- So my name is Joshua Broome
and I have an awesome wife, her name's Hope.
And we've been married for five years in July.
We have two kids and then, well
actually we have three kids.
We have one on the way.
Yeah, my childhood was great.
It was a lot different than most people, I think.
My mom was 16 when she had me.
So she was, you know, in her senior year in high school.
I felt like my mom just went above and beyond
provided me with everything that I needed, for sure.
I started modeling when I was 14, 15.
Like around that time I believed because
of the success I was having modeling
and I had some success acting, but always
the limiting factor was I lived in South Carolina.
So I believed that if I moved to LA, it would be easy.
So I started working in a bar
in Hollywood and there was four girls sitting
at a table and they were pretty.
And I went over to 'em and I was putting
on the charm and they asked me, they were like, Hey
have you ever thought about being an actor?
And I was like, well, actually I am an actor.
And they're like, no, we're talking about porn.
I was like, I've watched it.
I never thought about doing it.
They were like, well
would you be open to meeting with our agent?
So I met with him.
And so what he was telling me was, Hey
I can make you famous because you can be the guy.
And I said yes.
The first time I did a film, it was pretty scary.
Like again, like I thought that I was just gonna like
be handed a camera and like go have sex with this girl.
And I walk into this giant studio
and there's camera A, camera B, camera C.
And there's someone shooting BTS.
And there's a sound guy.
And you know, there's all this stuff going on.
And it's just all these lights around this
like little bed and there's just girls sitting
on it and they're like, Hey, we'll need you in 15 minutes.
Here's a Viagra if you need it.
I went to the bathroom
they told me to take half the Viagra.
I took the whole thing
and I started to feel like really red and flushed.
And then I remember like walking out into the set
and I don't really remember what happened after that.
I just remember like saying cut.
And it was over.
Probably four years into my time in the business,
I was just like, I hate this.
I hate this so much.
And every day just, it just got worse and worse.
And I was ashamed of who I was.
I moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting
and I was successful in some ways.
And I just, I guess I continued to lie to myself
in some degree because I was famous in a specific light.
The thing that always would just kind of hold me back
from like, truly like appreciating it
or like really valuing that fame was it wasn't me.
It was never me.
It was this persona.
I didn't have the ability to display authenticity
because I didn't know who I was.
And by the end of my career
I did not have any clue who I was as a person.
So there was probably a year that I wasn't in a relationship
with anyone that called me by my real name.
I would just go to set.
I would work.
Everyone on set would call me by my stage name.
And I would go to the gym.
I would get takeout.
And I pretty much would, was a hermit.
And that had a pretty big impact on my emotional
and mental health.
And I would come to really struggle with depression.
I left porn because I was suicidal.
I didn't know anything other than to run.
So I ran home to mom.
I think what happens so often
with people who are in the industry, that they
have this trajectory that they see their life going.
And when you start to view yourself
as being a product that your value is indicative
of that service and that service being sex.
And for 30 people who were dear to my heart
that I knew personally, that were
in the industry the same time as me, what was next?
They didn't see any light at the end of the tunnel.
So 30 of those people have taken their life.
I want to continue telling my story
because while pornography in itself is so dark
and so detrimental to people
I think that there's an underlying story within my story.
And it's that your past doesn't have
to define you and your mistakes don't become you.
Like, that's not who you are.
I think there's too many people that deserve a second chance
that don't give themselves a second chance
because of mistakes they've made.
Everyone makes mistakes.
And that is my biggest message for people.
It's like, regardless of what you've done, an event
or a series of events, don't define who you are, like each
and every person is valuable and they have gifts
and talents and charisma, and they have something to offer.
You can't choose what happens to you
but you can always choose how you respond to it.