Lana Del Bae On 'Cam_Girlfriend', Chaturbate & Giving Back

LOS ANGELES—Lana Del Bae calls charity “my passion.” “It makes me so happy that I have a platform that I can use my voice to help people that need it more,” Del Bae says. “I love that I can give back. “Everyone in our room loves our charity shows. We do one every single month.” In honor of World Humanitarian Day on Aug. 19, Del Bae turned her Chaturbate broadcast into a fundraiser for No Kid Hungry, pledging 20 percent of her earnings to the non-profit organization that feeds vulnerable children in America. When it was over, she donated $400. “I’m an Aquarius, so I’m naturally humanitarian,” Del Bae tells AVN. “I’ve always donated to charities, even when I made minimum wage when I worked at a toy store. I believe you can give what you can—and when you can—because we’re all living in the same world and we’ve got to help each other out.” It’s that same spirit that propels Episode 9 of the summer’s breakout comedy series, Cam_Girlfriend—titled “The Telethon”—which launched today on The Camming Life YouTube channel. In the six-minute episode, rising cam girl Chloe Cables, played by exclusive Chaturbate broadcaster and popular adult performer, Lily LaBeau, uses her talents to raise money for the ailing nephew of her live-in boyfriend Mike (Dave Keystone), who is unable to run in a fund-raising marathon after a freak injury. Chloe decides to take action, whipping out her extensive collection of sex toys for a camathon and vowing to broadcast for as long as it takes. But will Chloe make her tip goal? Can she stay awake? Created by Ethan Cole, produced by CAMGF1 Productions and made possible by the Independent Production Fund (IPF), Daniel AM Rosenberg directed the 10-episode digital series during a whirlwind 12 days in February 2018 in Toronto. Each episode explores a plausible cam girl problem through the eyes of Chloe and Mike, who strive to keep their relationship from falling apart even though many times Chloe’s profession—and Mike’s best intentions—gets them caught up in sticky situations. The team behind the project—which also includes writer Michael Goldlist and producer Jason Kennedy, among many other established pros with proven track records making scripted and non-scripted TV programs, documentaries and music videos—placed maximum emphasis on not only authenticity, but also representing the worldwide camming community in an uplifting way. Del Bae, a 25-year-old native of Portland, Ore., who started her camming career in early 2017, finds the series “extremely relatable.” “I think it’s really funny because of all the things that happen,” she says. “Everything is hitting the nail on the head.” Today’s episode strikes a chord with Del Bae, whose creative charitable efforts have become not only her signature on Chaturbate, but also make her one of the most unique philanthropists on the internet. There aren’t many live telethons where the host dances in lingerie, inserts frozen butt-plugs, faps, eye-fucks and pretends to faint for 19 tokens—all in the first half hour. In her three-and-a-half years as a broadcaster, the excitable cam star has raised money for the American Red Cross for tornado relief in Tennessee; Wounded Warrior Project, a service organization that assists wounded veterans of the military actions following 9-11; Sierra Club, one of the nation’s oldest environmental organizations; World Wildlife Fund; and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, which treats cancer patients. And that’s only the half of it. Del Bae in November 2019 raised funds to donate to military families and those in need so they could have Christmas trees—giving to Trees for Troops and The Christmas Tree Project. “We actually built a tree to give a tree," she says. "I built a two-dimensional tree on my cam-room wall and my members had to tip to put a branch on the wall. So we got to supply Christmas trees for low-income families. It was such a community effort and that’s what I love about it. “Not that just one person donating is bad at all, but everybody in my community is so into it. It’s really magical to me.” She constructed her tree with garland, cutting it into little strips and hanging branches on the wall with hot glue for tips of 123 tokens. It worked out so well that Del Bae cut out the backdrop and took it into December to be her cam room’s Christmas tree. Then her team of Lucky Charms and Cool Cats—two of her fan clubs—helped her decorate it with tiny ornaments. Some months—such as this past July—Del Bae will orchestrate “complete give-back months.” “I have a rotating tip menu so each thing you tipped for last month I would make a donation somewhere—like The Humane Society or send a care package to a soldier overseas,” she says. When the industry made its annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas for the AVN Adult Entertainment in January, Del Bae broadcasted from the show floor on three of the four days, allowing her “king tipper” on each day to choose the charity to which she would donate. Del Bae’s AVN campaign led to monetary gifts for Paws for Ability, which provides service dogs to children worldwide; The Joey Graves Foundation, a coalition of Gold Star families, veterans and Patriotic Americans who share a deep appreciation for all those in uniform; and The Humane Society, which helps animals in need. “As my platform got bigger and I was able to make more, I’ve been able give more,” Del Bae says. “I love that everybody in my cam room is so into it as well. We usually raise about 300 dollars each show and I always make a Twitter post and post a screenshot on Snapchat to show what I’ve donated. “On Valentine’s Day, we actually raised $460 for St. Jude’s Hospital, so that was really cool. On holidays that are usually more consumer-y, I make it a point to do more of a charity show.” Del Bae says on the occasions when she asks her tippers for suggestions about which charity they want their proceeds to go that “we’ve gotten some really great ones that way.” “That has really opened my eyes to charities that I didn’t know existed,” she explains. “And sometimes depending on what’s going in the world at the moment I’ll choose a charity based on that.” It’s why Del Bae focused on No Kid Hungry for Wednesday night’s broadcast—in addition to doing one for the same charity in July. “Because schools are closed [due to COVID], a lot of lower-income kids are not getting meals because a lot of them get their meals from the school district,” Del Bae says. “I’m pretty sure that they said 10 dollars feeds 100 kids, so if we can raise 400 dollars we are feeding a lot of kids. I really want to do that.” Del Bae, who spoke to AVN on Aug. 18, also noted that Wednesday, Aug. 19 was National Potato Day, holding out hope she could integrate some sort of potato element into her show that night. “I have a real hard-on for knowing what the weird nationals days are,” Del Bae confesses. “Like today is National Fajita Day, just in case you were wondering what you should have for lunch.” Indeed, Wednesday evening wasn’t just another Hump Day in Del Bae’s Purple Paradise. She calls her current cam-room background—which is decorated like a tropical island with pineapples, bananas and exotic birds on the wall along with a mini palm tree—her “Micro Bikini Bay.” “It’s a good year to go to Mars I gotta say,” Del Bae told viewers Wednesday. “Or to the mooooon.” When another viewer mentioned he wasn’t feeling great, she replied, “I’m sorry you’re not happy today. I think our harder days make us appreciate our easier days.” Then another member commented, “Lana makes days better.” No argument here. Del Bae says she grew unhappy doing shifts at the toy store, where she worked for four years, while living in what she describes as a “toxic household.” “I didn’t have a leg up to get out of that position and I was just kind of drowning,” Del Bae recalls. But one of her older sisters had been cam modeling and suggested that she consider it. “She was like, ‘I don’t want this to be weird, but I think you would really enjoy it,’” says Del Bae. It turns out she was right. Del Bae dove in and “I absolutely loved everything about it.” One thing, in particular, especially stood out from her early days on Chaturbate. “When you first start camming you don’t have any followers. But the thing that endeared me to it was that [Chaturbate COO] Shirley [Lara] was so nice to me,” Del Bae remembers. “The fact that the owner of a company would be so nice to someone who is just like a newbie…I’m like, ‘I’m just a nobody.’ But she went out of her way to help me and print and sign documents for me to help me verify my income. And for a complete stranger to help a nobody was wonderful to me—and it just keeps going up and up and it gets better every single time, every year. “I’m just so happy. People ask me, ‘So what’s your plan after camming?’ This is my plan.” Del Bae says she saved up all her money from her first two months of camming and moved out of her parents’ house as soon as she could in March 2017. “I really see camming as my savior,” she adds. “I was able to remove myself from a toxic environment. Camming is my knight.” She continues, “I still worked at the toy store when I first started, so I would work in the toy store in the morning and then come home and cam in the corner of my parents’ attic. It was terrible with the worst lighting. I look back on that and I go cringe, cringe.” It took Del Bae only about six weeks of moonlighting to realize that she should go full time on cam. “I loved camming so much and I wasn’t able to give it my 100 percent because I was so drained from working customer service at the toy store,” says Del Bae, who sometimes would catch a nap in a box of stuffed animals at the store. She also did double duty at Claire’s for the holiday season one year. “And then I just realized camming was what I wanted to do. So I just quit my toy store job.” Del Bae, who has had various shades of purple hair except for her first three weeks on cam when she was a brunette, says purple is becoming her favorite color but “my favorite color is actually amber.” “I’ve gone through every color of the purple rainbow,” she jokes. Del Bae saw Lana Del Rey, the singer who inspired her cam name, in concert last October. “And it was freaking amazing,” she says. “That was the second time that I’ve seen her. Every time it’s just magical. She has an amazing stage voice, a very unique sound and she’s completely confident in who she is. “She doesn’t have the ‘ideal body-type,’ but she’s comfortable within her body. “I just find her fascinating. Like she started from the bottom and kind of built herself up into what she is now and she is iconic.” Among her favorite Del Rey songs are “Summertime Sadness,” “Lust for Life,” and “Venice Bitch.” “I love all of her beautiful music. … The only other artist like that for me is Neil Young.” When Del Bae is scheduled to cam, she logs on at exactly 8 p.m. PDT, joking, “I’m a little OCD.” She only has taken two unscheduled days off in three-and-a-half years. “I don’t like taking time off,” Del Bae says. “And I don’t think it’s a cute personality trait that, ‘Aha, I’m three hours late!' “I have viewers all over the world. I wouldn’t have them as regulars if I wasn’t consistent with my schedule. I have a viewer in the U.K. who wakes up at 4 a.m. to see me. He knows I’m gonna be online when I say I will. I think consistency and honesty about when you’ll be online are some of the foundations of being a cam model. I do think it creates a good environment in your room.” Even when Del Bae isn’t doing a charity show, there is a good chance her room is participating in a themed night. She performs a blacklight show on the first Saturday of every month complete with body paint and an LED butt-plug “so my ass is all lit up which is really fun.” She’ll do “balloon prize nights,” too, so no matter which balloon her tipper pops he will receive a prize. On other nights, she’ll do a confetti show. One viewer bought her 60 confetti cannons for her birthday last year. She sports more than 30 tattoos. “I stopped counting at 30 because it seemed cringe,” Del Bae says. “A lot of them blend together now.” One of them—on her right thigh—is a Jack Kerouac passage about friendship from his classic opus, On the Road. "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars" “I wanted it since I was 14,” she says. “It’s just beautiful poetry for one. I absolutely love his poetry and it’s just true, it feels so close to my heart. I go for the weird people, the offbeat who are just so eccentric that everybody else rejects. I say, ‘Come here, I love you. I want to be weird with you.’ “I love unique and interesting people that just stand out because they are so themselves. That’s what resonates with me. The only people for me are the ones who are so authentically themselves they’re lit up.” She credits her two older sisters for supporting her in every way. One lives in Canada and the other in Portland helps Del Bae with all the graphic design for her Chaturbate bio page. “My sisters are incredible. They’re always so proud of me,” she says. “When you grow up in a broken, weird home, your siblings are your parents. We all parent each other. My sisters are not only accepting of my cam career, they are actively encouraging me.” She has two cats, adopting a baby kitten that is a rag doll-tabby mix almost two months ago named Jelly Bean to go with her calico, Peanut. “My cats love each other,” she says. “They’ll cuddle, tear apart the house together. Peanut has been with me almost as long as I’ve been camming. As soon as I moved out I got a cat at The Humane Society.” To watch Episode 9 of Cam_Girlfriend, click here.