Chloe Cherry has gained a growing number of fans since her breakout role in HBO’s Euphoria.
In a candid interview on the podcast Call Her Daddy, the actress opened up about her years working as an adult film star, how she overcame a serious eating disorder and how all of it has impacted her relationship with friends, family and herself.
“I was a pornstar for many years. I worked very hard in that industry,” said Cherry, who’s starred in over 200 adult films and has over 125 million views on PornHub.
Though now Cherry admits she’s “done” with the industry, she said she doesn’t regret being part of it. However, her work took a toll on her personal relationships.
“The only thing that sucks about working in porn is the way that people will treat you outside of the industry,” she explained. “Just the way that, suddenly, my friends that I was friends with in high school didn’t want to be friends anymore because they thought I was going to f*** their boyfriend. It’s like, I don’t want anything to do with your boyfriend.”
“These weird ideas that people get about you I think that’s the only bad thing about it,” she added of being in the porn industry. “People thought just because you were this way on camera that you are actually going to be [that person].”
“I lost a lot of female friends because they thought I couldn’t be around them,” she added. “Or their boyfriend would say no you can’t hang out with her, and they actually would listen to them, which I thought was the craziest part.”
That level of judgment, Cherry explained, also extended to her family — including her mother, who said “probably the most hurtful words” to her about the topic.
“My mom said to me that sex work is the lowest thing a person can do,” she remembered. “And that’s like the one thing I’ll share [publicly] that I disagree with so deeply. And I don’t know if there are other people out there that agree with that but I think trying to put down your own family is lower.”
“My family is a lot more than my mom and I’m still very close with them,” the actress clarified. “It was just insane the judgment people had that will forever blow my mind.”
Eventually the judgment took a heavy tole on Cherry, who explained that she developed an eating disorder after an adult film agent told her she needed to lose weight.
“It all started when this agent I had when I was in porn said to my face that I was fat,” she explained. “He said, ‘Everyone says that you’re fat and the fastest way to lose weight is by not eating.’ he said that to me and I was like, ‘What the f***?’”
“It just turned into an eating disorder ’cause I was so young at the time,” she continued. “He said that to me when I was 18. It was so f*****g freaky because no one in my whole life said that I was fat — and then it just became an obsession.”
It wasn’t until June 2020 that Cherry decided to take advice she found from “these podcasts, from these journalists, from every person who has written about recovering from an eating disorder” and “actually put it into motion.”
“I am so glad I did,” she said. “It completely changed my life… I was going crazy over it.”
When thinking about her journey, the actress couldn’t help but get introspective.
“No one chose to be born,” she said. “We definitely did not choose to work to live, so a job is all about what kind of day can you get through. So if somebody is out there getting through a day that you can’t get through, then just look the other way. Why spew this hatred? The world is already so hard to live in.”
“Existence is already so tough,” she continued. “Why spew this hatred on people just because someone is trying to get through life?”
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