For Black History Month, HotMovies teamed up with veteran performer Lotus Lain to interview Black performers and adult content producers to highlight their perspectives on the industry and their unique achievements. In the twelfth Instagram Live interview, Lotus talked with Mr. Marcus about getting started in the industry in the mid-90s, struggling with awkwardness around women, and reckoning with his controversial past while looking forward to the future. Check out Lotus and Mr. Marcus’s candid discussion below or watch the video on HotMovies’ Instagram and YouTube!
LL: And we are live. Yes, we are. This is a Sunday, and I’m your girl, Lotus Lain, your host for these Instagram Black History Month Instagram Live interview series, and I’m a about to invite our Mr. Marcus up. If I could look for him. How’s everyone doing this Sunday? Hopefully, good. There we go. Hey…
MM: Hey.
Cool.
You see just half my face.
Yeah, when we do these lives, it kinda shrinks the image so if you want to put yourself in the frame better.
Hold on, Hold on. Let me…
Yeah, you look great.
[chuckles] Alright, I’m here.Yeah, thank you for joining us on this Sunday afternoon. You look great.
Right, right.
We already see people dropping heart eyes in the chat. [chuckles]
Right. How y’all doing? What’s up? What’s up everybody? Happy Sunday, fun day.
Exactly, you have your signature cap on in red now, matching with a little… What is that?
Right! It’s a rose… Skeleton rose.
Oh, the skeleton hand holding the rose. Okay I see.
Right, right. Well you know what? Sometimes you buy things with certain images and sometimes you just like the way they fit.
Yeah!
I like the way this fits, so…
I can see already on the upper arms that it fits real well…
Right, right, right, right, right. This is an extra large, so…
Oh, okay. Nice. You put it out there for the ladies too, like the fans extra large. Peep Mr. Marcus looking nice, feeling nice.
Feeling nice.
So let’s go ahead and let people know, you know if you wanna ask questions, there’s a Q&A down at the bottom there, and I’ll go ahead and get to those in a little bit, but yeah, just to get started with this talk, you’re a legend in our industry, a lot of fans know about you, they still look at you, you still look great. I might say so, why don’t you take us back and kinda describe your start in this industry?
You know it’s funny, I was talking to somebody ’cause people ask me that all the time, “How did you get in? How did you get in?” And I realized, well, at my age, I think I discovered porn when I was about 14, 15. And school I was okay in, but I wasn’t academically driven. I was sports, I played football, so I was athletically kinda… I was there, I was athletic, but I wasn’t like thinking of being athlete. And then porn came along at the time that I was discovering myself sexually, you got me?
Right, yeah. Definitely.
And so when I saw it, it wasn’t like I knew that I was gonna be a porn star. I just knew that I wanted to be around those people who were making those images, who are expressing themselves that way. I knew I wanted to be around that, and that kinda became the focus, and once that started happening, I started meeting the people, and everything kind of fell in the place. But I got my start, just like a lot of people do, and went to AVN as a fan. I was walking around wide-eyed looking at… [laughter] Looking at all these girls and shit, I was just kinda blown away that here are these people, and I still see that look today at Exxxotica, and at AVN, and XBIZ—you see the fans kinda like just wide eyes, woah you’re…
Yeah. I mean, I have to agree, that’s kind of what I first did too, is went to AVN as a fan cam girl, and then came into it now being in the industry.
Right. Right. Right. Yeah see cam, cam models, that was the thing that brought in a whole wave of new performers, you know what I mean?
Definitely.
But I like the… “sex worker” wasn’t a word that we were using when I started…
Right. Touch on that, how some terms and some things have changed from when you first started. What years were that when you first started anyways?
Oh! I started in ’93, when I started actively showing up on a set. I didn’t actually perform until ’94, and that…
How old were you at that time?
I was 23.
Okay, wow, okay. I was probably like 10 years younger, but yeah. That era, it was a good…
Right, right. I meet a lot of people that been watching me since childhood, so it’s like…
There is that time when you’re discovering yourself sexually and you have questions and all of that good stuff.
Yeah. I mean it kinda came around and I was, you know… Girls really were the difference for me, because girls would start showing me a lot of attention like right out of high school. I just remember I was playing a football game with a bunch of my friends, I took off my shirt, and I could see the girls over in the corner huddling and shit, so as soon as the game was over, I’m walking over and they just kinda surrounded me and I was just like, “Whoa.” I never had… I never realized the sexual… That some of us have this real strong sense of sexuality…
Yeah, yeah.
You got me?
You didn’t have that at first, you think?
Nah, nah. I was still kinda awkward. I’m still awkward when it comes to… I can see that a lot of people have a hard time, that’s why all these dating apps do so well because we don’t really… We want to, but we just don’t know about how to go about doing it.
Yep.
And still to this day I am still awkward.
Yep, there’s someone as suave and legendary as you are and have been with the ladies, struggled and had those awkward moments.
Oh, yeah. It’s hard but you’re human, you know what I mean? And I think we go through things emotionally, we may be in a different place, maybe we’re not meant… I learned this too, so you’re not meant to fuck everybody, you’re not meant to be with everybody, sometimes you got to get out the way…
Wow, you don’t realize that you’re not actually meant to fuck everybody. [laughter]
Right, and the people are just gone hoe, people are just gone hoe, just trying to get it at everything that walks, and it’s kind of like… I’ll be out with the homeboys and they just… They’re so aggressive, and I’m like, “Yo chill.” You know, just chill cause if it’s meant to be, it’s going to be.
Mr. Marcus takes it a little bit slower and easy. The one of the things I wanted to get into was, especially since we’re talking about Black porn and Black History Month… ‘Cause this is a question from the audience that I definitely appreciate. What is your opinions on Black porn today?
You know I think that it’s funny, I found this article AVN did about 20 years ago, asking, “What’s the state of Black porn 20 years ago?” And I think it’s just still as relevant today; I think you need that Black ownership. You need to have Black voices in the decision-making, the executive decision-making… Black porn doesn’t have to be made by a White, experienced director, it can be a Black voice that’s creatively new to the scene. You know what I mean? And I think in some industries are just really like… They’re just so afraid half the time to hand off to someone that they’re not sure of, but I think there’s a lot of Black talent out there and Black businesses that can be supported and developed by ourselves for ourselves that can benefit everybody.
I mean, I currently see that happening a lot in—not the central areas of like necessarily LA and Vegas—but across the country, across the map. Different Black companies are being outside of what we… Most people would consider mainstream. But when you get their following and you look at their production value, I would argue that it rivals mainstream.
Yeah, cats are smooth I mean, I know companies down in Houston, down in Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Philly, New York that are all Black-ran and really focus on Black talent, really embracing and marketing and promoting Black faces so you know… The way it is now, it’s like, obviously, we have the powers in our hands, we have the cell phone, we have the connection. You have the talent, if you have the resources, the financial resources. You know the platforms, a lot of them are free to use. OnlyFans is a big game changer. It brought the power to the performer, which I always thought it should be in the first place. But with social media, the companies realize that, because they tap the performers to promote the company…
Exactly.
So you know… [chuckles] the power has always been in the performer, so I love that casting is taking it into their own hands and making it their own.
That’s cool, I really appreciate that perspective. Since you named some of those companies, I’ll ask the next question from Chris, which is: will you be directing again? Have you worked with any of those other Black companies that you may have talked about or mentioned?
I’ve had a few people reach out to me to perform for their companies and stuff, and I always say it’s just… I don’t want to go down that road. I don’t want to just survive, do anything. I want to produce it, and I want to direct it, or I want to write it. I want to be involved in the creative side of it. You know what I mean like… I’m open, I’ve directed a few music videos for some friends of mine and stuff. Yeah, I’ve hired the talent, I found the location, and brought in the camera crew, and we kind of just have some fun. I wanna do more than bringing a sexual edge to it.
Yeah, yeah, I can see that happening. That’s really cool. You have other things that you’re branching into already, like music-video directing. That’s one of the things I would have always liked to do. It’s funny a comment right here from Chris down in the comments, “It is interesting to note that top brands like Brazzers or Adult Time don’t have Black lines, and it would be interesting if they use this opportunity to create something like that.”
Yeah, I mean they got a whole fucking website dedicated to Blacked.com, and it’s just kind of like… I don’t see a promotion of Black directors. Derek Deso who’s good friend of mine, he shoots a lot of the camera work for him, and he’s got a great eye. He knows how to really capture sex, and that’s an art form. You know what I mean? You know they let performers perform, that’s still a skill. And I would love to see people just come like, maybe Brazzers or Blacked, just say, “Hey, we’ve set aside a certain amount of productions a year to dedicate to Black performers, developing Black product.” Period.
That would be awesome.
You know what I mean? The platform, the bridge, you know if they’re approached with a business plan, they invest in that. Not as, let me take it over, and let me run it and we do it, we take your idea, fuck that. When you say, “Here, this is a separate entity, funded. We wish you luck,” type-shit… [chuckles]
Right. Yeah that would be an amazing thing. Good pitch. So yeah, one of the next things I want to get into is kind of you know on a level that maybe some fans don’t know about, but some industry people do, there was a situation that happened ten years ago with testing that kind of shook things up in the industry, and you were in the middle of that… And I really want to give you your own platform to speak on that yourself from your truth and your point of view.
Right, ’cause I speak about it, ’cause you know you Google it, and that’s what comes up, you know. And I just stopped Googling myself cause I just… It’s really hard to defend things and explain things that have been turned inside-out and twisted, and there’s an agenda, you know. At the time that I went through that with the whole testing, it was poor decisions, poor decisions on my part. As a side note, I pretty much came in the industry by myself, I got a lot of friends within the business, but there’s some things that you just make your decisions on your own. You know what I mean? If I would have consulted, which I did to certain people, there wasn’t really a definitive way of handling it, and the way I chose to handle it with the test was just not transparent, not clear. And I look back at that time, I was like, “Yeah, we enacted.” There was a lot of things that led up to that.
What were the things that you say were leading up to it, that might have clouded your judgement?
Well, I think Darren James—his situation that happened maybe about five, no, almost seven years earlier—when he was involved in HIV scandal, and it was all on news. And that had a big effect on me because I was kind of roped into that. So you got this public perception and you got this professional perspective and you got this personal. And so juggling a lot of those things at the time was just like, “How do I get through this situation?” I know I’m good. I’ve been tested. I’ve been treated. I’ve been through the situation before—gonorrhea and chlamydia—so my mindset was to handle it that same way. And unfortunately, there was a lot of protocols that weren’t in place then that are in now.
Yeah, yeah.
You know what I mean? They didn’t do the testing like that, they had two separate facilities with different protocols and how they handle things. So I just got caught between a rock and a hard place. And it was a difficult place to navigate because there was people that were obviously trying to tear you down, and there’s other people trying to protect you, and then there’s other people trying to convey, but I didn’t know it would take on as much as it took on. [laughter] I was like, “What the fuck.” It’s…
Yeah. As a person in the middle of all of that, and at the same time, not receive sympathy for what your mental state might have been at the time. I have no idea.
Well I’m not… I was not looking for sympathy.
No.
I have family to raise. And I was pretty busy, but I wasn’t like, I wasn’t taking every single job that was coming my way. There was work lined up, you know what I mean? And I had always had, I keep all my tests, I keep all my shit in order. I handle all my shit. I handle everything. I’m managing. I’m trying to manage it. And it just, unfortunately, at that time there was a lot of weird entities involved and it just went and took into a different place so I couldn’t… I tried to handle it as best as I could, and so…
I hear you, I do. As a human, I hear you, we make mistakes, and I know that you’re definitely caught in a difficult situation, but I would also say you were caught in a moment in time when our industry was changing things, like you said. There are certain test standards and tests now that weren’t at that time, especially when it comes to certain STIs. People don’t understand one-month testing isn’t enough of a window to catch certain things, and that’s why it’s now a two weeks.
Yeah.
So many people don’t understand that history.
Yeah. You know what, when I started, and I tell people this to give them some kind of context and perspective. When I started in this, in ’93, ’94, there was a test that we took called the ten-minute HIV test. It was located in Santa Monica, that motherfucker… And there’s no laws governing our industry when it comes to… This is all courtesy. [laughter]
Wildbacksex is saying YOLO down here. [laughter]
What’s up swab, I see you my brother. We got a lot of friends out here.
Yes.
It’s all the homies and shit. And we’ve been around this long and you just… They’re family.
Right. So that’s wild, kinda go back to, you were saying back in the 90s, the testing was different. It was just like a ten-minute test.
Yes it was ten-minute test that we, you know, somebody said, “Hey, that’s good for three months.” And…
How? Oh my God.
Yeah, three months, so you can just fuck away three months and shit. “Hey, I got this paper, I got it three months ago.” We weren’t even testing for STIs.
Yeah.
Until around early 2000, late 1990s. We weren’t testing. We weren’t doing a full panel.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? Then when hepatitis and all that stuff wasn’t until about 2003-2004. When I looked at the industry, I kept saying, “Well, that was because we know more. We learned more.”
Yeah.
The testing got better, and… More people are involved. Don’t ever discount that as a money-grab too. They wouldn’t ask you to do this every two weeks a $200-something full-panel test if there wasn’t money involved. [chuckles]
Right.
The PASS… I just heard complaints…
Definitely, they could afford to reduce prices if they wanted to, I think.
They could, they could… And it’s a monopoly in the passing. All these things are kind of like, “Come on, man… ” There needs to be more of a conversation about that. And I hear that some companies that cover the cost of the performers and stuff, but then you get…
Only some do, which is good for those that do. But then for those that don’t, it does create, I would definitely say, a cost barrier for those trying to make those scenes or if they’re new, even break into the industry at a consistent rate. So, it’s definitely something to talk about. And thankfully, with new guidance, with Free Speech Coalition and the PASS-certified group, I think we have an idea of having a wellness lounge connected to our own lab, industry-owned lab, so we’re not under the prejudice of these outside labs that wanna charge prices that are…
Right, right. And I admire that about you, you’re an advocate for performers. And there needs to be somebody speaks up on your behalf, you gotta be like, “I totally support that,” like… ’cause maybe somebody is feeling it and thinking it but there’s no one there to say it for them.
Yeah. Yeah.
People still talk to me about the industry. I still have a lot of industry friends, that show up at a lot of events. And I’m a fan. You know what I mean? I’m a fan like I’m a real hardcore…
That actually goes into one of the next questions from the audience is “Who are some of today’s actresses that if you wouldn’t wanna shoot with them, that you do admire and that you watch as a fan?”
I know you’re good friends with her, but I love… I am drawn to what Ana Fox does.
Oh, yes.
I just… I think she should be a fashion model. I think she’s a wonderful muse. You know what I mean? She’s very… It’s interesting. I love people who do just really interesting things with their mind and their body, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Music… As performers, male, I like what Ricky’s doing, you know what I mean?
Like his little… His OnlyFans stuff is just the way most motherfuckers like to do that shit.
Yeah, yeah.
You’re at home with your lady just getting it on.
Yeah.
I like amateur stuff. I don’t…
True, he has that style of amateur…
Right, right. So I support. Who else… A lot of brothers reach out. I’m good friends with… I’m so bad at this shit, I’m sorry [chuckles]
It’s okay. I have a kind of a cloudy head right now too. But we’re gonna get through it together.
Right, right, right, right. Nah, I like anybody who’s just natural with it, you know what I mean? They just, they enjoy it. If they enjoy it, then I enjoy it…
If you could see that natural enjoyment coming through. Yeah, I feel that.
Right, right, right. Abella Danger, Sophie Dee… I love watching her work. It’ll all come; the names will start popping out of my head. And I’ll just mention, how about that? [chuckles]
I got you. It’s like you can see their image before you can see their name, you can see their body and face before you can see the name.
Right, right, right.
So one of the things I wanna ask is, it’s ten years later from that whole incident. What do you think you have learned now, and what would you say to someone else that’s faced in a similar situation? Kind of at a crossroads of, should they be transparent? Should they try and keep things to themselves or…? Just what advice would you give?
People are way more open now.
Yeah.
We post everything. There’s people inside the testing center now taking pictures like. “Hey, I’m tested,” you know what I mean? Like, it’s a part of the…
The whole culture.
Yeah, it’s a culture thing now, like, “Hey, look at me.” Whatever, ’cause when it comes to your medical, when it comes to your health, some people are private. Some people don’t feel like they need to tell you everything. They may be dealing with something that they haven’t figured out how to discuss, you know what I mean?
Right.
We can’t just jump on people in the industry; there’s so many stigmas attached to what we do. There’s a lot of fans that will side with a performer, because they’re fans of that performer. So that performer can rile up an army of people.
Yes.
You know what I mean?
I’ve seen.
And it’s kind of unfair to the person who’s trying to manage that and try to deal with something because somebody feels a certain way and they wanna press an agenda. We’ve seen it, our industry is susceptible to people… Suicides and drugs and sex trade and sex traffic… There’s a lot of issues within our industry. I think we should be kind of talking within. Even recently, there wasn’t organizations that were dedicated to porn performers. There wasn’t like the APAG, and… Performers Union. Nah, there wasn’t all that, so what is a person supposed to do? You know what I mean? You need to be able to talk to somebody and then help. Especially within this industry, there should be a lot more support. And then, on that front, the testing—they need to take the responsibility of kind of educating, ’cause somebody comes in there and has an issue, like not shun them and not, and definitely don’t fucking start gossiping about ’em before they even had any kind of a consultation.
I think we need to have a little bit more humanity in the way that we treat each other when we’re in a hard place.
Yeah. Listen, motherfuckers do fucked up shit, and there’s some… And there’s a lot of people stressed out. You know, look at COVID. Look how much we have went through because of COVID.
Exactly.
You see how much division, and the miscommunication, and the constantly changing guidelines. Come on, man, there’s people constantly still trying to shun you to get vaccinated, not vaccinated. [chuckles] They trying to make you feel like shit. And people are trying to navigate things, you know what I mean? They’re trying to take care of the family. I was thinking, the people who’ve been through the most, is probably mothers, you know what I mean? They gotta keep the family together, they gotta stay healthy, and they gotta get the kids in and out of school safely. And then, and you got misinformation, and you got people coming at you and telling you one thing to do. Oh, fuck that. Just show a lot more compassion.
I agree. I really like that message, to show a lot more compassion. So yeah, I’m glad that you were able to speak on this on your own, ’cause for me, like you said, I advocate for people, but I have gone through that moment of seeing people kind of be cancelled and be, go through the wringer, and just… And I always was felt with this feeling like that doesn’t feel like justice, that like, I feel like if a person is open and willing to learn from their mistakes and apologize and atone, I think we should be more willing to bring people in. Call people in instead of call people out. And that’s what I hope this was for you, and just an opportunity for people to know in the future, how to deal with things that might be difficult.
I appreciate you doing this. I appreciate HotMovies for giving you the platform, and hearing all the different stories. I’ve been slowly going back through and watching your interviews with everybody.
Oh, thank you.
Just learning more about the performers, you know what I mean? Learning about what’s their experience is like, because you don’t know shit, we don’t know shit. We hear shit, but we don’t know shit. People talk shit and say shit, but do you truly know shit? Do you know what I mean? You gotta be in the conversation to actually learn something. So listening to you guys talk about it and our experiences are different. You gotta learn from it. You go ahead, you can shoot your shots, and shoot your arrows, and but I don’t think you should kill people who survived, or learned something the hard way, because they can actually teach you something so that you don’t have to go through that yourselves. [chuckles]
Yeah. Like you said, like an entire monster mouthful, that was incredibly powerful, and I couldn’t agree more. And I feel like that’s where I was coming from in wanting you to be a part of this interview series, for sure.
And I saw that, I saw you put “controversial” and I was like, yeah I guess, guess I’m always gonna… [laughter]
Well, not amongst our people, but maybe controversial amongst people that like to continue Twitter drama and things of that nature.
Yeah, no, I totally get it, I totally, I get it. But I’ve learned the hard way. [laughter]
But it’s all good, I’m glad you learned, I’m glad you’re still here, you’re still looking incredible, and you have some really, you know poignant thoughts still, so I believe that…
Even more so. [laughter]
Right, even more so now. So yeah, it’s gonna be good to see you at future events, so it’s gonna be good to see what you’re going to be working on in the future.
I see you got Misty Stone tomorrow, right?
Yes, yes.
I saw she was like, “What the fuck?”
She was feeling like she wasn’t part the circle, and in my mind and my heart, I was like, “There’s just no way I could leave my girl out. I can’t leave her out.”
No, I love Misty. I said, I love Misty. I think she’s an enigma. You know, it’s like she’s definitely…
She’s so incredibly entertaining. This is adult entertainment. It doesn’t get any more entertaining than her just being her just being herself. I just love… I can’t wait to…
Yeah, she’s herself. I’ll be talking to her, she’s like, “What’s up, cuz? Hey cuz, hey cuz.” I’ll be like, “Nah,” and I always wanna say, “Listen, I’m not no cuz,” but I don’t say shit. I just… [laughter]
But you know, that’s just the way she talks, like if you’re around her, that’s love.
Right. I tell people when they say, “What should I do?” I said, “Always be yourself, be yourself. And there’s only one you for a reason. You try to be somebody else, try to act like how somebody else tells you to act, try to do whatever they telling you, you just, it ain’t gonna flow, you ain’t gonna feel it, and it’s gonna come off fucked up, so just be you. You’ll figure it out.” [laughter]
Thank you for that advice, and thank you for being you, and just being true all these years to yourself. You know, appreciate you for…
I appreciate you too.
…Taking the time out of your day.
You know, me and you, I thought you wanted to talk to me, but you never would, and I’ve come around, and I see you, and… I know that I feel like, I would always come to these events and I’d get the looks. And I’d get the love and I’d get the looks. [chuckles] And so…
Because to be quite honest, I started right in 2012, and so I always heard a swirl of just rumors and never facts, so I never knew anything that was real. You, of course, were someone I looked at and knew of and heard, as the years went on, nothing but positive things about you. So in my mind, I felt like why wouldn’t I take the opportunity and the chance to give you a platform to speak on your terms, as opposed to being awkward in public and not knowing what to say to you?
Right, right.
It’s such a different life that I don’t even know what to believe anymore.
I hate the awkwardness. I’ve been in this industry almost 30 years, so it’s kind of like, I’ve had the awkwardness, I’ve been through the awkwardness. I know what it’s like to be a porn performer. I know what it’s like to be looked at as a porn star. I know what it’s like to be shunned and vilified, and all of that shit. But I also see the love. And there’s a lot of people who are trying to, they’re young, trying to discover themselves sexually, and there’s a lot of… We’ve had a lot, the Me-Too movement, and even my evolution, my growth in this industry, and all the people that I’ve lost, and the industry has lost over the decades, it’s crazy to me. So then it’s just life. When I’m out, you know what, I’m seeing shit, I’d be like, “Wow.” You’ve got to appreciate the day. You’ve gotta appreciate the experience. You’ve gotta be open to new learning. You gotta, I know things are awkward. I’d be on stage… I hate being singled out, I hate it, I hate the attention. But it’s like, a shy porn star? Yeah. [laughter]
I feel like that makes it just that much cuter, that side…
‘Cause you know what? The dick don’t work if you shy. [laughter]
That is true. That’s the performance aspect. Shy in real life, then you know.
And then, you know…
Performer on the scene.
Right, right. That guy. [laughter]
So, thank you for those memories and thank you for the legacy that you’re giving to our industry. And just thank you for being real today. I really, really appreciate this and look forward, like I said, to something in the future. And everybody else in there, in the audience, thank you for joining us and spending time with us today.
I appreciate y’all. I appreciate y’all for showing up. Thank you to HotMovies for doing this.
Let them know where they can find you.
Oh, you can find me on everything. It’s pretty much @akaMrMarcus… You know what I mean? What up, Donny? It’s family. My family be following me. You don’t know who’s following you until they just comment on something, “Oh, you’ve been… ” I always cringed. I tell people, I’m PG on all my shit, I’m PG. So it’s @akaMrMarcus. On OnlyFans I get explicit, but on everything else it’s pretty PG, you know?
Okay, well, thank you again. Everybody, you take care. Happy Sunday.
Hey, alright. One more thing, don’t stop doing these interviews. Even past Black History Month.
I probably should keep doing them, right?
Keep at it, keep at it. Keep doing it, keep doing it. You’ve got my support.
Thank you. I appreciate that. I might actually definitely do that.
I got you. I support.
Alright, thank you. Take care.
Alright. See you later. Peace. What’s up Reg? I see you brother… [chuckles]
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