[Update, 8/15, 12 p.m.: this article has been updated with a clarification of a Ginger Banks quote regarding her thoughts on consent and with the addition of a Jenny Blighe quote about communication before and after the G/G scene.]
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Ginger Banks, a cam model and adult performer who co-starred in the 2018 Evil Angel documentary-style feature "Cam Girls," has filed a police report for "sexual battery" with the West Hollywood Police Department against company owner and director John Stagliano for an incident while they were shooting a scene for that project in February 2018.
The filing, reported by Banks to XBIZ, occurred last week, after Banks posted a series of videos on social media describing her frustration with “the lack of accountability” she felt the adult industry dispensed to powerful stakeholders like Stagliano.
The Evil Angel founder is seen as one of the longest-standing industry figures, and has been recognized as one of the historical power brokers during the formation of the current, legal porn industry.
Banks told XBIZ that the recent decision to file charges now stems from a realization that what had happened to her and her co-star, cam model Jenny Blighe, was indeed a reportable offense under California law.
“I was sick and tired of being gaslit into believing that what John Stagliano did to us on set that day was normal,” Banks said. “It wasn’t until a friend of mine outside the porn industry told me this was a reportable offense that I realized I should go to the police.”
“Literally the second after she said that, I put all my evidence in a Dropbox file and drove to the West Hollywood police station.”
Banks said that, even though she had been disturbed by what happened to her and Blighe ever since the day of the alleged assault, the long road to last week's filing involved several steps of realization.
“It wasn’t until I heard this wasn’t an isolated incident and saw John’s lack of remorse and accountability, and also the fact he mocked me to my face the first time I saw him after this happened,” Banks told XBIZ.
Although initially she had been worried that the police would not take a sexual assault allegation by a sex worker seriously, Banks said the West Hollywood police were willing to listen.
“They treated me with respect,” Banks said. “They told me this should not have happened to me even if it happened on a porn set.”
As for the possible outcome, Banks explained she has “no expectations, but I feel fucking empowered as fuck for going up there and standing up for myself.”
A Girl/Girl Scene Gone Wrong
Evil Angel’s "Cam Girls" was first pitched to Banks and Blighe in December 2017 by the Evil Angel producer and director known as "Evil Chris."
"Chris told me that the project was kind of a sequel to 'I Am Katrina,'" Banks told XBIZ, referring to the documentary-style Evil Angel showcase for Katrina Jade.
The twist would be that “Cam Girls” would co-star two very popular cam performers with no professional porn experience, traveling to Los Angeles and shooting their first pro scenes.
Banks, Blighe and the producers met up at a conference in late January 2018, and the following month they were flown to Los Angeles to shoot the project.
“I lived in Arizona at the time and she was coming from Arkansas,” said Banks. “Chris acted as the overall director of the documentary, but they decided to have ‘big-name’ directors for the sex scenes.”
Banks alleges their assault by Stagliano occurred during the shooting of what was intended to be their “Girl/Girl” scene at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood.
Interviewed by Holly Randall for her podcast last July, Banks described what happened when, she recalled, “John Stagliano decided to touch us during the scene.”
“I had asked the director of the project [Evil Chris], not the director of the scene, because John was directing the scene, ‘Is he gonna touch us?’ cause I’ve seen some of his G/G scenes, and he touches them, and they said ’no.’”
“It’s kind of like his thing,” Randall interjected.
“They said ‘he plays this character called Buttman’ and I asked them, 'Is he gonna be playing that character?’ and they said ‘No.’ The way he films, apparently it’s just him with the girls in the room, everybody leaves and we’re in the middle of doing the scene and he’s like, ‘So you know I play a character called Buttman, right?' This is my first part on a porn set, ever, basically, and I just… let him do it, I guess. It’s taken me a while to be advocating for myself — it’s hard.”
XBIZ reached out to Stagliano about commenting on his participation in "Cam Girls," and he referred those interested in his opinion to a recent video podcast appearance with Lianne Young.
"I know they were told to look at what I did in this other scene that won an award," Stagliano told Young.
"Was I trying to upset her? I was trying to make the scene better!" Stagliano added, followed by a confusing retelling of the incident complicated by his eating during the podcast recording.
"If I [unclear] touching the cheek of her ass, which [unclear] happened twice, [unclear] it was not acceptable, and there was a misunderstanding, one would think she would just say 'Wait a second — we didn't agree with that.' That would be what I recall."
Stagliano also told XBIZ that "we are working now to put it up free on Pornhub so anyone can look at it without paying and judge for themselves."
'The Gaslighting Is Ingrained'
Asked by XBIZ today when she felt things had started to go wrong during the G/G scene, Banks replied without hesitation, “the second John gets on set, screaming at everyone, the second he kicks everyone out of the room, the second he said he just wanted to go home and masturbate to the scene we’re about to shoot.”
“I felt disgusted that he put himself in the scene, immediately,” said Banks. “I went to Chris and talked to him about what happened, I said I felt violated, but he made it sound like it was a miscommunication and I wanted to believe that. Now I realize the production should have made it very clear to us that that would happen.”
“They kept telling me ‘but you have the ‘I Am Katrina’ movie and ‘you must know John plays the character Buttman,’ and they kept using those things as reasons for ‘you should have known that was going to happen.’”
“The gaslighting is ingrained in the porn industry,” Banks added.
“At first, I felt that it was my fault, I felt like it was a big miscommunication. But then I realized there was a pattern, and it was not a mistake.”
Blighe told XBIZ after the initial publication of this article that she does not remember having a conversation before the scene about Stagliano touching them. “I wasn’t the one who asked,” she said. “Ginger did, and she came and told me his answer after she had asked. I do know Chris told us to watch one of John’s G/G scenes the night before and we had concerns, so she said she would ask because she has always been like the advocate. But I might‘ve been getting my makeup done when she did.”
As for communications between Banks and Evil Chris about her feelings after the scene, Blighe said she did not witness them and "only knows what Ginger told me."
Banks said that as time went by, she watched Stagliano give interviews admitting to touching them and giving “Well, you know I play 'Buttman,'" as his explanation for not asking for their explicit consent to do that.
“I knew he had a character who did these things before shooting the scene,” Banks said, “but I wasn’t told that he was going to be playing that character until he had started filming our scene, which was supposed to be Girl/Girl.”
“My expectation was that he would be directing the scene, and I assumed other people would be on set. The second he kicked people out, it became weird.”
After the scene, Banks told XBIZ she “felt like shit when I got back to the hotel. I cancelled my interviews. I felt violated. The second he put his hands on me, I knew I had been assaulted.”
Another factor for Banks’ indignation is that “Cam Girls” was a project supposed to highlight the industry in a positive manner.
“And it’s my first day on a pro set, and that happens?”
Saying 'Cut'
Besides Ginger Banks reporting the "sexual battery" last week, another recent development in the controversies regarding the shooting of “Cam Girls” concerns the allegation by co-star Jenny Blighe that her consent boundaries were violated during a Boy/Girl/Girl scene shot two days later with the two models and veteran male performer Manuel Ferrara.
Blighe has published a series of tweets over the last few days, illustrated with stills from the B/G/G scene, retelling her negative experiences during the filming. The Arkansas cam model has been making these allegations in public since 2018, actively refusing to promote the released feature, and stressing that she had told the Evil Angel team about what happened since the day in question.
Blighe spoke to XBIZ and shared a detailed six-page document she had compiled, describing her experience during the shooting of that second scene.
Two days after the Stagliano shoot, Blighe and Banks were scheduled to shoot their B/G/G with Manuel Ferrara.
Banks recalled that Johnny Sins was the original male talent. "But his rate was too high," she said.
“We had our makeup done at a previous location, I think Jonni Darkko’s house, and then we drove to [meet] Manuel,” Banks told XBIZ.
While Evil Chris obtained B-roll for the documentary and non-explicit shots for the softcore version, Darkko was in charge of directing the B/G/G.
“Jonni Darkko held the camera and didn’t say a thing during the whole thing,” Banks told XBIZ. “When Jenny called 'cut' a couple of times, he did seem annoyed, I remember that. At the time I thought that she was calling 'cut' because she didn’t know where to go next, because threesomes can be confusing, but looking in hindsight she was really uncomfortable.”
Banks said she does not recall any “choreographing” of the scene, or "'You’re gonna go here’ or ‘there’ happening before they rolled.”
In her statement, Blighe alleges that Darkko “had no care whatsoever about talent safety or comfort. For example, when I was feeling unsafe and out of my comfort zone, I stopped the scene and he told me [to] just put my face back in the frame. Jonni completely ignored my concerns. The second time I stopped the scene, he was very clearly annoyed with me. Which is insane considering it’s an intro to porn, right?”
Blighe claims Darkko told her “to stop 'cutting' the scene because I was ‘ruining the flow’ and to just put my head back in the frame, again. I felt violated, unsafe and scared. I just wanted to cry, but I did as I was told to stay professional.
“We are constantly told by the industry as performers to speak up when we’re outside our comfort zone, but as much as I tried, my comfort [and] concerns clearly didn’t matter,” Blighe wrote. “At this point, after already speaking out twice and [being] ignored [and] yelled at for doing so, I was too scared to stop the scene again.”
Blighe also faults Darkko for her discomfort during the squirting part of the scene.
“I was the first forced by Manuel to 'squirt,'" she wrote. “I say 'forced' because it was never discussed. I had no idea it was going to happen and the ’squirt’ was literally him forcing me to piss myself. Regardless, after I ‘squirted,’ we took a very brief moment to wipe it up before rolling further. Then it was Ginger’s turn and Manuel repeated the process. This time, when we tried to stop rolling to clean up her piss, guess what? Jonni said ‘No, keep rolling!” So we did and for several awful moments during that scene my actual face was just bouncing in a puddle of her piss. By the end of the scene, we were drenched in piss and we had to stay there for hours afterwards feeling completely degraded and smelling like piss.”
Blighe wrote she “had to yell at Chris after the scene, because we were literally covered in piss. We skipped the post-scene interview between Manuel, Ginger and I because I was furious and could not bear to see Manuel’s face again. I just wanted to go back to the hotel room to take a shower. On the car ride back to the hotel, I told Chris I hated this scene and was not what I agreed to or signed up for as all my boundaries were clearly violated.”
“That night, Chris, Ginger and I watched a few clips from the day’s scene with Manuel. Chris was in shock at how aggressive Manuel was being towards me. I remember at one point he said, ‘Why would he hit your back like that?’”
Blighe feels that Chris "was ultimately responsible for our safety on the various sets as he was the project’s producer and coordinator. He told us the scenes would be 'fairly vanilla,' both verbally and [via] text, prior to even agreeing to the project."
The cam model's statement indicates that she was expecting Ferrara's pre-scene behavior to be along the lines of her experience during another B/G pro scene she performed for the project with Jessy Jones. Blighe wrote that while Jones’ pre-shooting behavior consisted of “flirting and touching,” with Ferrara, she “felt like a fluffer.”
Blighe claims that shortly after she sat next to Ferrara, before the cameras rolled, "he flipped me over and began having sex with me off-camera, at which point I had to snap my fingers at Chris and tell him to film it because I was not about having this man have sex with me off-camera. I didn’t sign up to be a 'fluffer.'"
Blighe also wrote that Ferrara “continuously tried to finger my asshole even though I had told the crew from the start that I was recovering from medical surgery” in that area.
“I was forced to keep pulling his fingers away and asked him to repeatedly stop because it was hurting me,” Blighe wrote. “He then asked me over and over if he could piss in my mouth during the scene to which I said 'no,' over and over. At this point he started speaking to me in French, which further made me uncomfortable because I don’t know French, so I had no idea what he was saying or telling me.”
Blighe alleges all these activities were taking place without the director clarifying whether the scene had started, and she claims they could have been part of the “chemistry-building.”
The strongest allegations Blighe made against Ferrara via Twitter and through her written statement concern the male talent’s forcefulness throughout the scene.
“Not only did he repeatedly hit and slap my kidneys very hard — clear pain and discomfort on my face if you watch the scene — but he also repeatedly bit me leaving bite marks and bruises on many parts of my body; clear photos of that [were] taken after the scene,” Blighe wrote.
Blighe also alleges Ferrara “choked me out twice during the scene where I literally woke up both times to this violent sex which was extremely triggering for me as a past childhood sexual assault victim [for] 6-plus years. He literally gripped my neck in such a way that his thumb was dug under my trachea — also clear pictures from the scene showing this. This ending up causing me weeks of pain and discomfort and I had to see a doctor when I got home to make sure I was okay.”
Both Banks and Blighe insist that neither Darkko nor Evil Chris “directed” Ferrara about the specifics of his performance.
Ferrara's Response
XBIZ reached out to Manuel Ferrara for a response, and he replied in the form of a statement which addressed Blighe's allegations over the past two years.
"Over the past two years, I’ve watched Jenny’s allegations change from concerns about squirting in this scene to progressively more serious allegations with each new iteration of the story," Ferrara wrote as part of his statement. "Until now, I have chosen to remain silent because I did not feel that speaking out could benefit anyone. In the 23 years I’ve been in this industry I have developed a strong reputation as a performer that other performers look forward to working with, one who respects boundaries and communicates well in my scenes so that we are able to get the best performance within the boundaries of the people involved. I have performed [with] thousands of women, and my reputation as one of the most frequently requested scene partners stands for itself."
"I have gone back through the footage myself to look for signs that I might have missed in the moment, but still I see none," Ferrara added. "Jenny complains now that she was choked, but in the scene, at the 53:50 mark, she says to me, as I’m choking her, 'I love it, I want you to choke me some more.' The other performer in the scene also chokes her, and Jenny chokes the other performer as well."
Ferrara says he has listened to interviews with Ginger Banks regarding the scene, like Banks' July 2019 interview for Holly Randall’s podcast, and added, “I always feel like I am a fairly good reader of body language and nothing indicated to me in the moment that she was uncomfortable.”
According to Ferrara, "the other people on set — the director, the producer, the production assistant — none of these people were able to pick up on signs of discomfort. For the entire scene, the only message both performers are communicating is, 'go harder.'"
Ferrara described the mood throughout as "positive."
"All involved are smiling, laughing, and communicating how happy they are with the experience in the moment," he wrote. "I am not more clairvoyant than anyone else who was present that day. I regret that Jenny’s experience in hindsight was not what she wanted it to be, but given the messages she was sending, I see no way that we could have known to change it."
Ferrara points out that in the interviews before the scene, Blighe and Banks "state that they have watched my performances and are looking forward to working with me because of what they’ve seen."
"When asked if she is familiar with the type of content that Evil Angel shoots," Ferrara wrote, "Ginger acknowledges that they were familiar with the nature of the content before filming the scene."
"I was paid to show up and do the work that I did, and I took the same level of care to try to judge the response of the people I was working with that I always do," he continued.
Ferrara insists he spoke with the other performers "before the scene about limits, as I do before every scene. Jenny asked that I not remove her bra because of scars and not do any sort of anal play because of hemorrhoids. I respected both of these requests."
Noting that "all of the interaction from that day is caught on camera," Ferrara went on to describe specific instances of him checking in with the other performers.
"As the scene progresses, you can hear me checking in, as I always do," he wrote. "At the 29:45 mark of the scene, I say 'Tell me what I can do to you.' Jenny answers, 'Everything.' When I smack her ass at 36:40 I ask, 'Is this what you like?' Jenny’s answer is, 'Yes.' At the 46 minute mark, Jenny says 'Fuck me harder.' At 48:10 she says 'I love it when you fucking slap me.' At the 54:29 mark, as Ginger is choking Jenny, Jenny is saying repeatedly, 'I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming.'"
Ferrara stated that he will be making the scene available in its entirety and asked "anyone watching this scene to consider what they would have understood the message to be if they’d been in my position."
"I encourage anyone following this issue to judge for themselves," Ferrara wrote.
Ferrara also included comments about his discomfort with some people using the term "rape" regarding these allegations, and about porn opponents who "would say that we don’t know our own experience, that they know better than ourselves what we are experiencing."
"With the incredible and consistent amount of information being communicated to me throughout this scene, my treating Jenny’s communication as anything other than what she said it was would have effectively put me in the position of telling Jenny that what she was saying and what her body language was exhibiting in the moment was not what she was experiencing, and that I, a man with no direct access to her private thoughts and feelings, somehow had a better understanding of her experience than she did," Ferrara wrote. "I did not. It is a slippery slope to begin operating as if I should."
Ferrara finished his statement indicating that according to him, "it was months after the scene was filmed that any issue was raised."
"I’ve been told firsthand by the producer of this project — as well as heard Ginger state in interviews — that a lot of other events happened between this scene and these allegations," Ferrara wrote, adding what he believes are possible motivations for them.
"Overall," he wrote, "I am saddened by this entire situation. I’m sorry for Jenny. I’m sorry for the way this has shadowed Ginger’s aspirations in this industry and forced her into the impossible situation of trying to balance both her identity as an advocate and her reasonable interpretation of another person’s experience. Both models wanted a better outcome, as did I."
"I strongly refute the claim that there was any wrongdoing on the part of myself or anyone involved in the production of this scene," Ferrara concluded.
'We Want the Scene to Be Intense'
Back in 2018, when Blighe came out publicly with her allegations, Banks was not ready to listen to them.
“It has taken me a long time to come to terms with what happened and there are a few things that made me change my mind,” she told XBIZ. “One of them was that I was told that other performers had similar experiences with both John and Manuel. I was told that people have tried to communicate this with them about these issues before. I feel they act as if they have no remorse, no sympathy, no accountability. Even if this was one giant miscommunication, wouldn’t you feel bad for hurting these people and change your behavior so that it doesn’t happen in the future?”
Banks points out that the “consent talk” — her vocal quotation marks — at Ferrara’s was just “we want the scene to be intense.”
“But for one person that could mean very passionate, and for Manuel Ferrara it could mean whatever he means by 'intense.' At that point it would be his responsibility to say ‘I like to bite girls,’ or ‘I like to choke girls’ or ‘I like to slap girls.’ It’s not our responsibility to know what we he likes or doesn't like.”
Banks has apologized privately and publicly to Blighe about her initial response to her allegations. Her moment of self-reckoning happened a few weeks ago, while she was making “a really angry video saying that John Stagliano should be held accountable.”
“There was a moment when I was making that when I realized that me and Jenny were pitted against each other, when we should have been fighting John and Manuel. I should be held accountable for my part in the gaslighting and denying her reality. She made it very clear to me and the people at Evil Angel that she was very uncomfortable with what had happened during that scene immediately after.”
“I believe sharing my accountability with the public possibly will help other performers realize their part in the gaslighting that takes place in this industry,” Banks said.
According to Banks, their being new to the pro porn industry played an important role in their responses to the situation, but their issues with explicit concern could happen to any performer.
“Even if we were seasoned porn stars, it’s the responsibility of the person who wants to do these aggressive acts to communicate and receive consent. Consent is the key that makes this not assault. Not getting the consent before the scene is how this happens.”
Banks believes that “consent talks need to happen before, not during scenes, and you should never tell performers that ‘they should have known.’”
“Nobody would say this to any other victims of sexual assault so you need to stop saying it to porn stars.”
