Joshua Broome, who now works as a Christian minister, recently opened up in an interview with the Mighty Pursuit podcast about his previous career as an adult film star for both straight and gay scenes. During the episode, Broome talks about being “very naïve” when he started a career in porn.
According to Broome (via Daily Star), when studios approached him to do gay porn, he had been “struggling with his mental health” and was “was trying to make a plan of like how to get out [of the industry].” Those plans included him “even [trying] to see if [he] could join the military.” When Broome started doing gay porn, he claimed to know that it would be a one-way street, explaining that the porn industry would no longer hire him to do straight scenes.
“I thought, ‘Well, if I do a gay scene, then I won’t be able to do what I’m doing now, so I will cut myself off from everyone and everything…’ because I couldn’t go back,” his reasoning was.
As reported by Queerty, Broome earned over $1 million from his porn career and did more than 1,000 “raunchy films.” But Broome felt like doing gay porn was, as the Daily Star reports, a “self-destructive act” and the equivalent of “hitting rock bottom.”
Broome subsequently retired from being an adult performer and chose to become a pastor. He is currently a Christian minister, host of a religious podcast, and the author of a book titled 7 Lies That Will Ruin Your Life: What My Journey from Porn Star to Preacher Taught Me About the Truth That Sets Us Free. That tile really just rolls off the tongue.
It’s definitely a weird choice for Broome to talk so freely about his career as an adult film star as if it is the exact same universal experience, across the board, for all porn stars. It doesn’t seem to dawn on him that different performers have varying experiences, and that many of them feel empowered and successful with their careers in porn studios or through amateur platforms like OnlyFans.
It seems like Broome wasn’t a fit for the porn industry, so it was probably for the best that he retired. But it also seems weird to be so critical and make such wild generalizations about the entire industry and the actors in it, when this just sounds like a personal experience of his that perhaps shouldn’t be treated like a universal standard.
