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Ron Jeremy is ‘monster’ who struggled to separate porn from reality, alleged victims claim

‘He is a sociopath and a psychopath. He has no emotion, and he has no guilt,’ says Lianne Young

Maya Oppenheim
Women’s Correspondent
Saturday 27 August 2022 10:45 EDT
Ron Jeremy Faces Over 30 Counts of Sexual Assault

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Ron Jeremy is a “monster” devoid of empathy who struggled to differentiate between porn and reality, alleged victims of one of the world’s most famous porn stars have claimed.

Jeremy is facing 34 charges of sexual assault, which involve 21 different women, but his case was suspended in March after he was requested to have a psychiatric evaluation in the wake of him reportedly not being able to recognise his own lawyer.

The 69-year-old, whose real name is Ronald Jeremy Hyatt, has pleaded not guilty to all the charges stretching back to 1996. His alleged victims span from the ages of just 15 to 51, with the charges comprising 12 counts of rape.

The adult-content actor has been detained in LA’s Twin Towers Correctional Facility on $6.6m bail since being arrested in June 2020.

Speaking to The Independent, two of Jeremy’s alleged victims have painted a picture of the porn star as psychopathic and remorseless. The comments follow the two-part Channel 4 documentary Porn King: The Rise and Fall of Ron Jeremy.

Alana Evans, who is president of the Adult Performance Artists Guild, a US union for porn stars, told how she first met Jeremy in the late 1990s soon after she started working in the porn industry, adding that he always made her “feel special” and would stop to say hello.

Ms Evans, who previously hit the headlines for recounting a story where she said Donald Trump and porn star Stormy Daniels invited her to the ex-US president’s hotel room back in 2006, said she was forced into working with Jeremy because she was a contract model.

The 46-year-old referred to Jeremy as a “true celebrity” as she recalled a time when she got out of a limo with him and around 100 people started “yelling his name” as they were eager to meet him. She said it was “alluring” and “exciting” seeing a porn star with his level of fame.

The adult actor added: “He was a fixture all over the place because he is what people think of as this porn icon – this legend. He is infamous. It got to the point where every cool place I’d go, there is f***ing Ron.”

Ms Evans said she first saw a different side to Jeremy after she worked with him on a series called Not the Bradys XXX – recounting an incident where she claims she saw Jeremy lift up the dress of one of their sleeping co-stars in the green room.

“He reaches over to start lifting her dress,” she said. “I woke her up immediately and we left. Had I not been there, I don’t know what Ron would have done with her, but I was watching what he was trying to do. That was the first time I had seen Ron do something which wasn’t grabbing someone’s boob at a convention. This girl was asleep.”

Ms Evans, who appeared in the Channel 4 documentary, said she ended up staying friends with Jeremy because she felt like she didn’t have “a choice” as he was everywhere and sexual misconduct was normalised within the porn industry.

She also recalled an incident where Jeremy allegedly sexually assaulted her when she went to the BPM magazine’s 12th-anniversary party as his red carpet date in Los Angeles in 2008.

“Ron and I are not there as a sexual date,” Ms Evans said, explaining three of her friends were accompanying them too. “I am literally there to take pictures because he doesn’t go anywhere by himself”.

She added: “It is this night where I am now sexually assaulted by Ron. Somebody’s hand comes right up behind me ... and I am shocked because I am not used to having that happen.

“I immediately turn around ... And I turn and it’s him. It is Ron. I am yelling at him, I probably hit him off me.”

Ms Evans said she was left feeling “embarrassed and mortified” after the alleged incident which happened in front of others, explaining she never went out with Jeremy as his date again.

“Ron is a sociopath,” she said. “Ron doesn’t understand what he does to people, that he hurts them. Ron thinks it is his right. Also, there is that side of the porn industry and the fandom that created that version of Ron to the level that we are seeing. People encouraged the behaviour. They thought it was OK. They allowed it.”

Ms Evans said Jeremy acted like day-to-day life was akin to a porn set as she claimed it was an open secret in the adult industry that he was predatory.

“Ron doesn’t switch back,” she said. “Some of us go from Alana to Marie. I go home. I have got a family. I have got kids. That is not Ron. Ron never switches off. Ron is always Ron. He is treated that way everywhere he goes.”

After the bombshell allegations emerged in 2017, Jeremy would relentlessly call her to ask her to tell others the claims against him were false – even asking her to talk to journalists, she said.

“Ron was harassing the s*** out of me,” Ms Evans added. “He was calling me all the time. If you tell him, ‘Nah, Ron, you can’t come to a party,’ Ron is going to call everyone he knows to try and get his way into that party”.

Jeremy was still invited to some events after allegations against him emerged, she said, as she hit out at the normalisation of sexual abuse within the porn industry, saying over the years she has “accepted” sexual misconduct due to feeling like nobody would listen if she spoke out.

Jeremy is accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl in 2004, raping a 19-year-old woman in a photo shoot in 1996, as well as raping a 26-year-old woman at a club in 2003 and raping a 17-year-old girl at a home in 2008.

The adult actor, known by his nickname of “The Hedgehog”, has appeared in hundreds of porn films since the 1970s but was also well known in mainstream circles due to appearing in reality TV shows, films and music videos.

Jeremy is accused of using his fame to routinely isolate the women he raped and sexually assaulted over the years – allegedly enticing women into a toilet at the Rainbow Bar and Grill on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood where he was a regular customer.

He is said to have tricked women into going into the bathroom by saying he would show them the kitchen where the restaurant’s famous pizzas were cooked or showing them a toilet they could use late at night when the public loos were closed.

Several women have testified that Jeremy would trail into the toilet behind them, lock the door and then use his body to prevent them from getting out before raping or sexually assaulting them.

Lianne Young, who is involved in the court case against Jeremy, echoed the comments made by Ms Evans as she told The Independent about an incident where she alleges Jeremy raped her at an industry party in front of others.

“All of a sudden I just felt myself being pushed over the table ...” the 47-year-old, who moved to the US to work in the porn industry in her early 20s, said. “It was what feels like five hours but it was about five seconds. I managed to get him off. I turned around and I slapped him around the face.”

Ms Young said she was left feeling “hysterical”, and “angry”, but also “dazed”, as she almost could not believe what had just happened.

She added: “There was no soul inside of him. There was nothing. There was no expression, and then he just wandered off into the crowd. It was almost like a ghost had wandered back into the crowd.”

Ms Young, now based in southwest London, said she was advised not to go to the police by her colleagues as they claimed Jeremy had connections in the police and she would not be believed as she worked in porn. She never saw Jeremy, who she branded a “monster”, again after the alleged incident, she said.

“It was almost like, that is Ron, that is what Ron does, and I’m like ‘that shouldn’t be what Ron does’,” the ex-adult actor, who has advised the Metropolitan Police on sexual violence, added.

Ms Young, who now provides education on sex education, pornography and consent, said the alleged incident with Jeremy compelled her to stop doing porn.

“He is a sociopath and a psychopath,” she added. “He has no emotion and he has no guilt.”

She said she does not think Jeremy is fit to stand trial but that she disagrees with the trial being postponed. Judge George Lomeli recently said the bailiff had referred to Jeremy as “incoherent” and “not obeying commands”.

“I want to get justice, without a shadow of a doubt, and it absolutely tears me inside that it has been left so long that he is probably just going to be put in a mental institute for the rest of his life,” Ms Young added. “That devastates me. However, I do think the man is so delusional that he actually believes his crimes were acceptable because he was in porn.”

You can find more information and advice for people affected by rape and sexual abuse at Rape Crisis or you can call the National Domestic Violence Helpline on 0808 2000 247

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