‘What The Hell Was I Thinking?!!’ - Confessions of the World’s Most Controversial Sex Symbol (31 page)

Jasmin with Paulo Xisto (SEPULTURA).

I started out 2005 in LOVE — with my new boyfriend Matt, with the metal scene I was becoming more and more professionally immersed in, and have to say that the New Year began, everything was going extremely well. Matt came with me to the NAAM convention in Anaheim, CA where I was signing at the B.C. Rich and Coffin Guitar Case booths, which marked my debut within that industry crowd because I’d been off wrestling for the past few years and off their radar. I guess metal heads are bigger fans of porn than of wrestling. Either way, it was an event, and I was thrilled by the response I got in the form of two of the longest booth signing lines of the entire convention. Everyone kept telling me how great I looked, and I could tell some of the other Coffin Case girls didn’t like the attention I was getting very much, which I was used to.

I could tell the attention I was getting at NAMM bothered Matt on some level, which took me a little aback, but I was so in love at the time I couldn’t have cared less. I thought the constant attention he was giving me was sweet, not able yet to see past my blinders to the fact that it should have been an early warning sign unhealthy possessiveness he was filled with. My past had never come up in our relationship to that point, other than he knew I had been an adult film star. I guess I can see in hindsight how it might have shocked him a little when so many of my fans came crawling out of the woodwork at the convention. My crowd ranged from suits to long-haired guitar techs, and even rock and metal star players, which I think really bothered him because he kept drinking more as the day went on.

It didn’t really matter to me at the time because I was so happy we were together. He stayed in L.A. with me for a few more days before returning to Seattle to work on writing the new Himsa album, while I stayed back in L.A. continuing to shoot more interviews for the
Metal’s Dark Side
DVD. We also decided to put our first 3PW show of the New Year off until later February, because of it being the dead of winter and traditionally a harder time to draw in fans, but also personally for me because I was fast losing interest in the company. We’d decided to bring in some outside investors who were going to be a little more involved in the day-to-day running of the company, and I wasn’t happy with some of the direction they wanted to head in, so that gave me further incentive to stay away. I think my waning interest in wrestling had most to do with the stress of running a league, rather than out of some lost love for the sport itself — which is something I want to make clear for 3PW fans.

I wasn’t seeking to step out of 3PW completely, just step back, and perhaps recoup some of my considerable personal investment in the company I’d bankrolled and built from scratch. More than anything, I was just SICK and TIRED of dealing with wrestlers bitching about their airline tickets, I was truly over it, and it just wasn’t fun anymore. Besides, I just knew I was onto something new and wonderful with my Metal hosting and modeling gigs, and it’s where my heart was — when it wasn’t preoccupied with Matt that is. We talked and texted for hours every day until he came back to L.A. at the end of January to visit me again. I couldn’t have been happier with life in general, at that point. I’d gotten a cover with
Femme Fatales Magazine
, and my publicist had gotten me hooked up with a part for the new National Lampoon movie:
Dorm Daze II
, which was awesome on top of everything else.

In February, I flew up to Seattle to visit Matt for his birthday. We stayed at the W Hotel, and had a wonderful time on my dime, but I noticed something while I was up there that should have been a warning sign to me of things to come. Basically he wasn’t living anywhere steady — he was sleeping on the floor of his band’s rehearsal studio or crashing on couches, which is common enough I suppose for musicians. But a trend had quietly developed where I was paying for
EVERYTHING,
from the hotel to drinks to meals, I was just too much in love at the time to care — about that or even 3PW.The latter came to a head on February 19th when the February 3PW show and Matt’s birthday coincidentally happened to fall on the same day. I was so fed up with my role in 3PW at that point that I chose to blow off the show and spend the day with Matt in Seattle instead — which I know sounds bad. It felt right at the time to me, and I can tell you right now I had a MUCH more enjoyable time in Seattle with my boyfriend than I would have in Philadelphia dealing with prima donna wrestlers.

We spent the night at a Himsa concert he had to play and it was a very romantic day all in all, and I had no regrets about blowing off the 3PW show. Of course, the company felt differently, and the shit started to hit the fan in early March when the Blue Meanie went behind my back and signed away the rights to 3PW, which wasn’t within his authority to do. I had a contract stating that I was to be repaid ALL the monies I’d invested in 3PW before any sale could go through, and the fact that he sneaked behind my back and trademarked 3PW in his own name was unethical and illegal. It wasn’t his company to sell, and so I had no other choice than to begin litigation against 3PW that same month.

As the spring rolled on, Matt and I got into a routine where we’d travel back and forth to either Seattle or L.A. — depending on his Himsa and my
Metal’s Dark Side
commitments — to visit each other. Of course all of it was on my dime, but again I didn’t care because I had plenty coming in from my merchandise sales, signings and was expecting a big settlement at some point in the near future from my 3PW lawsuit. In the meantime, their show attendance numbers had started to drop WAY off once word got out that I was no longer involved with the league. That made me feel good to know I had some loyalty among the fans, but I was sad in another way that I was walking away from a movement I’d built from nothing. It was a mountain I was very proud to have climbed, but at this point, felt like I needed a new challenge in my life. Between juggling a longdistance relationship with Matt and my fledgling Metal hosting career in California, I didn’t have time to keep up with all of 3PW’s drama. I have never been about drama — unless it’s centered around me of course, ;-) and I just felt my life was healthier without the negativity 3PW had come to represent at that point. Looking back on it now, it’s a decision I still have no regrets over.

As well as the spring was going, when Matt came down to visit me in L.A. over Easter weekend, it marked the beginning of an ugly pattern that emerged thereafter of his starting to ask me more and more questions about my past. Since he’d visited me throughout the spring in L.A. and stayed at my apartment enough to see my merchandise (DVDs, signed posters, etc) which paid for ALL our bills, he’d begun to develop a complex about it. This ran entirely contrary to his claims from the beginning of our relationship that he didn’t care about my past, and certainly he was biting the hand that fed and flew him from Seattle to L.A. and back on a regular basis, but it seemed like he couldn’t help himself. He had developed this possessive, creepy, judgmental side to his personality very quickly in the course of that visit, and I didn’t like or appreciate it one bit.

Already I’d given up a company I’d built from the ground up for him, and unfortunately, it marked the beginning of what was a lot more sacrifice on my part to come for that fucker. At the time, I was still drunk on love, and he was getting drunker and drunker by the day on alcohol, which really alarmed me, but I didn’t know how to approach him about it. When he finally told me near the end of March that he’d decided to stop drinking for a while, I thought that would cure him of the possessive side of his personality — which seemed to rear its ugly head primarily when he was drinking. Sadly, I was wrong, because he kept getting worse and worse with his jealous judging of my past. On top of that, he had girls texting him all the time and wouldn’t change his relationship status from single on his MySpace page, to which he retaliated by pointing out that fans of mine would leave comments on my website. He also had a sick talent for making me feel like his treating me that way was my fault, and of course I fell for it because of how madly in love I was at the time.

We ended up working it out, and just in time, because heading into April Matt had a falling out of his own with Himsa involving a disagreement over songwriting-credit related issues. That would result in his formally exiting the band later that summer, and I guess in a way I played a role in that exit, because ahead of his leaving he would constantly tell me how lonely he was without me in Seattle. I wanted him with me in L.A. so I didn’t try to stop him, and I believed in his talent enough to support his decision without blinking once. His plan for the moment was to continue commuting as Himsa had gone head long into writing on their next album, and I supported Matt’s career 100%.

As May began, things were full underway with my 3PW lawsuit, and as livid as they were making me trying to steal my company without compensating me properly, they had the nerve to try and get me to come back! Eventually, my lawsuit with 3PW was settled, and I was awarded all the footage we’d shot of the first two years worth of matches, which had been in syndication in the U.K. on the Wresting Channel and was among the most valuable of the companies assets. Brian was awarded rights to the 3PW name, which pissed me off, but I didn’t blame him entirely — he had partners idiot partners in ‘One Eye’ Rich, my former accountant, and this power hungry limey named Mike who had no idea what he was doing. Neither had any idea what they were doing in trying to run a wrestling league, and paired with Brian, they were spending more than they were taking in at the shows, and the company was just heading downhill. I was just relieved I wasn’t going along for the ride, and that I’d gotten out when I had. I had my eye to the future, and my first mainstream feature film with the
National Lampoon’s Dorm Daze II
shoot, which began in principle that month.

While I was working on my movie, Matt was in Denmark with Himsa writing on the band’s new album, and while the distance was hard, he would call me every day in between my scenes, and we’d talk for hours. I guess he wasn’t getting very much in the way of a per diem from the band while he was there recording, so I sent him some money for phone cards and basic expenses. At the same time, he was still in the dark with Himsa over how much money he’d be getting paid from his publishing share on the album the band was recording. He was worried he wouldn’t be getting his fare share of the writing credit reflected in royalties, so per his request, I got him hooked up with a lawyer through my dear friend Brian Perera at Cleopatra Records. It felt good to be supporting someone I loved, it came naturally to me, and gave me happiness, but as often as he called me to tell me how miserable he was without me. I missed him fiercely as well, and so we decided on my break in later May from the National Lampoon shoot, I would fly to Denmark to see him.

After the first half of my shoot was over, Matt was still in Denmark writing the new Himsa record, and I’d lined up some
Metal’s Dark Side
- related business in Europe so I could fly over to visit him as we’d planned. From the moment I landed in Arhus, we had just the best time together. The northern lights were beautiful, and the whole vibe going on in that part of the world was just a welcome change from L.A. I put us both up at the Radisson Hotel so he didn’t have to sleep in the shit hole the band was bunking up together in. When he’d get done with his sessions, we’d spend our nights together walking around Arhus, Denmark, and I felt for the first time in my life like I had a real partner. On the weekends, we were inseparable, and when it came time for me to fly back to the States to continue work on the Dorm Daze movie, he was nearing the end of his writing sessions. So I arranged for him to fly back as early as possible to join me in L.A.

I picked up shooting on
Dorm Daze
in early June, and I remember the first day I was back on the set, which was down by the Queen Mary in Long Beach. I had my own trailer, and was playing the wife of the ship’s Captain, who was played by a really talented performer named Richard Riehle, who’d played Tom Smykowski in Office Space! As one of my — and America’s — favorite cult film classics, that was a real honor, and he treated me as a total equal on the set, which was really cool. I was also acting with the Chris Owen, who’d played the Shermanator in the American Pie movies, and felt like I’d really arrived. I had my own trailer with an air conditioner and my name on it, and the catering on set was amazing, it was definitely a step up from the indie-sets of
Communication Breakdown
and
Swamp Zombies
. It was funny because when I walked on set for the first time, people were expecting me to be horrible, and I did what I do best on-screen: I winged it, and my scenes went over really well. I had one day of dialogue with this Frat kid named Oren Skoog, who was of the nicest people I worked with on that movie, which made me feel horrible when I had to torture and slap him in one of our scenes.

When I wasn’t on-set, I spent my time in my trailer playing video games and talking to Matt, who was flying in from Denmark, I was into the second half of my Dorm Daze shoot. My dressing room was moved onto the actual ship the next day because I had scenes to shoot with Charles Shaughnessy, who played Fran Dresher’s love interest on the Nanny, and I was again just so excited to be working with real actors for a change. I also got on really well with all the crew people, because there were a lot of female actresses on the set. Even though they were nobodies, would still play the whole L.A. prim Madonna part and not give anyone but the director in the film crew the time of day. I never treated anyone that way — dating back from my days on adult film sets, to signings when I watched Francine blow off her fans during my wrestling days, to where I was at by now with my film work in metal and mainstream movies. I always felt like the crew worked as hard — if not much harder — than any of the talent. They got up hours before we did, worked much longer hours and got a lot less sleep than we did, and it’s just an etiquette I’ve always brought with me to the job.