What is Stoya's net worth?
Stoya is an American pornographic actress, model, and writer who has a net worth of $2 million. Stoya has more than 70 acting credits to her name in adult and mainstream films and television, including appearing in the TV series "Crave" from 2014 to 2015 and starring as Mia on the television show "Dagger Kiss" in 2016. She has won many awards, such as AVN, XBIZ, and XRCO Awards for New Starlet in 2009. Stoya became Digital Playground's first alt porn contract girl in 2007, and she became a resident sex columnist for "The Verge" in 2015. She operates the blog "Hello Stoya" and has written pieces for "The New York Times," "Playboy," "Vice," "Nylon," and "The Guardian." She is also a podcaster and is popular on social media. In 2015, Stoya alleged that adult film actor James Deen had sexually abused her.
Early Life
Stoya was born Jessica Stoyadinovich on June 15, 1986, in Wilmington, North Carolina. She is the daughter of a Serbian mother and Scottish father, and she was named after Jessica Savitch, an "NBC Nightly News" anchor who drowned in 1983 when a car she was riding in went over a towpath into the Pennsylvania Canal. Stoya's father worked in IT, so she had access to gaming equipment and electronics at an early age. She told "Technically Philly" in 2009, "I was three when I was using DOS. My mom taught me how to read, and my dad taught me how to navigate DOS." Stoya was also interested in dance during her youth and began taking dance lessons when she was three years old. She was home-schooled, and she earned her high school diploma before she turned 16. After Stoya moved to Philadelphia, she participated in a summer program at UArts and worked as a secretary and go-go dancer. Stoya appeared in many music videos for bands she said "no one will ever hear of." In 2009, she moved to Los Angeles.
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Career
Posing for adult photos for a friend led to Stoya being offered modeling gigs and jobs on alt-erotic websites. She appeared on DVDs for Razordolls and had cameos in two Vivid Alt films before Digital Playground asked her to star in a lesbian scene with Sophia Santi. The scene never happened, but Stoya met with Digital Playground representatives in August 2007, and they asked if she would consider appearing in adult films with male talent. Two months later, she signed an exclusive three-year contract with Digital Playground, making her the company's first-ever alt porn contract girl. Her first scene for Digital Playground was for "Stoya Video Nasty," but the first film of hers to be released was "Jack's POV 9." In 2013, John Stagliano, director of "Evil Angel," was granted "special permission" to cast her in "Voracious: Season Two, Volume 1." In 2014, Stoya left Digital Playground and began focusing on directing. In February of that year, she financed and directed a film for the first time, and the following month, she created TRENCHCOATx, a pay-per-scene porn website, with Kayden Kross. In 2018, Stoya and comedian Mitcz Marzoni launched the website zerospaces.com. She directed three episodes of the series "Deeper" in 2019 and 2020, and she wrote the 2020 episode "Do You Want."
Stoya's first non-erotic film was 2009's "The Kingpin of Pain," an award-winning short film that was part of the 48 Hour Film Project." In 2016, she starred in "Dagger Kiss," a lesbian fantasy web series that later began streaming on Amazon Prime Video. In 2018, she played an android named Nimani in the Serbian science-fiction film "Ederlezi Rising" (aka "A.I. Rising"), which earned her a Jury Prize for Best Actress at the FEST International Film Festival. Stoya has also appeared in the off-Broadway Dean Haspiel plays "Harakiri Kane" ("Die! Die, Again!") and "The Last Bar at the End of the World." As a writer, she has penned sex advice columns for "Vice," "Slate," "Refinery29," and "The Verge." "The New York Times," "The Guardian," "Esquire," and "New Statesman" have published her writing, and in 2018, she published the book "Philosophy, Pussycats, and Porn," which is described as "a series of essays, blog posts, and stories surveying more than a decade of poignant journalistic accounts from internationally recognized writer, actor, and pornographer Stoya."
(Photo by Barry Brecheisen/WireImage)
Personal Life
In mid-2009, it was reported that Stoya was dating Marilyn Manson, but they split up because of his busy touring schedule. She later dated fellow adult film actor James Deen for several years. In November 2015, Stoya wrote on social media that James had raped her. Deen said that the allegations were "false and defamatory," but eight other women came forward with assault allegations against him. Deen was subsequently dropped by the internet pornography studio Kink, and "The Frisky," a women's interest website, dropped his sex advice column.
Awards
Stoya was named Best U.S. Newcomer at the 2008 Eroticline Awards, Best New Starlet at the 2009 AVN Awards, and New Starlet of the Year at the 2009 XBIZ Awards and XRCO Awards. She shared the award for Best All-Girl Group Sex Scene with her "Cheerleaders" co-stars at the 2009 AVN Awards, and at the 2012 ceremony, she won the Hottest Sex Scene (Fan Award) for "Babysitters 2." At the 2014 XBIZ Awards, Stoya won the award for Best Scene – Feature Movie for "Code of Honor," and at the 2018 FEST Beograd, she was named Best Actress for "Ederlezi Rising." She received the award for Best Actress – All-Girl Release for "Talk Derby to Me" at the 2019 XBIZ Awards.
