Page 70 - AVN Magazine May 2023

“I really love this industry and I’m really happy I’ve been in it for as long as I have.”
Kira Noir wanted to change seats.
Sitting in the front row at the 2023 AVN Awards Show, she texted with her friend and fellow performer, Leo Vice, about joining him in the balcony.
“I was just thinking I’ll go ahead and sit with my friend because I usually don’t go up on stage,” explains Noir, who was accompanied by veteran photographer JT after their red-carpet walk. But when Noir got upstairs minutes before the 40th annual ceremony was set to begin,
security stopped her from going into Vice’s section because she didn’t have the right ticket— so she went back.
Less than 90 minutes later the humble superstar was summoned to the stage as the winner of the biggest individual honor in adult entertainment, accepting the AVN Female Performer of the Year award in front of a raucous crowd, many of whom gave her a standing ovation on the night of January 7th in Las Vegas.
“I’m really glad I sat where I was supposed to sit,” Noir jokes. “I’ve won AVN Awards before, I’ve just never had the opportunity to go up on stage to accept one. So I didn’t think that was going to happen—I wasn’t expecting anything. So it was really fun.”
Leo Vice led the chorus of cheers from the theatre’s upper deck.
“Fate just put her in the right place,” Vice tells AVN. “When Kira’s name was announced I was going ape shit so much that I forgot to even record her.”
Noir’s date JT, who was attending his first AVN Awards Show, says he saved the ticket stubs.
“Having her ask me to be her date and then her winning, it was like the coolest way to ever attend AVN,” the 20-plus-year industry vet JT says. “I couldn’t have imagined anything like that. “The funniest part of it is right when it was announced that she won, we both said to each other, ‘OK, let’s say who we think is gonna win.’ And we both said other people at the same time they announced her name. She was even in more shock than anyone else. It was quite a moment.” Stunning in a flowing white wedding gown that she customized with an extra high slit, Noir
wiped away a tear during her acceptance speech.
“I love all of you,” Noir told the audience. “Oh my god, I’m pretty sure I’m dreaming right now.
But just in case I’m not, thank you so much Mark Spiegler, thank you everyone who’s hired me and thank you to everyone whose fucked me over the last 10 years!”
The future Hall of Famer took her place in AVN Awards history as the first Black woman to win the Female Performer of the Year crown since the award was first presented in 1993.
70 AVN.COM | 5.23 | KIRA NOIR