Tera Patrick: Her Memoir, Teravision and the Real Cost of Fame

Q: What is Tera Patrick's memoir called?

Sinner Takes All: A Memoir of Love and Porn, co-written with journalist Carrie Borzillo and published by Gotham Books, a Penguin imprint, at the end of 2009 (Wikipedia, The Washington Post).

Key facts

Who: Tera Patrick, born Linda Ann Hopkins on July 25, 1976, in Great Falls, Montana; raised near San Francisco; Thai mother, father of English, Irish and Dutch descent (Wikipedia)
Before porn: International teen model, a GED at 18, nursing classes at Boise State University and an EMT certification (Wikipedia)
Career: Penthouse Pet of the Month (February 2000), AVN, XRCO and NightMoves Hall of Fame, host of the 25th AVN Awards (Wikipedia)
Business: Ran her own studio, Teravision, and kept “complete control and ownership” of her content (LA Weekly)
Memoir: Sinner Takes All: A Memoir of Love and Porn (Gotham Books, 2009), written with Carrie Borzillo (The Washington Post)

When people outside the industry ask me who the biggest female stars of the 2000s were, the same few names always come up. Jenna Jameson, of course. And right next to her, Tera Patrick.

But the reason I wanted to write about Tera is not her fame. It’s that she did something most performers in my business still don’t manage today: she stopped being only the face of somebody else’s product and became the owner of her own. She built a studio, kept her catalogue, licensed it worldwide and wrote a memoir that told young women, in plain words, what she wished somebody had told her.

I’ve been in this business for 14 years. I’m one of the most-searched male performers in the world, and I’ve worked with most of the top actresses of my generation. I have watched many careers rise and burn out. Tera Patrick’s story has both the rise and the burn — and the recovery. Here are the sourced facts, then my take.

Linda Hopkins, the bookworm from Montana

Tera Patrick was born Linda Ann Hopkins on July 25, 1976, in Great Falls, Montana, and grew up near San Francisco. Her mother is Thai; her father, David Hopkins, is of English, Irish and Dutch descent. Her parents separated when she was ten, and she was raised by her father, whom Wikipedia describes as “a carefree hippie” (Wikipedia).

The way she describes her younger self is not what most people imagine. LAist summed up the arc of her memoir as the journey of “Linda Hopkins, the unpopular girl who liked to read about serial killers,” to one of the most famous adult stars in the world (LAist).

She took weekend classes at the Barbizon Modeling and Acting School for two years and was modeling as a young teenager (Wikipedia).

A teenage model nobody protected

This is the hardest part of her story, and I’ll keep it short and factual, because it involves a minor and there is nothing to add to it except respect.

Patrick has said that she was taken advantage of by adults during her early modeling work, while she was underage. She spent two years modeling in Tokyo, where, by her account, she became dependent on Valium and alcohol. When her father learned what was happening, he complained to her agency that she was a minor, and she was sent back to the United States — in her own words, “sixteen years old and already a washed-up model” (Wikipedia; LAist).

I want to be very clear about how I read that. That is not the start of a “wild girl” story. That’s the story of a child failed by an industry — the fashion industry, not porn — and by the adults around her. Anyone who uses that chapter of her life as titillation has missed the point completely.

The detour nobody expects: nursing and EMT training

Here’s the part of the story I find most interesting, because it breaks the stereotype.

At 18 she earned her GED, studied nursing for a time at Boise State University and then got an EMT certification from a vocational school (Wikipedia). The publisher’s description of her memoir also mentions an “unglamorous job in a nursing home” before her adult career (Google Books).

That matters to me. A lot of people assume women come into adult entertainment because they have no other options. Some do, and their stories deserve respect too. But Tera had trained for real-world, hands-on care work. She chose another path, and she brought to it the same practical mind that you need on an ambulance: stay calm, read the situation, do the job.

If you’ve read my columns on Nina Hartley, who was a registered nurse, you’ll see a pattern I find fascinating: some of the most professional women in this industry came from the caring professions.

Penthouse, Playboy and the big rise

Her mainstream modeling credentials came first. She appeared in Playboy and Penthouse, and Penthouse named her Pet of the Month for February 2000, with runner-up honors for Pet of the Year. In 2003 she became the masthead publisher of Genesis magazine (Wikipedia).

The awards list on her Wikipedia page is almost absurd: Hot d’Or, AVN, XRCO, Venus, FAME, XBIZ and many more, plus induction into the NightMoves, AVN and XRCO Halls of Fame (Wikipedia). She hosted the 25th AVN Awards, the biggest night in the industry’s calendar, and later hosted the XBIZ Awards in January 2013 (Wikipedia).

And she crossed into pop culture more than almost anyone in her generation:

A voice cameo as herself on Aqua Teen Hunger Force (2006) (Wikipedia)
The July 2006 cover of the American edition of FHM (Wikipedia)
A cameo in the Will Ferrell comedy Blades of Glory (2007) (Wikipedia)
Host of Playboy TV’s instructional show School of Sex in 2008 (Wikipedia)
A playable character in Backyard Wrestling 2 and promotional and voice work for Saints Row 2 (Wikipedia)
A lead role in an Indonesian horror film released in 2010 (Wikipedia)
A weekly radio show on Vivid Radio on SiriusXM from August 2014 (Wikipedia)

Interestingly, she told an interviewer in 2012 that she “never asked for ‘Mainstream’ work” and still didn’t — she would rather work with friends and have fun (Legendary Rock Interviews). I believe her. When you are that famous in adult, the mainstream calls you. You don’t have to chase it.

Teravision: owning the product

This is the chapter I care about most as a working performer.

In 2004 she married musician and performer Evan Seinfeld in Las Vegas, during the AVN Awards week (Wikipedia). Together they ran Teravision; a chapter of her memoir is literally called “The Birth of Teravision” (Google Books). The Washington Post’s review described the empire she built: “a production company, a lingerie line, an upcoming burlesque show, a Web site offering her own and others’ movies, and now an autobiography” (The Washington Post).

LA Weekly met her at a book signing in 2009 and noted something important: she had “complete control and ownership of her content, with Teravision.” Clips from her earlier years, when she worked for other companies, were all over the free tube sites, but the brand she owned was still strong (LA Weekly).

She explained why, in a quote I think every performer should print and put on the wall:

“Fans who love you and who like you and who clamor for more all the time, they fall in love with you, who you are,” she told LA Weekly. “A lot of companies that went out of business don’t have a star, it’s kind of faceless” (LA Weekly).

She was saying this in 2009 — years before OnlyFans existed. She already understood that when piracy crushes DVD sales, the only thing that survives is a relationship with your fans. Companies can be copied. A person can’t.

Even after she stopped shooting scenes in 2008, she kept running her website and production company and licensing her catalogue worldwide (Wikipedia). In 2012 she told an interviewer: “I LOVE being a business woman in charge” (Legendary Rock Interviews).

Sinner Takes All: the memoir

Sinner Takes All: A Memoir of Love and Porn came out from Gotham Books, a Penguin imprint, at the end of 2009. Her co-writer was journalist Carrie Borzillo, author of books on Nirvana and Green Day (Wikipedia; The Washington Post).

The Post’s review opens with the most surprising fact in the book: she had been committed to a psychiatric ward for two weeks (The Washington Post). The publisher’s description says she writes “candidly about her battles with depression and anxiety” (Google Books).

There’s a twist in how the book ended up. The manuscript was finished as, in one reviewer’s words, an “epic love story” about her marriage. Then, in September 2009, she and Seinfeld announced they were splitting. Instead of rewriting the book, she added an afterword about the divorce (LAist; Wikipedia).

She also says she resisted pressure to make it trashier. “I was very diplomatic, against my publisher and most people’s wishes. They wanted more trash talk,” she said in 2012. “I’m a lady I just don’t and didn’t want to drudge up anything ugly” (Legendary Rock Interviews). It sits on the same shelf as Asa Akira’s Insatiable and Jenna Jameson’s memoir — the books where performers took the story back from the tabloids.

Her advice to young women

The best part of the book, for me, is the practical part. LAist asked her about a page that lists the right and wrong reasons to get into porn. Her answer is the best four-sentence career advice I have seen from anyone in this business:

“Girls ask me all the time, ‘What’s your advice for getting in the industry?’ I usually tell them: ‘Don’t sign anything without a lawyer. Stay away from drugs. Keep your wits about you. Don’t do anything you don’t want to do’” (LAist).

And then she was honest about the price: “Although a lot of the things were my choice, I did make some mistakes. One of those mistakes cost me sanity, which is why I ended up in a mental institution. One of those mistakes cost me my marriage, which is why I’m divorced. And one of them cost me my feelings, I was so hurt some days leaving the set” (LAist).

She also said: “I wish that when I first got into the industry there would have been a girl or someone who could have told me ‘Don’t work with this guy, work with this guy’ or ‘Work for this company not this company.’ I wish there would have been a manual” (LAist).

Life after the cameras

Patrick gave birth to a daughter on February 25, 2012; the father is special-effects artist Tony Acosta (Wikipedia). That year an interviewer called her a “Mompreneur,” and she described mornings of exercise and “me time” before her family woke up (Legendary Rock Interviews).

In 2018, in an interview with photographer Holly Randall, she said she had moved to Italy with her daughter and married an Italian defense attorney, after first visiting the country in 2015 for feature-dancing work (Wikipedia). That same year Time revisited a 2002 photo series by artist Nika Nesgoda in which she and other adult actresses, including Stormy Daniels, posed as the Virgin Mary (Wikipedia; Time).

What every performer should learn from Tera Patrick

Own something. Contracts end. Catalogues and brands you own keep paying you.
The fan relationship is the business. She said it in 2009: faceless companies die, stars survive.
Lawyer first, signature second. Her number-one rule.
Your mental health is not a side issue. She ended up in a psychiatric ward and wrote about it so others wouldn’t.
Don’t let a publisher, a studio or a partner write your story for you. She refused the “trash talk” version.

My Take (opinion — Maximo Garcia)

I think Tera Patrick is one of the most underrated businesswomen this industry has produced. People remember the covers and the awards. I remember the sentence about faceless companies. In 2009, when everyone in my business was panicking about piracy, she had already understood the future: the performer is the brand, and the brand belongs to the performer. Every creator who runs their own page today is living in the world she described.

But I also think her story is a warning, and she meant it as one. She was exploited as a teenager in a different industry, she had a breakdown at the height of her fame, and she lost a marriage that the whole business treated as a fairy tale. She didn’t hide any of that. She put it in a book with a list of rules for the next girl. After 14 years in this business, I can tell you those rules — lawyer, no drugs, keep your wits, never do what you don’t want — are exactly what I’d tell anyone today, men included.

Respect to her for building the empire, and more respect for telling the truth about what it cost. I write more about the business side of this job at maximogarciaworld.com.

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FAQ

What is Tera Patrick’s real name?

She was born Linda Ann Hopkins on July 25, 1976, in Great Falls, Montana, and raised near San Francisco (Wikipedia).

What is Tera Patrick’s memoir called?

Sinner Takes All: A Memoir of Love and Porn, co-written with journalist Carrie Borzillo and published by Gotham Books, a Penguin imprint, at the end of 2009 (The Washington Post).

What was Teravision?

The production company Tera Patrick ran with her then-husband Evan Seinfeld; she told LA Weekly it gave her complete control and ownership of her content (LA Weekly).

What is Tera Patrick doing now?

She stopped shooting scenes in 2008, kept licensing her catalogue and running her businesses, had a daughter in 2012, and said in 2018 that she had moved to Italy and married there (Wikipedia).

How we fact-checked this

Every fact and quote was checked against the sources below. Claims about her early life come from her own memoir and interviews and are attributed to her. Anything we could not confirm was left out. Opinions are Maximo Garcia’s own and are labeled as such.