Bonnie Rotten, 2014 AVN Performer of The Year: “I love heavy metal… I have a Kreator tattoo!!”

Bonnie Rotten has risen to be the top performer in the adult industry in an insanely small amount of time (she literally just turned 21 this week). In my humble opinion, a great deal of her success is owed to the fact that she is every bit as extreme as her name and every bit as sweet as her babyface suggests. Soft spoken and down to earth, Bonnie has not only won awards like AVN Performer of The Year for her onscreen work but has also proven to be one of the most versatile girls in the biz.  Ms. Rotten recently turned heads with her feature directorial debut,”To The Core” and somehow still finds time between touring and shooting to also appear in lots of rock videos.  I had the chance to talk to the Ohio native about her increasingly busy and upwardly trending career; read on….

LRI:  Hi Bonnie.  I wanted to start by asking you about some music stuff.  I think you were in a Steel Panther video that was shot as their onstage intro right?  What was that like?

Bonnie Rotten:  I was, yeah.  It was really interesting (laughs).  I had done other videos in the past, I did a video for “Casual Sex” by My Darkest Days and “Turn Up The Music” for Chris Brown and a few other ones.

LRI:  You’re used to a different environment on adult sets, is it a lot of “hurry up and wait” going on on rock and rap video sets like I always hear bands say?

Bonnie Rotten:  It is SUPER hurry up and wait.  Yeah, it’s really lame as far as that goes, it’s like “Ok, hurry hurry, hurry.  Ok, now sit here for two hours” (laughs) and stuff like that a lot of the time.

LRI:  I have a lot of tattoos but I’m pretty safe in saying you’ve got me beat.  One thing I’ve noticed is that there is almost always a passionate music fan behind the ink, what kind of music did you like growing up Bonnie?

Bonnie Rotten:  When I was growing up I was heavy into like Doom bands and Death Metal and like Stoner Metal too.  I really liked Electric Wizard and Kreator, stuff like that.

LRI:  Woah, did you just say Kreator?…I can see the metal guys making a mess in their camo cutoffs hearing that.

Bonnie Rotten:  (laughs)  I love Kreator, I like all kinds of music but I love heavy metal… I have a Kreator tattoo, it says “The promise of a better future is a lie”.

LRI:  I’m pretty sure you’re the only porn starlet that has Kreator lyrics tatted on her, points for that.  There have been other girls with ink but you have definitely made it work for you, was that kind of a surprise to you as far as how you’ve been embraced?

Bonnie Rotten:  Yeah, it has been awesome.  The thing about that is maybe that in the past it’s been super hard and the industry had been close minded.  Still, as someone with a lot of tattoos you can’t just go in and have the typical road and do the typical thing.  I’m a “tattoo girl”… I wasn’t an “alt” girl, which basically means I’m a pretty girl with tattoos if you know what I’m saying.  I’ve marketed myself outside “the mill” so to speak, like I didn’t want to market myself with an agent or be on an agency website.

LRI:  You’re barely legal and have that many tattoos.  I know a few tattoo artists in Ohio that have some explaining to do…

Bonnie Rotten:  (laughs)  It’s funny but in Ohio they have age of consent laws and you can get a tattoo if you have parental consent.

LRI:  So your family was okay with you gettin some art done or did you just fake up some signatures?

Bonnie:  Well, I totally tattooed a bunch of really terrible shit, like bad indian ink and a needle, prison tattoo bad so they were like “Yeah, go get that stuff fixed” because it was really just that bad (laughs).  I started to get them fixed and then I moved out and got a job and at that point they couldn’t really say no so my grandpa would just meet me at the tattoo shop and sign for me.

LRI:  Does it piss you off when people say stuff like “Oh, you will regret all those tattoos when you’re 60 and blah, blah, blah”???

Bonnie Rotten:  It does!!  It does!!  I’m like “Motherfucker!  When I’m that old I won’t give a fuck”.  That’s just how it is when you’re old, when you’re old you don’t care (laughs).  At least that’s how it should be!  Like you’re just chillin and it’s all good, your hair is short, you’re not in a rush to do much of anything and you generally don’t give a fuck when you’re old.  When I’m old I am gonna be the cool old grandma (laughs harder).

LRI:  You seem really chill already, did you have a pretty normal upbringing by stereotypical porn standards? 

Bonnie Rotten:  I grew up with my grandparents and my grandpa is super cool.  He was a really good part of my life since I was like four years old.

LRI:  Obviously, you have made it pretty far in the adult biz.   Have they become aware of all of that?

Bonnie Rotten:  (laughs)  Oh yes, they know.  Their whole thing is as long as they know I am happy and safe, it has been okay.  They have always known I was pretty far out there in everything I’ve done so the adult stuff is not too much of a surprise.

LRI:  You’ve done some really high class modeling shoot stuff and done the music video, mainstream media thing on many occasions while making a massive name in adult.   What is your take on all that at this point?

Bonnie Rotten:  Well, it’s funny because I actually started out mainstream.  I started out doing pinup work and auto shows and things like that and worked for motorcycle companies and did that whole angle of things.  Then I got involved with all of this horror convention stuff and was working at all of these major conventions in the midwest and south and that was kind of fun.  Then I started dancing and came out to California after I won a pageant at a horror convention in Indiana and I was introduced to fetish and was like “Oh, my god, this is what I want to do, this shit is awesome!!”.  I honestly became infatuated with it and it just brought out that whole side of me, I came out to L.A and it’s been a passion ever since.  Here I am (laughs).

LRI:  I can definitely relate to the whole bored kid in the midwest thing, it’s the whole getting paid for onscreen sex part that most of us don’t figure out….

Bonnie Rotten:  (laughs).  I really came out here to California and made a few connections and then went back home.  I started webcamming and doing some fetish stuff back home and started emailing with Nina Hartley, you know who Nina is right?

LRI:  Oh yes, we’ve yet to connect for an interview but she’s definitely a legend.

Bonnie:  Right.  Nina and I started corresponding and she would give me all kinds of tips about how the industry is and what the right steps were as far as moving from webcams to other work in the business.  Then one day, I just kind of came out all balls out and she was like “Oh my gosh!!”  It was awesome. (laughs).

LRI:  So fetish was a way in.  Was it a shortcut or did it make things easier as far as breaking in the biz?

Bonnie:  (laughs)  I would never say it was the easy way in, no!  There are so many, so many girls who do porn but just can’t HANDLE the fetish stuff, just refuse to do fetish work.  It’s just a totally different realm and a totally different understanding from a performance standpoint.  There are so many different levels of discipline and context that it is sort of a totally different artform as opposed to just straight hardcore sex.  For me it was a total gateway (laughs).

LRI:  I saw another early scene of yours that was really funny, it was another midwestern girl we interviewed Alia Janine playing your mom or stepmom teaching you her tricks.  Do you sometimes laugh at some of the lines that come up in porn dialogue?

Bonnie Rotten:  I remember the scene you’re talking about (laughs).  It gets so much love but all I can remember thinking about was how creepy it was (laughs).  Moms teaching kids, like whatever…(laughs).   Kind of weird!!  One of the lines was like “Oh yeah?  Is that how you suck a cock?” or something like that and I was like “Yeah, okay, whatever” (laughs).  Goddamn weird.  That’s why I am so stoked that I have boobs now because they couldn’t even try to do that shit to me now even if they wanted to (laughs).  Fuck that.  Like we couldn’t even stop laughing the whole time and I was like “I can’t do this” (laughs).  She would start laughing and then I would start laughing and we’d have to keep stopping.  I mean, it was successful and all of that but it was just very weird and very funny (laughs).

LRI:  Back to the tattoo thing….Does it make you happy when people say you’re too pretty to be that inked up?  Is that almost better than them saying you’re too pretty to do porn?

Bonnie Rotten:  That DOES make me happy to hear because it means I’m getting the best of BOTH worlds.  That also makes it really interesting for the companies I work with because there are a lot of different angles they can run with because they can work the young, fresh faced, chicky thing from the neck up and the total badass from the neck down thing so it’s kind of a good balance.

LRI:  We’ve seen you wear some pretty interesting things in some of your shoots and scenes, what do you wear when you’re just chilling during your free time?  Sweatshirts and yoga pants?

Bonnie Rotten:  I’m always wearing shorts…..like booty shorts or hotpants shorts or tie-dyed shorts and just some kind of shirt and then I always have legwarmers or socks on (laughs)….seriously.  I am always wearing moccasins and a headband too (laughs).  I guess I am pretty simple.  I look like a freakin hippie.

LRI:  Do you notice a lot of Midwestern transplants out on the west coast?  Is it like “One of us!!!”???

Bonnie Rotten:  I do actually!  I guess it’s like what are we gonna do in Indiana or Illinois or Ohio you know what I’m saying??  It’s like, not fuckin too much (laughs).

LRI:  Before I let you go, you mentioned horror stuff and I assume you’re a big fan, do you have any aspirations for doing any mainstream horror stuff or are you just way too busy with your work in adult?

Bonnie Rotten:  I do, I do love horror, most of my tattoos are horror related stuff and I would love to but at the same time it’s like “Ok, what am I gonna do?”  Am I gonna be the hooker, the stripper or…..

LRI:  The superhot dead, decapitated girl…

Bonnie Rotten:  With big fuckin tits, yeah (laughs)

For all things Bonnie Rotten, please visit www.bonnierotten.com

Tags: 2014 AVN Performer of the Year, Bonnie Rotten, full-image, To The Core

Category: Interviews