and the men ran off, picture captured. Why?

It’s just the tip of one of the biggest icebergs to rock the gay porn world in recent years.
Brent has a post rife with the common experiences of many gay youth, growing up with neglectful parents, raising his siblings alone, with a quite uncommon twist – filming a series of bareback porn films when he was only 17. Yes. 17. Officially underage.

Now 19, Brent’s journey into porn started in 2004 – his cute smile, impressive manhood and professional ‘riding’ skills were featured prominently in four gay porn films. All were popular titles, bringing significant revenue for the producing studio. But in September, 2005, Brent stunned the adult community by announcing he was underage when he shot the four films.

Lacking family support, on his own in San Diego at 16 years old, with little money and no prospects, Brent turned to an older, faster, more knowledgeable boyfriend who gave him a kind of acceptance lacking in his life. He also showed Brent a fast, furious, out of control side to the gay scene.

“[He] introduced me to a lifestyle that wasn’t very fitting of a 16-year-old. He was nothing but the worst influence on me. But I thought this is what gay people did. I didn’t know that most of the gay community isn’t into drugs and being evil to each other; that there is a side of the gay community that actually takes care of each other.”

Shortly before his 17th birthday, Brent says his boyfriend of the time got him audition with a gay porn producer and adult video director – an audition he didn’t even have to leave his bedroom to perform for.
“[My boyfriend was] online with [the producer]. He whips around the Web cam, points it at the bed, and rips my clothes off,” he remembers. “I’m instantly hard because I’m a 16 year-old boy and this means sex. I’m pointing at the ceiling and he’s like ‘you’re on Webcam.’”

According to Brent, the porn producer was told that he was 18 and was interested in doing porn. The producer was interested in turn – very interested, according to Brent, and signed him up for a shoot.
“I was 16, 17 and I thought I knew everything,” Brent says. “I needed to support myself and I thought with [my boyfriend] there it couldn’t be that bad. And [my boyfriend] assured me that underage boys worked in porn all the time. He said that producers also forged IDs so we wouldn’t be doing anything wrong.”
In the course of making the videos, Brent says he found in the producer a father figure, someone he could look up to even more than his boyfriend. A sexual and emotional relationship developed – which, Brent explains, he felt was “expected”. “I thought his help and support would end if I didn’t do it,” he says.
Brent says he tried to tell the producer the truth about his age, but he was constantly shut down. “He hinted very strongly that if I was underage now or when filming the videos, I’d be the one in trouble, not him,” Brent says. The age issue finally came to a head in 2005,the summer before Brent’s 18th birthday when Brent’s ex-boyfriendproducer and spilled the beans. But according to Brent, rather than publicly disclosing the information, the producer wanted to hush it up.

“He just wanted to make more movies,” Brent says. “He didn’t want me to tell anyone the truth. He had too much to lose if he did. I trusted him about a lot of things, including when he told me that I was the one who was going to go to jail over all the lies, not him.”

By the time Brent turned 18, Brent had broken up with the producer, but continued to film (now legal) scenes for the video production company. The producer continued, Brent says, to caution him against ever discussing that he was underage when he started.

Finally, in 2005, Brent decided that he had to come clean and publicly revealed that he was underage during the making of his first videos. According to Brent, the producer was less than thrilled about the disclosure.

“Traitors need to be dealt with
accordingly,” the producer wrote in a September 3, 2005 email to him, Brent
says, that also included promises of retribution, lawsuits and financial ruin. According to Adult Video News (AVN) the video production company followed
through on the producer’s alleged threats, filing a February 7, 2006 lawsuit for “trademark infringement, breach of contract, violation of California statutes, and other injustices… seeking unspecified damages and injunctive relief.”

In a February 27 article published by Adult Video News about Brent’s case, the attorney for the video production company addressed the case by saying: “It is remarkably easy to throw baseless accusations around. Since last September, [Brent’s former attorney] has claimed [he] was underage when he made four movies. If this is true, why has he failed to provide a certified copy of his birth certificate. If there is a reason not to provide it to [the production company], why not provide it to the FBI or AVN?”
In response, during a March 14th interview with Jasoncurious.com columnist Jason Sechrest, Brent provided a driver’s license to the journalist. “…I had in my hands the evidence that [the video production company] has been requesting for months,” Sechrest explained in his column. “I was holding Brent
Corrigan’s authentic driver’s license. And he was born in 1986. Brent Corrigan was indeed underage in all videos shot with the company.”

The suit is still pending.

Since making his announcement, Brent hasn’t looked back. In fact, he has started his own adult film company.

“Did you know I’m the youngest producer in the history of gay porn?” he says with a devilish smile. “Porn can be a bad business; but not my company. Since I know what it’s like, I treat models right. I treat my models with the utmost respect from beginning to end.” And just for the record, he’s only making condom films.

Brent also has a blog on his web site where he posts his own takes on life
and recently appeared in the big budget Falcon video The Velvet Mafia, directed by Chi Chi LaRue. And like so many other young men in and around Hollywood, what Brent really wants to do is direct legit films.

“I’m a porn star, and my life is deeply rooted in that. But I’d like to eventually put something out that pushes the envelope – a full length feature, but when it comes down to sex between the characters, it’s all there.”