Page 62 - AVN March 2018

FEATURE | AVN AWARDS SHOW
Top, August Project creator Kevin Moore; Director of the Year Greg Lansky;
Best New Starlet Jill Kassidy; Best Boy/Girl Sex Scene pair Angela White
and Manuel Ferrara. Middle, Best Actor Tommy Pistol, presenters Gina
Valentina, Jillian Janson and Elsa Jean. Bottom, Best Girl/Girl Sex Scene
pair Katrina Jade and Kissa Sins. Photos by Rick Garcia
62 | AVN.com | 3.18
Moore said he would be meeting with the Free Speech
Coalition in February about logistics and that he would be
one of the three board members of the August Project.
“We will go from there and start creating a network
and hopefully get other people involved,” Moore added. “I
know when she died it was amazing how many people in
the psychiatric community hit me up and said, ‘I’ll help in
a heartbeat. I don’t care what people do for a living.’ I even
found ex-people from industry—makeup artists and stuff
like that—that have left the business and went and got a
degree in psychotherapy and were like, ‘I’m ready to help.’”
This year the AVN Awards Show attracted unprecedented
media coverage as reporters from CNN, FOX, The New
York Times, Washington Post and Rolling Stone, among other
national media outlets, converged on the red carpet that
curled through the casino hours before showtime. Sightings
included 2009 Female Performer of the Year Jenna Haze,
2010-11 Female Performer of the Year Tori Black and eight-
time Foreign Performer of the Year Rocco Siffredi, who was
introduced by AVN Media Network CEO Tony Rios before
he presented the award for Best Drama.
The award for Best New Starlet went to Dallas native Jill
Kassidy, who made her porn debut in 2016. She accepted
her award from the 2017 Best New Starlet Holly Hendrix.
“I just wanted to say thank you to AVN and my fans and
[my agency] LA Direct and everyone I get to work with
every day,” Kassidy said on stage.
In the winner’s circle backstage, Kassidy cried.
“I’m so happy, I worked very hard,” she said, gripping
a gift bag from Pornhub that contained a Tiffany pearl
necklace and some branded sex toys. “I just never had a
job that I liked and … I really like porn and it means a lot
to me that people like me in porn and they want to give
me Best New Starlet. I did not expect this.”
Hendrix, who also shed tears outside the winner’s
circle, gave Kassidy some encouragement, telling her,
“You’re Best New Starlet! You hold this title … you
worship this title, you are the queen of porn right now!”
Meanwhile, the Male Performer of the Year award
changed hands for the first time since 2015, as Russian
stud Markus Dupree captured the crown, halting the
record three-peat run by Austrian deal-closer Mick Blue.
Dupree, dressed in a black tuxedo, did not pull any
punches in his epic, nearly seven-minute acceptance
speech in which he thanked his agent, LA Direct owner
Derek Hay, the first top girls with whom he shot in
America—Adriana Chechik and Abella Danger—director
Chris Streams, Greg Lansky, Pat Myne, Mason, John
Stagliano, Mick Blue and Toni Ribas, among others.
The 29-year-old native of St. Petersburg, Russia, who
lived with his grandmother as a teen and started his porn
career in 2007, came to Vegas this year with an industry-
leading 22 nominations.
In another first this year, AVN awarded the best in
cosplay, which has evolved into one of the most influential
niches in the billion-dollar business of live cams. The
inaugural trophy for Favorite Camming Cosplayer went to
Catjira, whose enthusiastic members on MyFreeCams are
known as The Cat Cult.
“I’m so shocked by this,” Catjira said on stage. “I’m so
grateful. AVN added this category acknowledging cosplay
in porn and I’m the first person to win this. Thank you
AVN and thank you MFC—MyFreeCams—for giving me
this platform and all the other cosplay cammers. Thank
you for adding MFC Share, too, so we can post all of our
content. I love porn and I love cosplay porn and everybody
who makes cosplay porn.”
Speaking of cam girls with cult followings, the petite
phenom Kati3kat became the first repeat winner of the
AVN Fan Award for Favorite Cam Girl. The June 2016
Miss MFC—a title awarded monthly to the model who
accumulates the most tokens—said the “KKC” (Kati3kat
Crew) always has her back.
“The Kati3kat Crew are the guys that come every single
day no matter what time I sign on,” the 23-year-old native
of Portland, Oregon, who cams from Washington, told
AVN backstage. “They’re always there for me. I could be
sick, I could be up at 5 a.m. on a Friday and they’re there
for me. The support is unreal. It’s crazy—they’re amazing.