Tori Black Now: Her Comeback After a Seven-Year Break

Key facts

Who: Tori Black, born in 1988 in Seattle, Washington (Wikipedia)
Start: Entered the industry at 18 after answering an agency ad during a summer break from college (Wikipedia; Daily Dot)
Record: First performer to win AVN Female Performer of the Year two years running, 2010 and 2011 (Wikipedia)
Break: Stepped away from performing for about seven years to focus on her family (BBC; AVN)
Comeback: Returned with Vixen in 2017; named 2018 Vixen Angel of the Year (AVN)
Mainstream: Guest role on Showtime’s Ray Donovan; roles in L.A. Slasher and American Satan (Wikipedia; The Hollywood Reporter)

“Tori Black now” is one of those searches that tells you a story by itself. People remember her from the years when she was winning everything, then she disappeared, and then she came back. Fans want to know where she went and why she returned. The answer is simpler and more human than most gossip: she left to raise her children, and she came back on her own terms.

I’ve been in this industry 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. Comebacks in our business are rare and usually quiet. Tori’s was loud — she returned and was immediately named Angel of the Year by the most prestigious studio of the moment. Here’s her sourced story, then my take.

A Seattle student with a summer job problem

Tori Black was born in 1988 in Seattle, Washington (Wikipedia). In a 2016 Reddit AMA she said she had studied journalism at Western Washington University (Wikipedia). The Daily Dot added that she did not finish her degree after choosing the industry full time (Daily Dot).

Her entry into the business started with a very normal parental demand. She was on a summer vacation from college in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and her parents insisted she get a job (Wikipedia). According to the Daily Dot, which cited her interview with Adult DVD Talk, she searched for short-term work; she was too young at 18 to work in clubs that served alcohol, so she answered an ad that asked, “Do you want to earn $20,000 a month?” The advertiser turned out to be an adult talent agency (Daily Dot). She sent in photos, considered the offer, and went back a week later to accept (Wikipedia).

She always thought she’d go back to school. “I had planned on going back to school but at that point, once your family knows, you’re like, eh, so I kept going,” she said. “And then the next thing you know, here I am!” (Daily Dot).

Penthouse Pet to the top of the industry

Tori was named Penthouse Pet of the Month for December 2008 (Wikipedia). Her rise after that was extremely fast. By January 2011, CNBC described her as “a three-year veteran of the industry with more than 200 films under her belt,” and one of the top stars on the AEBN platform (CNBC). One of her 2010 highlights, CNBC said, was playing Catwoman in Vivid’s hugely popular Batman parody (CNBC).

Then came the record. Tori became the first person in history to win the AVN Female Performer of the Year award two years in a row, in 2010 and 2011. She also won the XRCO Female Performer of the Year award in both years (Wikipedia). CNBC named her to its “Dirty Dozen” list of porn’s most popular stars in both 2011 and 2012 (Wikipedia).

To understand how hard that is: the AVN Female Performer of the Year is the top individual award for women in our industry. Winning it once can define a career. Winning it twice in a row had never been done before her.

Stepping away at the peak

Around 2011, Tori stepped back from performing to focus on raising a family with her husband, Lyndell Anderson, a director for the studio Arch Angel (Daily Dot; Wikipedia). CNBC’s 2012 list noted her “relatively low profile and the birth of a son in October,” while adding that her appeal “remains strong among fans” (CNBC). The couple have two children (Wikipedia).

She didn’t vanish from the business completely. The Daily Dot reported that she kept doing behind-the-scenes work while she was a mother of two (Daily Dot). In 2012 she told Miami.com that she wanted to move toward directing: “When you’re performing, you’re acting on instructions. People are telling you what to do. I’d like to get into the other side a little more and see what gifts I have and what I can bring to the table on my own” (Daily Dot).

Learning to direct

In 2014 Tori made her directing debut for Elegant Angel (Wikipedia; AVN). AVN was on set, and the report shows a director who knew exactly what she wanted. She coached poses, rejected outfits that were “cute” rather than sexy, and told her performers she wanted the scene to feel natural: “I want it to flow, you guys to play off each other. Not three minutes of this, three minutes of that. More natural” (AVN).

At the end of the day she was proud of her efficiency: “We got all this in four and a half hours… Why do people take so long?” (AVN). Every performer who has waited ten hours on a set for a scene that should take four will appreciate that line.

Mainstream roles

Tori also crossed into mainstream film and TV. She had a guest role in “Gem and Loan,” the third episode of season 2 of Showtime’s Ray Donovan, playing an adult star (Wikipedia). She appeared in the thriller L.A. Slasher, alongside Mischa Barton, Dave Bautista and Danny Trejo (The Hollywood Reporter), and had a small part in the 2017 supernatural musical thriller American Satan (Wikipedia).

The comeback: Vixen Angel of the Year

In 2017, after a seven-year break, Tori returned to performing with Vixen. AVN reported that her comeback debuted on Vixen.com in November 2017 as a stylish homage to a 1990s thriller, and in December she was named a Vixen Angel (AVN). The Daily Dot also reported that she launched a studio project in 2017 (Daily Dot).

At the 2018 AVN Show in Las Vegas, Vixen founder Greg Lansky named her his 2018 Vixen Angel of the Year, with a one-year exclusive contract and a diamond “V” necklace (AVN). “Tori Black is one not in a million, she’s one in a trillion,” Lansky told AVN. “When she wanted to come back, I thought this was the perfect place for her” (AVN).

Tori’s response is the part I like most, because it’s about ownership: “The first thing that I think to myself is Greg Lansky has built an empire. And I built my own empire in my own right but the fusion of the two brands I think is just going to be absolutely unstoppable.” She added: “I feel like I’m really driven and more creative than I’ve been allowed to be in the past” (AVN).

“I’m a mother and a porn star”

In 2018, after a series of deaths of young performers shook the industry, the BBC interviewed Tori about stigma. Her answer about motherhood is one of the most honest things I’ve read from any performer: “I’m a mother and a porn star, and that’s very complicated. I could post the most innocent, fully-clothed everyday picture on Instagram and someone would comment ‘Aren’t you ashamed? You have children!’” (BBC).

She called for unity: “We need to fight the stigma as a group, because we’ve all been under attack. What happened to these girls could have happened to any one of us on a weak moment” (BBC). And she explained why performers do this work: “We chose this industry because sex is something that moves us and we’re passionate about, just like a musician would go to music” (BBC).

She has backed her views publicly in other ways too. In 2017 she designed a limited-edition T-shirt and said part of the sales would go to Planned Parenthood, then defended the decision when some followers objected (Daily Dot).

What every performer should learn from Tori Black

Peak is a choice, not a trap. She left right after winning the top award two years running.
Family first is a legitimate career decision. Stepping away didn’t erase her value.
Learn the other side of the camera. Directing gave her skills that last longer than performing.
Come back with leverage. She returned to the top studio as its Angel of the Year, not as a newcomer.
Talk about stigma openly. Being a mother and a performer is complicated — saying so helps others.

My Take (opinion — Maximo Garcia)

I’ve seen a lot of performers burn out, and I’ve seen a few walk away at the right time. What almost never happens is what Tori did: walk away at the absolute top, live a full life outside the camera for years, and then come back to an even bigger stage. That tells you two things. First, her talent was real — studios don’t hand Angel of the Year to nostalgia. Second, she kept control. She came back because she wanted to, with a husband in the business, children at home and her own ideas about how she wanted to work.

After 14 years in this industry, her line about being “a mother and a porn star” hits me hard. The comments she describes — “Aren’t you ashamed? You have children!” — are the same judgment every performer faces, multiplied. People forget that performers have families, mortgages, school runs and doctor’s appointments like everyone else. Tori says it out loud, and she’s right that the only way to change it is together. I write more about the reality of this work, beyond the clichés, at maximogarciaworld.com.

If you liked this story of reinvention, read my column on Riley Reid, who has thought harder than anyone about her exit plan, and on Kayden Kross, who moved from performing to directing at the same Vixen family Tori returned to.

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FAQ

What is Tori Black doing now?

After a roughly seven-year break to focus on her family, Tori Black returned to performing in 2017 with Vixen, was named 2018 Vixen Angel of the Year with a one-year exclusive contract, and has also directed and launched her own studio project (AVN; BBC; Daily Dot).

Why did Tori Black take a break from porn?

She stepped back from performing around 2011 to focus on raising her family with her husband, director Lyndell Anderson. CNBC noted the birth of her son in October 2011 (Daily Dot; CNBC; BBC).

What awards has Tori Black won?

She was the first performer to win the AVN Female Performer of the Year award two years in a row (2010 and 2011), and also won XRCO Female Performer of the Year in both years (Wikipedia).

Did Tori Black go to college?

She said in a 2016 Reddit AMA that she studied journalism at Western Washington University, but she did not graduate after choosing to work full time in the industry (Wikipedia; Daily Dot).

How we fact-checked this

Every fact and quote was checked against the sources below. Quotes from older interviews are attributed to the outlet that reported them. Explicit details and film titles were left out to keep this page SFW, and we chose not to cover painful parts of her childhood that she discussed elsewhere. Opinions are Maximo Garcia’s own and are labeled as such.