Kink Releases Statement About Shoot Violations

CHATSWORTH, Calif.—Kink.com has released a statement regarding a February 28 shoot on which a model reports having had their safety violated in a number of ways. Though Kink's statement does not name the model in question nor the director overseeing the shoot, the incidents and date of occurence it does note correspond with those of a shoot performer Alexis Tae publicly condemned via Twitter in a series of posts beginning March 2 and continuing through the weekend; said shoot was helmed by performer Lydia Black in what was to mark her directorial debut. As part of the shoot, Tae was bound in rope and suspended, and she alleges that at one point she asked to be released, but the shoot continued—as she stated in one of her initial March 2 tweets on the subject: "[I] loudly and clearly communicated and was not stopped or cut down. Absolute negligence in every way." Black issued her own "Open Letter to Alexis Tae" on Twitter Monday morning addressing Tae's grievances and claiming "full responsibility" for them. Toward the beginning of the four-page letter, she acknowledges that when Tae first requested to be let down, "I asked her if she could do one more minute. I should not have asked her that. She agreed and we continued for a few moments, perhaps one minute. Then she called 'cut' and said she wanted out immediately. We stopped the scene and the PA rushed to hold her so she was not suspended any longer. I'm not sure how long he took to get to her but I think around 10 seconds at most. There is however a 45 second gap from when she says she needs to come down and when we got her down, according to the company that has the footage. I know that is too long and every second was too much." Tae's lone response to Black's letter thus far has been a tweet reading, "Shame on you."  AVN reached out to Tae through agent Mark Spiegler for a response to Kink's statement, and she had no further comment. The company's statement follows: Like many of you, we were concerned by the accounts of a shoot which was produced on Tuesday of last week by Clarion Alley, one of our largest content partners. It is apparent that a performer was kept suspended in bondage several minutes after they requested release, ostensibly to finish a shot, and potentially risking injury. There is an ongoing review of what happened that night, including review of all footage and interviews with all staff. Without having completed our review, we can already say there were a number of unacceptable things that happened in the shoot, and for this we are deeply sorry. As a result of this, the head of production has been let go, and Kink.com will not be working with the Director of the shoot going forward. Kink.com takes responsibility for all content that is released on, or produced for, its site regardless of who it is produced by.  We understand that as a company, we would not exist were it not for the relationships and trust we maintain with our models. We do not take safety violations lightly, and our models are our number one priority. We are taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen ever again. As part of these measures we are bringing in John Paul “The Pope” to review/audit everything we are doing in production from top to bottom. The Pope is a long standing Kink.com Director who still shoots content for the sites and is widely known for being the gold standard in model safety and consent practices.  Without the trust of our models, we do not have the ability to continue forward as the company that we strive to be. Representatives for Kink.com are in contact with the model to rectify this situation.