Asa Akira was born in Manhattan, New York. to Japanese parents. She lived in SoHo, Manhattan, until age nine, when she moved to Tokyo, Japan.[5] She lived there for four years before moving back to the United States in her teens.[6][page needed] When moving back to New York, her family originally moved to downtown Brooklyn before moving to Clinton Hill, New York.[7]
Asa is her real first name, which means "morning" in Japanese. Her professional surname was taken from the anime film Akira.[9]
Career
Pornographic career
Akira in 2009
Akira began working as a dominatrix when she was 19 years old.[10] She later worked as a stripper at the Hustler Club in New York.[11] In 2006–2007 she was a regular on the Bubba the Love Sponge radio show and was known as the "Show Whore".[2] Her first boy-girl scene was with Travis Knight for Gina Lynn Productions, after having already done several girl-girl scenes, mainly with Lynn.[2] She then signed a contract with Vouyer Media before becoming a freelancer six months later.[12]
Akira received several award nominations for her role in David Aaron Clark's 2009 film, Pure, in which she plays a telephonist at a fetish dungeon who has an affair with the head-mistress' husband.[13]
Akira co-hosted the 30th Annual AVN Awards alongside pornographic actress Jesse Jane and comedian April Macie.[14] She won the AVN Female Performer of the Year Award that night.[15] She was also the most awarded person during that ceremony.[16]
In 2013, she made her directorial debut with Elegant Angel's Gangbanged 6.[17]
On October 9, 2013, Akira announced that she signed an exclusive performing contract with Wicked Pictures.[18] Her debut film as a contract performer for the company was Asa Is Wicked.[19]
In 2017, Akira appeared as herself in the first episode of the sixteenth season of Family Guy in a live-action casting couch cutaway scene with Peter Griffin. Akira later noted that, ironically, this was her first casting couch scene. The episode featured a recurring joke of people asking Peter "who was the girl on the couch" and Peter giving a deadpan reply that he is certain each inquirer already knows who she is. In the eighth episode of the twentieth season after Peter is fired from his job, he tries to clear his browser history, but it's too late as the company IT guy notes that Peter is "all in" on Akira.
In 2011, Complex ranked Akira fourth on their list of "The Top 100 Hottest Porn Stars Right Now"[23] and at sixth on their list of "The Top 50 Hottest Asian Porn Stars of All Time".[24]LA Weekly ranked her third on their list of "10 Innovative Porn Stars Who Could Be the Next Sasha Grey" in 2013.[25] She was also placed on CNBC's yearly list "The Dirty Dozen", the site's annual ranking of the adult industry's most popular and successful stars in 2012,[26] 2013,[27] and 2014.[28]
In 2013 Akira and artist David Choe started a podcast featuring 90-minute episodes called DVDASA.[29] It is aimed at a young adult audience, with its goal being to help youth with their problems related to sexuality, career, relationships, etc.
In June 2014, Akira appeared on a YouTube video with vlogger Caspar Lee.[30]
Akira wrote a memoir titled Insatiable: Porn—A Love Story which was released in May 2014 by Grove Press.[31] In July 2015, she signed a contract with Cleis Press to publish her second book, titled Dirty Thirty: A Memoir, a collection of essays, which was released in the fall of 2016.[32][33]
In 2015, Akira replaced Belle Knox as the host of The Sex Factor, an upcoming reality show where eight men and eight women compete for a $1 million prize and a three-year porn contract.[citation needed]
On April 6, 2015, The Hundreds started releasing episodes for a series titled Hobbies with Asa Akira, which features Akira trying out different activities such as tattooing, boxing, taxidermy, and ice sculpting.[34]
Akira joined Barstool Sports in 2017, where she was briefly a co-host on KFC Radio.[35]
Personal life
Akira states that she is sexually attracted to both men and "girls that look like boys".[36] She dislikes being called bisexual, saying that she leans towards heterosexuality, but is still uncertain.[36] She was once engaged to former pornographic actor Rocco Reed.[37] She was also married to pornographic actor and director Toni Ribas,[38] and she stated that aside from their on-screen work, their relationship was monogamous;[39][40] their marriage lasted from December 2012 until 2017 and ended up in divorce.[41]
She and her partner welcomed their first child in 2019.[41] Akira identifies as a feminist.[32][42]
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