Porn star James Deen has offered another statement to address sexual assault allegations leveled at him now that nine women have come forward.
“I am completely baffled,” Deen told The Daily Beast, which has been keeping a tally of the accusations.
He initially spoke about allegations made by adult actress Stoya, who was the first woman to come forward when she claimed Deen held her down and raped her. Speculating on Stoya’s motivations for claims he says are baseless, Deen proposed that she may be angry that he and his current girlfriend are moving in together, or is trying to drive traffic to her website.
“There are public articles all over the internet, written by her, that make the exact opposite claims,” he said. “She discusses how we communicated and how we were very careful with consent especially when involved with rough sex.”
Deen also dismissed sexual assault allegations made by Tori Lux, another porn star who claimed he “ruthlessly attacked and degraded” her.
“I can safely say that did not happen,” he said. “All of the accusations are from either ex-girlfriends or events that happened on set … If at any point I pushed boundaries past the point of comfort, I am sorry. I have always tried to respect peoples’ limits and safe words and operated within that space.”
According to the article, Deen showed the writer an extremely graphic video of him and Stoya having sex, in which Stoya tells Deen to “stop” and that she doesn’t “want to do that,” to which Deen responded, “All you have to say is that you don’t want to do it, then we won’t do it.”
Porn star Ashley Fires alleges that Deen assaulted her in the shower at Kink.com and that he “felt entitled” to her body although she repeatedly told him to stop. Deen dismissed these allegations as well.
“In no way at all do I feel entitled to anyone’s body on set,” he said. “Like I previously said, what stops everything is when someone objects or states discomfort.”
Deen also addressed his rape jokes on Twitter which resurfaced amid the recent allegations. In the tweets, he cracked jokes like, “Things I’ve learned… It’s not rape if you yell surprise and if you put enough bbq sauce on anything it will taste ok.”
“I think that finding humor in horror is a coping mechanism I use to accept that terrible things happen in the world,” he added. “I have always had a dark sense of humor as I think a lot of people in my circle do as well — dead baby jokes, Holocaust jokes, rape jokes, no arm/no legs jokes, racist jokes … But making a rape joke does not make one a rapist.”
Concerning another accusation made by Ashley Rayne, who told The Daily Beast that when she called Deen a “son of a bitch” during a scene, his face “twisted and he came down on my face two times,” while he “just starts shoving things in to the point where he ripped it and I bled everywhere.” Deen blamed the media for distorting this particular incident.
“It sounds pretty extreme but I can assure you, as someone who has also been on sets before, this situation was grossly distorted by the press, and as someone who came to my defense stated, this video exists,” he explained. “You can clearly see it not happening the way it is represented in the media.”
Kora Peters claimed that Deen had anal sex with her although the act was a “no” as far as she was concerned. She says Deen “forced himself in my ass anyway.” Once again, Deen claimed that Peters had previously posted tweets that contradict her claims.
“There have been tweets pulled up from her very own Twitter feed that dispute her claims,” he said. “She claimed to never have worked with me again, but months after the scene in question was shot she performed in an anal scene with me for my company. She has made previous public comments to inner adult industry people that contradict what she is saying now. If she regrets shooting the scene with me I am sorry to hear this. However, in no way did this event transpire anything like what is described in the media.”
Regarding Joanna Angel, who appeared on SiriusXM last week to discuss her abusive relationship with Deen over the course of six years, Deen had only good things to say.
“If everything said was accurate it would mean I started doing porn at the age of 17,” he said. (Deen entered the industry a year later.) “However, I will absolutely admit to being an emotionally insensitive boyfriend. I will admit to being immature. I will admit to being an overall jerk. I have publicly apologized many times and I will continue to do so. Joanna Angel is one of the smartest and most creative people I have ever had the chance to know.”
In the article, Deen also claimed he “had no knowledge that any limits or boundaries were considered violated.”
Moreover, he also blamed the media for the specific timing of the allegations.
“Multiple women have told me journalists have offered them up to $5,000 for stories about me,” he said. “Any description of a porn scene can be made to sound sensational. Again, I’m not blaming the victim and if anything ever happened that was over the line I want to apologize and ensure that when communicated these things do not happen. At this point I am just waiting for everyone who has ever disliked me ever from my entire life to come out with some extreme story or interpretation of how horrible I am. Like I said, I have never claimed to be a feminist or a nice guy, or the boy next door or anything like that. I am a pornographer. It’s all I ever wanted to be. I believe in respect and equality and doing unto others, but that does not make me anything more than a pornographer who believes in these values.”
Deen, who said that “the media needs stories and I can see how this is one hell of a story,” does not intend to file any lawsuits and stated that he is not under criminal investigation for any of the allegations.
“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,” he concluded.