Aubrey Black Suddenly IAFD’s ’Most Popular’ — Why?

CYBERSPACE—Visitors on Wednesday to IAFD.com, the Internet Adult Film Database, may have spotted an unusual result at the top of the site’s “Top 10 Actresses” list, which ranks porn personalities by how many visits their IAFD pages are receiving at any given time. Number One on the list for much of the day was a 43-year-old performer with only seven credits to her name, according to the site. So what did Aubrey Black do—besides My Friend’s Hot Mom (Naughty America) and Taking Wifey To Work (Brazzers)—to suddenly attract the interest of online porn surfers worldwide? The short answer is: she got her name in the papers. Several papers. Black’s one-day publicity blitz started in her adopted homeland of Australia, where reporter Vanessa Brown singled out Black for a feature profile on news.com.au, one of the country’s big news sites, owned by the communications giant News Corp Australia. “How a Mormon mother-of-two started making hundreds of thousands as an escort,” read the headline on the Australian mega-site. The story went on to chronicle how Black, “isn’t your average mum. The single mother-of-two is a professional porn star and escort—a career the 42-year-old turned to just six years ago." Black is a native of New Zealand who crossed the Tasman Sea and settled on Australia’s Gold Coast about 16 years ago. The story not only revealed Black’s Mormon upbringing, but also how she informed her two children—a now-adult daughter and teenage son—about her career change. In her mid-30s, she made the switch from photographer/graphic designer to professional escort and, later, porn performer, a move with which her kids have apparently not quite come to terms. “I told my son, who was 10 at the time, that I was doing dates with men for money. He understood at first. But over the years he asked to see photos of the men, and as soon as I said ‘no’ he started to do his own detective work,” Black told the news.com.au site. “Now, Bailey [age 17] is going through a phase where he is angry with me. But every teen goes through a phase." Her now 26-year-old daughter also “wasn’t happy with it,” Black said. But according to Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper, which also picked up the story, “both (kids) accept what she does for a living, as does her religious mother.” Any reservations they may have had were likely soothed by the money Black brings in, which she claims has reached as high as $850,000 Australian— about $650,000 in U.S. cash—in a single year. Though some commenters who read the Daily Mail version of the story were skeptical of Black’s claimed earnings. “Very much doubt you have made anywhere near $850K in one year,” wrote one. “Escorts aren't rare beasts to find at reasonable rates.” Black’s story was also picked up by Britain’s Mirror and Sun online newspapers.