Clouds on the Horizon: Anna Claire Clouds Soars in Adult

A version of this feature appears in the January issue of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital edition. The 2021 Ram Power Wagon—blacked out and lifted, with swamp tires—snaked through the streets of downtown Pittsburgh, stopping just after dark at Rick’s Cabaret. Lounging in the back seat, Anna Claire Clouds couldn’t help but smile as her name scrolled across the digital billboard. Even on a rainy Saturday evening, a capacity crowd was expected at the gentlemen’s club to watch her perform. Standing near the entrance, a security guard waited to escort Clouds to a private dressing room stocked with drinks and snacks. Dancers she’d met the night before were blowing up her phone, eager to see her again. And all afternoon, the front desk had fielded calls about pricing for meet-and-greets with fans—some of whom attempted to peer through the dark windows of the truck as it idled outside the building. No one could see inside. “That celebrity tint!” Clouds chuckles as she tells the story a few weeks later, still astonished by the pampering and coddling, humbled that her presence would cause such a fuss. For Clouds, though, the A-list treatment will soon become routine. Such is life for a bonafide superstar. Make no mistake: barely one year into her career in the adult industry, that’s exactly what Clouds has become. It was evident last month in Pittsburgh, where customers crowded three-deep around the stage at Rick’s, eager to shower Clouds with money during her debut as a traveling feature dancer. “She absolutely owned the room,” general manager Paul Colella tells AVN. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Clouds’ popularity is even more apparent in the world of porn, where the soft-spoken Nashville native has blossomed into one of the most-sought after talents in the industry. In one of the deepest rookie classes in recent memory, Clouds ranks among the elite. And some insist she’s firmly on top. “I can count on one hand the number of times in my career where a girl has made me say, ‘Holy shit!’ because she stands out so much,” AVN Hall of Fame director Mike Quasar said. “This is one of those times. Anna is really … that … good.” Clouds shot more than 100 scenes during her inaugural campaign and has already worked with almost every top male talent in the business. Clouds is a leading candidate to be named Cherry Pimps’ “Cherry of the Year” for 2021. Penthouse has shown interest in featuring her in an upcoming issue, and Clouds’ acting chops recently landed her the lead role in “The Seductress,” a soon-to-be-released film by blue-chip director Jacky St. James. Perhaps most impressively, Clouds is nominated in five categories for the 2022 AVN Awards, tying her with April Olsen for the most by any first-year performer. Along with Best New Starlet, Clouds is a finalist in marquee fields such as Best Boy-Girl Sex Scene for her scorcher with icon Manuel Ferrara; and Best Oral Sex Scene for a tryst with Hime Marie and Tristan Seagal. Winners will be announced Saturday during AVN’s virtual awards ceremony. As the event draws closer and closer—and the accolades continue to mount—Clouds is somewhat overwhelmed. This, she’s beginning to realize, is her life now. This is her new normal. “Sometimes,” Clouds tells AVN, “I’ll have these moments when I’m by myself, and I think, ‘Wow, I can’t believe all of this is really happening.’” *** Before every scene—and sometimes even after—Anna Claire Clouds calls her best friend, Giselle Amore. “She’s loves telling me about all the dick she’s about to get,” says Amore, an exotic dancer in Las Vegas. “The good dick, the big dick, the legendary dick … there’s always so much excitement and energy in her voice. She absolutely loves her job.” Ideal as the fit may be, the odds of Clouds ever becoming a sex worker seemed low during her days growing up near Nashville. Raised in a conservative family, she took honors courses throughout high school and excelled as a member of the Future Problem Solvers and Debate teams. Clouds’ curiosities about sex increased as she grew older. But the environment and moral structure of the Deep South—where porn is shunned more than anywhere in the country—initially kept her from being open about her urges and desires. “The only thing remotely sexual in the South are Daisy Dukes,” Clouds says. “Everything there has been repressed for a very long time. “Eventually you reach a certain age and realize morals are all made up. A lot of people in the South aren’t able to get past that point and open their minds.” Clouds was different. After briefly studying psychology and music business in college, she dropped out and began dabbling in the type of work many southerners would denounce. Clouds became a go-go dancer on the Nashville EDM circuit and worked with a local comedian on adult-themed posts for Vine. She belly-danced at a hookah bar and filmed content with her former boyfriend for Premium Snapchat. The latter venture was so successful that Clouds started her own company, advising girls on how to flourish and market themselves on social media channels. Eventually Clouds launched her own site, AnnaClaireClouds.com, where she posted high volumes of self-produced content. “For so long,” Clouds said, “I hid the parts of me that would only be accepted by certain people. The fact that I’m very slutty and sexual … people didn’t like that. Growing up in the South, we were taught to keep those things private. When I started surrounding myself with people that worked in those environments, it changed my life.” Still, as offers from adult studios rolled in, something kept Clouds from transitioning into mainstream porn. She watched from afar as the careers of once-promising 19-and-20-year-old performers fizzled because of the heavy workload. She saw the immature bickering between younger stars on Twitter and heard stories about addictions to hardcore drugs and alcohol. “The porn generation above me … they were going crazy on each other and I didn’t want to be a part of that,” Clouds said. “Plus, I was more reckless than I am now, and I recognized that. I recognized that I was too immature at age 19 or 20 to deal with all of the things that come with this line of work. So I waited. “I gave myself time to grow up.” Midway through 2020, shortly after her 25th birthday, Clouds determined she was ready for mainstream porn. With the full support of her family, she left her native Tennessee for Colorado Springs—and then Las Vegas and Los Angeles. No longer was she concerned about being ostracized at social gatherings because of her line of work. She didn’t fear being frowned upon in public by someone who may have heard about her videos. “By pulling the plug and moving,” Clouds says, “I got away from anyone who was holding a moral stigma over my head. I let go of the fact that I could see someone in town that might know me. Instead, I could go to the dispensary, and if someone knew me, I could make a new friend. Everything that was once a negative was now a positive.” Clouds pauses. “It was a beautiful thing to say ‘I do porn’ and have people respect it.” Clouds’ decision to wait until her mid-20s to enter the industry has served her well. The maturity she brings to set is refreshing to directors who often grow tired of the “diva syndrome” in porn, where Ill-preparedness, cattiness, tardiness and flat-out no-shows are common problems. Clouds prides herself in never being late to a shoot. Most times, she’s significantly early. If the scene calls for dialogue, you can bet she’ll have her lines memorized. If an outfit has been requested, rest-assured she didn’t “accidentally leave it at home.” Fresh test results are always in the PASS system. “It’s just base-level preparedness, but those things are huge,” Shawn Alff, a director and screenwriter for various studios, said. “She’s so sexy, but off camera, she’s good at all of the unsexy stuff.” Alff recalled a recent shoot when Clouds was dealing with some issues in her personal life. Once the cameras started rolling, he said, “you never would’ve known it.” Clouds has a goofy side, too, as anyone who observed her striking ninja poses in lingerie before a recent Nubiles scene can attest. And it’s not uncommon for her to engage in long, philosophical discussions in between scenes. After an Evil Angel shoot involving Clouds and Vanna Bardot, director Pat Myne tabbed the experience as his “favorite day on set, ever!” And Quasar has lauded the drama-free Clouds numerous times on social media. “When someone is that pretty with such a quiet voice, you assume they don’t have much to say,” Quasar says. “But she’s got so much depth to her—and she brings such a wonderful energy to set. I’m a very manic person, and her energy offsets that.” Clouds appreciates the praise and says her goal is day to leave a positive impression on anyone she encounters. “Showing up as the best version of myself has always worked for me,” she says. “It’s never steered me wrong. Not once have I been like, ‘Damn, I wish I wouldn’t have showed up in a good mood today.’ “I have my bad days, for sure. But I got to a point in life where I was adult enough to say, ‘My bad days aren’t going to affect my whole day.’” Colleagues have also been taken aback by Clouds’ warmth and kindness—traits that are often rare in a competitive, cutthroat industry. Before a shoot earlier this month, Clouds noticed on Twitter that her scene partner, Lilly Bell, was celebrating her birthday. Clouds arrived on set with cupcakes for Bell from Cold Stone Creamery—quite a gesture considering the two had never even met. Before her first stage show at Rick’s, when Clouds expressed concern about being able to grasp the slick stripper pole, a dancer stepped forward and offered Clouds some “grip,” or liquid chalk. About 30 minutes later, Clouds scooped up all of the cash she’d made from the three-song set, walked upstairs to a second-floor balcony and made it rain on the performer who’d helped her. “It must have been $300-$400,” says Amore, who was with Clouds in Pittsburgh. “She literally gave that girl every single bill she earned. That’s who Anna is. She’s a genuine person. She has a kind heart.” *** Nick Stecki says he’d be glad to have a conversation about Anna Claire Clouds—but not right now. He needs to collect himself first. “I’m a bit melted at the moment,” the Nubiles director texts. A few hours earlier, Stecki had wrapped shooting on boy-girl encounter between Clouds and Nathan Bronson. As he left the set, Stecki phoned a member of the Nubiles booking team and said it was the hottest scene he’d ever lensed. “One thing you can’t fake is synergy,” Stecki tells AVN two days later. “They just went for it. There was choking, there was spitting—but in a hot way. They were so into each other. They were sweating balls and going at it. It was raw passion. My jaw was open half of the time.” Others who have worked with Clouds share similar stories. As striking as she is physically—with seductive brown eyes, perfectly-plump lips and a picturesque posterior—Clouds makes an even greater impact with her performance. Granted, the word “performance” may be misleading, because nothing about Clouds’ time on screen is an act. “There’s an authenticity with Anna that you don’t see with everyone,” Quasar says. “I get the sense that she’s ‘into’ everything she does. Obviously she turns it on for the camera, but a lot of girls in the industry go over the top and repeat the same thing in every scene, like it’s on a loop. She seems to really connect with the people she works with, which is what makes the scene a step above.” Quasar laughs. “I shoot four million times a year,” he says. “Anytime I can get a scene with her, it’s it’s a bright spot on an otherwise gray horizon.” Alff said it was easy to peg Clouds as a future superstar after being on set for just one of her scenes. “There are a few girls you meet, and right when they come in, you’re like, ‘Oh, you’re going to be huge,’” Alff said. “I remember telling her that and she was like, ‘Why do people keep saying that?’ She seemed so bewildered. But you can just tell. “When she does a scene, she’s one of those people who not only convinces the camera that she’s really into it, but she convinces her scene partner that she’s really into it. People get really excited when they hear they’re working with her. Not only because she’s pretty, but because she wants to be there.” Amore first met Clouds in January of 2021 when she took part in an all-girl orgy for Amore’s OnlyFans page. Clouds left an impression on Amore that day that has only enhanced over the past year as the two have become close friends. “She's just a sexual little being,” Amore says. “The look in her eye, how she plays with spit, the way she eats me out, the way she gives eye contact, the way she plays with your feet … there’s just so much that she does that makes you realize she’s into it and not just putting on an act for the camera. “No fake moans or dumb one-liners. Nothing Anna does lacks authenticity.” Before she entered porn, Clouds said she routinely watched scenes with Johnny and Kissa Sins. She said she was inspired by “the way they were obsessed with each” other and loved how they were “living the performance.” She tries to emulate that mantra every time she goes to work. While she’s done everything from threesomes to orgies to virtual reality to girl-girl scenes, Clouds said her favorite genre is POV. She loves makes eye contact with the camera and visualizing the people who are sitting at home, watching her perform. “I’ve got a great imagination,” she says. “Sometimes I’ll have eight or nine dudes in my head at once.” Even at Rick’s Cabaret in Pittsburgh, without having sex at all, Clouds left patrons spellbound. General manager Paul Colella remembers Clouds crawling from one side of the stage to the other, stopping to seduce, tease and chat briefly with everyone who tipped. Instead of returning to her dressing room after her set, Clouds walked the club floor and made small talk with customers. She conducted private dances in the VIP area and spent more than an hour posing for pictures and signing autographs at her meet-and-greet table. “We’ve had 17 features in the last four or five months,” Colella said. “The crowd reacted better to her than it did for anyone else. She left people in amazement. I called her agent the next day and said, ‘When can I book her again? I want her back.” Amore kept herself entertained by watching the reactions Clouds evoked from customers. “She pretended she was having sex on stage and they fucking loved it,” Amore says. “She can work her ass. She shakes it really well. She was melting them and I fucking loved it.” Granted, there have also been times when Clouds was on the receiving end of such seduction—the most memorable being her AVN-nominated scene with Manuel Ferrara for Jules Jordan’s “Hot as Fuck 3.” Most historians consider Ferrara to be one of the greatest male talents of all time. Clouds certainly understands why. “Very primal, very real,” Clouds says of the scene. “It was literally the most raw, pure chemistry you could feel with somebody in an intimate situation.” Sultry as her scenes have been, the compliments Clouds receives for her performances aren’t solely related to sex. More and more, directors have lauded her for her acting. Clouds, they say, does more than simply memorize lines. She delivers them with feeling. “She’s very dynamic,” Stecki says. “A lot of the time, we’re looking for human emotion and depth and dialogue, and she can really act. Even when I’m in the room watching the monitor, it provokes an emotional response from me, and that’s what we’re after as a company. “Let’s be honest. This is porn. Hot girls are a dime a dozen. It’s the person behind the body that can separate someone. It’s the mind. The way she engages with the camera and the other models, sometimes you forget your filming and you feel like you’re watching a real performance.” About the only thing Clouds doesn’t do—at least not yet—are anal scenes. It’s something she doesn’t practice regularly in her personal life, and she’s hesitant to do anything on camera that she doesn’t fully enjoy. “One day, if I like it in my private life, I’ll do it,” says Clouds, who is represented by OC Modeling. “But so far, setting that boundary hasn’t done anything for me in terms of not getting work. I’m very busy.” She pauses and smiles. "If I start doing anal,” she says, “I won’t have any time.” *** For a few consecutive nights after Christmas, at her family’s home near Nashville, Anna Claire Clouds experienced something that became rather foreign in 2021. A deep, deep slumber. “I didn’t just sleep—I sleeepppttt,” Clouds says. “I’ve had so much going on lately that, even when I tried to sleep, I didn’t always fully get there. That’s why the end of the year felt so great. “I was able to chill out and completely unplug.” Clouds certainly deserved the break, as she was booked 23 times during a 30-day span between November and December. “A lot of people have taken notice of her energy and her popularity,” Stecki says. “Naturally, the concern is. ‘How is she going to continue that momentum without getting burned out?’ It happens to so many.” Clouds is convinced it won’t be an issue. Mental health and maintaining balance, she says, is a primary focus. Clouds relishes time spent alone and pampers herself with spa days—hair, nails, massages, the works—every few weeks. To rejuvenate herself, she often retreats into the woods for hikes with friends such as Amore. Clouds also isn’t above spending an entire day on the couch watching Netflix with her “fur babies.” Clouds has a chihuahua mix named Chow and a Pomeranian named Bella. “That way, when I yell for them, I can scream “Ciao Bella!” she laughs. She named her cats Stony and Pebbles “because they rock.” Although she loves her weed, Clouds is not a big drinker or partier. “I tell her she’s an old lady,” Alff says. “She just loves to stay home and keep to herself.” Clouds has also avoided the negativity that often leads anxiety, angst and depression in performers. She doesn’t bicker with colleagues online, she keeps political and other polarizing opinions to herself, and she frequently engages with fans who show her support. “I haven’t had any hate in more than two years,” Clouds says, “and I think it’s because people know I’m not going feed into it.” Clouds also feels fortunate to have the support of her family. She remains close with her parents and two brothers—Clouds is the middle child—and returns to Tennessee often for visits. The large tattoo on her torso is a replica of an ornament that hung in her backyard throughout childhood. “We moved around quite a bit,” she says, “so my backyard changed a lot. The one constant was the ornament. Each of the planets that hang from it represent characters in my family. Whenever I look at it, everything just feels so right, so connected, so whole.” That’s because Clouds is mature enough to know her past helped shape her into who she is today. A performer who entertains, but also inspires. A bombshell who is admired, but also adored. A woman who commands attention, but also respect. The best part? Anna Claire Clouds is just getting started. “I’m all about longevity,” she says. “It’s good to have a plan and to have longterm goals. But I also want to embrace and relish everything that’s happening and not look too far ahead.” Clouds smiles gently. “I want to make sure to enjoy the ride.” Photos by Jules Jordan Video (1-3 & 6); Amateur Allure (4 & 5); Dogfart (7) & Sweet Sinner (8)