Page 72 - AVN March 2017

FEATURE
2017 AVN Awards | By Dan Miller
COME ON DOWN Top, Favorite Cam Girl Fan Award winner Kati3Kat; Samantha Saint and Ryan Driller; bottom, Eva Lovia, Chad White and Asa
Akira announce the Female Performer of the Year. Top photos by JFK/FUBARWebmasters.com; bottom by Rick Garcia/@IndustryByRick.
Overcome with emotion, she thanked John O’Byrne of East
Coast Talent and director Jonni Darkko, who shot her showcase
Holly Hendrix’s Anal Experience, and “all my favorite directors.”
Backstage, Hendrix cried tears of joy.
“This is a huge honor for me,” Hendrix said, adding that
accepting the Best New Starlet trophy was surreal.
“I instantly felt like I was in a dream. I instantly felt like
nothing was real anymore. I felt like reality was all shut down.
I didn’t see anyone in the crowd. All I could think about was
Jonni Darkko. All I could think about was how hard I worked. I
didn’t think it was real. I was thinking about Elsa [Jean]. I was
thinking about Gina [Valentina]. I was thinking about the girls I
knew were going to get this. … I’m going to show you guys. You
haven’t seen anything yet. Nothing.”
The Fan Award for Favorite Cam Girl went to Kati3kat from
MyFreeCams.
Sporting flirty blue hair, the 22-year-old Kati3kat told AVN
backstage, “I honestly enjoy what I do.”
“I sign on every day. It’s a place for people to be happy and me
to be happy. And I’m comfortable being 100 percent myself. But
I love everything about what I do,” Kati3kat said, noting she has
been camming for two years. “I have an amazing fanbase that
really cares about the person behind the camera instead of just a
pretty face or all the usual things. So that’s ultimately what it is.
I try to be as me as possible and I guess it worked.”
Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, she now cams from
Washington, where she recently moved.
Co-host Riley Reid, who won seven AVN Awards in 2016,
added another to her collection, taking home the fan-voted
Favorite Female Porn Star trophy.
“Holy smokes,” Reid said on stage. “I was kind of hoping I
wasn’t going to win anything because I won so much last year.
But hell yeah! Thank you so much to everyone. Thank you to my
fans. Thank you to AVN for letting me host and letting me win.
My mom is here—my god, mom.”
Reid also shared the Best Girl-Girl Sex Scene award with
Reena Sky for their tangle in Missing: A Lesbian Crime Story for
Girlsway/Girlfriends.
“It’s an insane scene,” said Sky, a 10-year porn veteran from
Vallejo, Calif. “It’s so different than anything I’ve ever done, so
it was crazy to be nominated because I played an insane person
and I like went crazy on her and she was supposed to be kind of
a little weirded out by me. I remember her being amazing and
helping me to make the character more genuine.”
Abella Danger took home Best Star Showcase for her
collaboration with director Mason and Hard X, Abella.
“I didn’t think I was going to win because that category was
so high that every girl in it had an epic showcase,” Danger, who
wore a stylish tuxedo with a red bow, said backstage. “I was just
like there’s no way. I even started walking away so if I started
crying no one would see me. And I’m like walking away in the
corner and I hear my name. And it was just ahh, a dream true.
I wanted to win it for Mason because she took the chance on
doing this for me. I’m so glad I did this. I’m so happy.”
Aubrey Kate made it a clean sweep, winning the Fan Awards
for Favorite Trans Porn Star, and Favorite Trans Cam Star and the
Transsexual Performer of the Year award.
Walking on stage in front of thousands of her industry peers,
“I felt like I was having a panic attack,” she said backstage.
“I just couldn’t get everything out that I wanted to say. It
was the happiest moment of my life,” Kate said. “I’ve never
been accepted for anything and I’ve never gotten to the top of
anything. I’ve always quit. And I was really about to quit.
“I just want to go out like a bang. I just want to work harder.”
Punk rock princess Joanna Angel got back in the winner’s
circle again for her terrific performance in Cindy Queen of Hell, a
BurningAngel comedy that co-written and directed by Angel and
Xander Corvus.
Angel seemed genuinely shocked by the win for Best
Supporting Actress, giving special thanks to Leigh Raven, who
plays her 21-year-old daughter Lucinda (Cindy) in the movie.
72 | AVN.com | 3.17