CoCo Brown, the star of over 40 adult films, is headed to outer space.
This sounds like the set-up for a new skin flick, but it’s really happening and the budding space traveler recently spoke with theGrio about this new chapter in her life.
Brown says she is one of the most downloaded women in the porn industry. That’s quite an accomplishment, especially since she retired from adult films over 10 years ago.
But Brown maintains a very active website where fans can pay to download high-resolution pictures or chat with her at a rate of $12.99 per minute. The retired performer, who now lives in Germany and spends lots of time in LA and New York, did not always hold adult film aspirations. As a kid in Toledo, Ohio, CoCo Brown dreamed of one day becoming a veterinarian.
“I’ve always loved animals and I still do. I have two pugs right now. I actually cook for them,“ said Brown. “And people have always told me that I should have been a psychologist or something like that because I’m always helping people.”
Strip club detour
When Brown was in junior high, she moved with her family to Las Vegas. Something happened in those Vegas years that made Brown veer away from the road to veterinary school and she eventually became a stripper.
“I can’t talk about everything because I’m working on a book, so I want people to give people just enough to stay interested enough to buy the book. But I will say that, stripping was a step above what I had been doing. I ran away from home at 15 and never went back,” said Brown.
Brown worked as a stripper for less than a year, but the young mother met an adult film producer at the strip club. She started making films under the name Honey Love. But as Brown explained to Howard Stern on his radio show, she also met her future husband while working as a stripper.
Eventually she and her son (from a previous relationship) moved to Germany with her new husband and she continued to work in adult film and briefly as a dominatrix.
Always business, never personal
When asked if she felt used or empowered as a sex worker, Brown was emphatic about the latter.
“I absolutely felt empowered. This is a business. At the end of the day, no matter where you conduct business, there is a negotiation taking place,” explained Brown. “There is a supply and there is a demand. It’s your job to understand what you’re doing, what you need to get out of it and how to get it.”
To that end, Brown cautions young women seeking success in the industry to keep their wits about them.
“Even though it’s a strip club or a movie set, you can’t show up to work high or drunk. You have to be able to understand everything that’s going on and be clear about your purpose. Are you just trying to make a quick $2000 or are you trying to build a brand and go to the next level? You have to know,” said Brown, who also thinks women in the industry should only work with condoms.
“The movie producers will tell you that scenes look better without condoms and they do, but this is your life. If you don’t take a stand from the beginning, you’re just going to fall into people constantly making you compromise. It goes back to everything being a negotiation and understand your position. I was a condoms girl,” said Brown.
Early retirement
In the early 2000s after assuming her current name, Brown says there was an “incident” at her son’s school. Her son was attending a boarding school in Switzerland and other parents became aware of Brown’s profession and raised concerns with school administrators.
“What was so great about that was the fact that the school took up for me! The headmaster told those other parents that I was a great mom and that I was more involved than any of them and that my son and I were staying. He told them they could leave if they didn’t like it,” said Brown. “It was so nice to have someone taking up for me like that. But at the same time, I didn’t want anything I did to possibly negatively impact my son.”
That incident, combined with an HIV scare in the adult film industry around that same time, prompted Brown to retire. She next embarked on a rap career from 2004 to 2009.
These days, the Germany-based divorced mom toggles among Europe, New York and L.A. all while keeping up with fans via various online platforms.
She offers up German lessons on YouTube and she shares pictures on Tumblr of her beloved pugs, award shows, charity events, clubbing and on the golf course.
Space travel
Brown has not exactly been clamoring to go into orbit her whole life, but space travel did catch her fancy as a child.
“I saw the movie Space Camp and I begged my mom to take me to space camp. I didn’t even know if it was a real thing, but I was so into it,” said Brown. Now the stripper-turned-adult-film-star-turned-rapper (and always businesswoman) is attending a grown-up version of space camp.
She has begun training for her March 2015 lift off with the Netherlands-based company Space Expedition Corporation. It’s a private company that offers individuals the opportunity to go to space. Would-be space travellers pay $100,000 each for the training and the flight. Brown says she has already paid the fee and has begun the rigorous training.
“More than anything, they are training us so that we don’t throw up once we’re in space. We have to get our bodies used to the zero-gravity conditions. Plus, it’s going to be just me and the pilot going up, so I need to know how to do certain things with the spacecraft,” explained Brown.
The company has plans to take 100 people into space from Curacao for the initial flights. Each person will go up in a craft with an experienced pilot.
The chance to launch into space came on a whim. A public relations professional she knew was helping to organize a dinner for the Space Expedition Corporation, they had a last-minute cancellation and he decided to give Brown the chance to attend. She did and the rest is history.
If she completes this space mission (which by the way only lasts about two hours), she will be the first adult film star in space and just the fourth African-American woman. The first three were Mae Jemison, Stephanie Wilson and Joan Higginbotham. Brown has not decided yet exactly what she will do in space. She told theGrio it would be something with the earth in the background. A fan on Tumblr asked if she would be doing any porn in space. Brown said she would not.
She will, however, be offering fans a chance to train with her in Amsterdam. The three-day, all expenses paid trip will include two days at a space training facility and a third day of just hanging out with Brown.
“The winner has to be 21 or older. I can’t be in Amsterdam with someone under 21,” said Brown with a laugh.
The future
Not satisfied with just possibly being the first adult film star in space, Brown will also be releasing a memoir next year, which she says will be titled #71.
“I’m going with that because that’s my astronaut number and it’s just so crazy that this is where I am right now with all of the tumultuous adventures of my life,” said Brown.
She also has patented a mysterious new product that which she will be rolling out soon (she’s currently looking for the right manufacturer) and according to her, it will be something all women can enjoy.
Do you think CoCo Brown’s story is inspirational or just sensational?
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