The pornstar who became a wrestler

Jasmin St Claire was one of the most controversial porn actresses in the 90s. After gaining a reputation in the shock culture of the decade, she’s been able to move on and find not one but two more public careers.

How did she become so well known in a time before porn on the internet? Her career crossed a well-trodden path before she became an icon.

Her life went from:

• Modelling in New York
• Acting in adult movies in LA
• Wrestling in the ECW federation
• Acting in a range of movies

And she’s now running a one-woman show and launching a podcast.

How Jasmin St Clair entered the porn industry

Jasmin started out her adult career in New York City, as she told Holly Randall in a recent episode of her Unfiltered podcast.

She worked in a bar that had feature dancers, including models who worked for Penthouse and other publications. As she explained in the interview, there were three ways she could go to make money in the adult industry:

• Get “nutty” FFF breast implants and become a “freak show”
• Do stills modelling
• Make porn

She went with making porn, obviously.

“I was the biggest freak show of the 90s,” she says, without any sound of regret. “I never saw myself as an adult film star, I was a part of the 90s shock culture era.”

That era was also the times of Howard Stern and Jerry Springer – remember those shows?

It was a Jerry Springer appearance that directly led her into porn. She won a scripted part on the show where she was to play a stripper. It was then that her Jasmin St Claire character was born, mouthy and controversial.

The fact that her entry into the porn industry was consensual is important to Jasmin. With so many people at the time getting into porn because of a boyfriend pushing them, it’s a distinction she’s keen to make.

The move into adult movies

As part of the shock culture she was involved in, Jasmin took on her most famous challenge. She was the star of World’s Biggest Gang Bang 2, the jazzily named sequel to the porn film that originally starred Annabel Chong.

The publicity for the gang bang said that she performed sex acts with over 300 men. There are two stories to the gang bang, one that goes that it was “the biggest cons ever pulled off in the porn business.”

She said in an interview for a book that there were only about 30 guys on set. These performers were “strategically placed and filmed”, and she actually only had sex with about ten of them.

During the podcast with Holly, Jasmin St Claire doesn’t go into a lot of detail about the experience. She does say that shooting took around ten hours and there were groups of guys everywhere, “it was like an insane asylum!”

Her and Holly don’t get into the number or too much about the logistics, so we guess it’s up to you which account to believe.

Jasmin St Clair’s adult movie career

The number of films she performed in is up for debate. Some sources put it at 73 while others say it’s less than 50.

However many films she starred in, she definitely made a name for herself. Before the advent of free porn available 24/7 on the internet, Jasmin St Claire VHS tapes and DVDs were some of the best-selling pornos out there.

Being brunette, she’s not what the typical 90s porn star looked like. Whilst the industry still skews to blondes over brunettes, having the biggest-selling and best-known stars not be blonde was an industry first.

The move from porn star to pro wrestler

Talking about how she transitioned to a “mainstream” career and away from the skin game, Jasmin explains that it was quite fluid. She had a contract with a producer but slowly stopped going to shoots and instead was spending time with pro wrestlers that she met.

Those wrestlers were a part of the Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) federation. If you weren’t into wrestling in the late 90s, this was the third federation behind the names you probably do know – WWF and WCW.

It’s not the most natural career path and Jasmin had to take classes to improve her wrestling, having a range of professional fights.

Her name is still known in the industry and she still gets calls to go do signings at wrestling conventions.

The movie star, Jasmin St Claire

Around the same time that she was doing the wrestling, and after, Jasmin moved into acting in mainstream films. This entailed her going to acting classes in New York and LA to improve her skills.

The first movie credits got added to her resume in 2005 with the straight-to-video Swap Zombies!!! and Dorm Daze 2 in 2006. From there, her acting career was put to one side and she became a veejay on The Metal Scene TV Show among others.

A woman of many talents, Jasmin was also a music journalist, published with the likes of Yahoo.

Acting has reappeared on her resume with movie bit parts and recurring characters in TV shows like:

• Mysteries of the Unexplained
• Corrupt Crimes
• The Future Rich Wives Club

The future for Jasmin St Claire

Looking into the future, Jasmin has a one-woman show that was launched in early 2020 and was obviously put on hold by the pandemic. A Weird Kind of Fame is planned to start touring again in the future.

A podcast is also in the works, she explains to Holly. She says that Crazy Train will cover human interest and stories from the 90s shock culture era. Guests will be people who have been through controversy from the time she was also famous.

She’s definitely made herself a strong career, with porn and shock culture as the springboard for a successful life in the media spotlight.

Cover image source: Instagram