Up Close With Cami Strella

LOS ANGELES—Cami Strella, the trending content creator and rising adult star from Virginia, loves giving back to the community. “I do a lot for different philanthropies,” Strella says. "I call myself like a ‘pornlanthropist.’” She supports military causes, mental health initiatives and alternative therapies, to name a few. “I’ve been researching psychedelic therapy,” Cami says. “With my background in studying brains it was always very interesting to me.” A former cocktail waitress, stripper and cam girl who made her mainstream porn debut last year and now is represented by Invision Models, Strella tells AVN she’s beginning to show the industry what she’s all about in 2024. “I know I did a few scenes last year for Brazzers but this is my launch year,” says Strella, who had thirty-something mainstream credits at press time with dozens more on the way. “This is where I’m like, OK, this is where I’m going to hit the ground running and I have so far. “I’m just trying to meet and shoot with as many companies as possible. It feels like I’m a baby again. I feel like I was just born into this world, so it’s a very cool phase to be in.” Strella established her reputation and solidified her fanbase with more than 400 content trades in the past two-plus years, collaborating with a who’s who of adult entertainment along the way. So “going pro” this year  made for a natural progression for Strella, who likes to challenge herself both on and off the set. “It’s the most interesting and the most fun for me,” Cami says. “It’s a way to cement yourself into the adult industry. I’m not just here for a good time, I’m also here for a long time. “I’m a lifer in this industry. I love the production, I love the behind the scenes.” Cami continues, “I’ve spent the last two years learning camerawork, investing in proper equipment and learning different lens. I just want to see where else I can apply that outside of my own content.” The hunger for knowledge is nothing new for Strella, who studied neuroscience in the not-too-distant past. “I was in grad school at the time,” Cami says. “I started stripping really as a survivor sex worker. I worked lunch shift because they gave you lunch for free—I really couldn’t afford to put groceries on the table and I was trying to make it through school at the time.” Now armed with the experience of turning a few negatives into positives, Strella is navigating the adult industry with the wisdom of a seasoned veteran. “I have a whole crazy history of being in a cult for a little bit,” Cami says. “It taught me a lot of what I know ultimately about business and strategy and marketing. “Basically, the skills I learned in a cult I used to make it big as an independent content creator. It was like a religious cult but everything I learned with that I was able to apply to other areas of my life.” Strella began her sex work journey in 2018, when she got a job as a cocktail waitress at a gentlemen’s club in North Carolina, where she was residing at the time. She progressed into stripping and then live camming on Chaturbate, launching her OnlyFans in 2019 before the wave of sign-ups during the pandemic. “I was still stripping and I really liked doing in-person sex work because it was totally different being able to connect with people,” Cami recalls. “And I wasn’t able to connect with anyone during COVID so camming kind of gave me a little bit of an outlet. “I got kind of lucky… I was never very successful on Chaturbate. It was truly just used as a means to market myself a little bit and then I funneled it to my OnlyFans. Then once that community grew I started getting bigger on social—on Instagram and TikTok. “TikTok was ultimately the catalyst for rapid growth for me and my business.” It was through TikTok that Strella built an organic following of military servicemen. “Because when I was in school I really wanted to work with military members with traumatic brain injuries and PTSD,” she says. “That was a big goal of mine, so I randomly cultivated a very large military veteran following. “I’m just a civilian, I was never in the military but it was just a community that I always felt resonated with me. Because as a sex worker you’re also kind of on the outskirts of society and you have your own little ecosystem of people.” Strella tells AVN that prior to sex work she became entrenched in a multilevel marketing company that also was “a training organization led by people with very strict conservative Christian values.” “So strict that they had me be a born-again virgin,” she explains. “We’d go to the seminars and they’d encourage you to give your life over to Christ. My brother got me involved originally, but he had no idea that this organization was what it was and he got out as well. “He’s still a Christian, so he didn’t get fully out of it I guess, but it helps him so I’m like, good for you, dude.” Strella says she got involved in the company during a period when she took a break from her undergraduate studies and moved to Seattle. “And they had me do all these crazy things and I basically cracked,” she continues. “I couldn’t keep it together. I watched porn once and I had to tell my coach or my mentor… He’s like, ‘Just pray over me, it’s going to be OK. It’s going to be OK.’ It was so weird, I was like this is so creepy. “The second time I talked about anything sexual was when I had sex. So I basically broke my vow of celibacy and that’s when he called me ‘a sex addict.’ And I was like, ‘What? That sounds crazy. I’m a sex addict, that’s wild.’ “So it was really a self-fulfilling prophecy, I guess I am because I had sex once in a year. So he sent me to what I affectionately call a slut conversion therapist.” She adds, “You’ve heard of gay conversion therapy… it was like that, but for slutty or promiscuous people. “So I paid out of my own pocket for this quack of a lady who I’m pretty sure was not a licensed therapist, just some random lady, like a preacher, a pastor, who knows… and I listened to all these tapes. There was a moment where she had me recite all the people I’ve slept with and I was like I don’t keep count. I have genuinely no idea. “That was kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was like this is way beyond. This is not what I want to be involved in at all. This is too much and this is not right.” Strella tells AVN, “I didn’t really buy into the whole religion thing, I bought into the idea that hey I’m going to retire by the time I’m 25.” “And you see all these people with money, cars, private jets, boats and all that and you buy in because you see the fruit on the tree,” Cami adds. “You believe these people because clearly they’re doing something right. Even from just as a young adult I always wanted to win at something. I’m just sure they never thought it would be porn.” Indeed, Strella admits she “never thought in a million years” that she’d be a full time professional in the adult industry but here she is. Strella eventually earned her undergraduate degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. And along the way she learned a range of skills such as how to negotiate contracts and how government nonprofits work. “But I didn’t finish my graduate degree. It was in Occupational Therapy with a specialty in Neurology,” she says, explaining that in the fall of 2021 one of her fellow grad school students found a viral video of hers on TikTok that was based on her selling her partner’s used cum rag. "And then a bunch of girls in my class found out and it made it very difficult for me to stay in my program so I left," Cami adds. "They pushed me out of the program but it was for the best. Being in healthcare was not really long term what I wanted to do." Strella grew up in Fredericksburg, a small town in Northern Virginia, splitting time between there and North Carolina, where her father owned a beach property. “I would go and spend summers there, so I kind of got used to being in Virginia and North Carolina quite a bit," she says. Cami recalls always being a sexually curious person—even exploring sugaring in her younger adult years. “A lot of girls have this idea to hang out and date this rich, old man,” Strella says. “I ended up mentoring these sugar daddies I would have. "They were like, ‘How do you know so much about business?’ Little did they know I was in a cult that taught me about business. “I like doing things that are a little bit against the grain. And it felt very taboo and different for me.” Strella reveals she also once worked for a port-a-potty company and a pest control company; and for a span she taught kids how to dance. “I’ve done a lot of random jobs,” Cami says. “I did whatever I could. It was mostly a byproduct of my ADHD. Doing porn is really what stuck the longest. “I’ve been in the adult industry for six, seven years now. So it really stuck, finally.” Photography by @kogafoto