Porn legend Jesse Jane passed away yesterday from what looks to be a drug overdose at the young age of forty-three. Jane emerged during a time when porn stars were stars, and she was known the world over, literally, for her incredible looks, fierce porn performances, and fiery personality.
Jane first capitalized on her natural sex appeal as a Hooters girl before she expanded into modeling, at one point even working exclusively as a bikini model for Hawaiian Tropic. Back in the early 2000s there was a lot of money to be made in porn, and in 2003 Jane forayed into the biz by signing with Digital Playground.
Most notably, Jane starred in the priciest porn movie franchise ever created, the "Pirate" movies. The first cost $1 million to produce while the sequel "Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge" cost a record-breaking $8 million. With elaborate costumes, detailed sets, and well-written dialogue, that money is up there on the screen.
Here's what Jane had to say to GQ in 2018 about the rise and fall of the Golden Age Of Porn:
I got into porn right at the perfect time, when porn stars mattered. They were big, glamorous. You walked into a room, you turned heads. Everybody knew who you were because they actually had to buy your product or DVDs, everything. Porn was so naughty, but everybody watched it. The internet killed the business. Now the only people that get noticed are the people who go for shock value.
Jesse Jane was so big in her heyday that her star power could not be contained by the porn industry alone. She enjoyed rare crossover success, appearing in the Starsky and Hutch reboot and even Entourage. In order to celebrate her legacy of hotness, we're rounding up all of Jesse's hottest mainstream and mainstream-adjacent on-screen moments. Yes, "Pirates" was mainstream-adjacent. Ask your dad. Goodbye Jesse Jane, you were one of the greats.
