Jenna Jameson says she did acid and cocaine with her own father and brother as a teenager
but that's just one eyebrow-raising detail in her fascinating life story.
According to Vanity Fair, Jenna Jameson's mother was a Las Vegas showgirl named Judith
Brooke Hunt, and she looked strikingly similar to Jameson.
But Hunt died of malignant melanoma when Jameson, born Jenna Massoli, was only a toddler.
Jameson's only memories of her mother were sad ones, she wrote in her memoir, and she
was largely kept away from her ailing mom.
The medical bills resulting from her mom's illness essentially bankrupted the family.
Jameson tried to keep her mom's memory alive.
She decided to try following in her mother's footsteps by becoming a showgirl - but at
just 5'6", she was too short, according to her memoir, and her career was short-lived.
This led her to try her hand at stripping, and the rest was history.
And although they had a rocky relationship during her teen years, her remaining parent
ended up supporting Jameson's adult film career.
Jameson's father said to the New York Times,
”Everybody has sex.
The only difference is that Jenna lets you watch and makes a lot of money.”
Her mother's death wasn't the last trauma Jenna Jameson would suffer as a kid.
According to her memoir, she was sexually assaulted twice as a teen, once by her boyfriend's
uncle.
The relationship with her boyfriend was toxic, too: she was only 16 when they started dating,
while he was in his 20s.
He introduced her to methamphetamines, stealing copious amounts of her hard-earned cash to
fund his own drug habit.
Jameson accused her ex-boyfriend, known in her memoir as Jack, of pushing her into sex
work.
She wrote on her now-deleted Twitter account,
"My father had no idea that at 16, my boyfriend ... and his father were grooming me to be
trafficked into strip clubs and eventually do porn.
Please stay involved in your [kids'] lives and question EVERYTHING."
Still, she's said on several occasions that she thinks she would've worked in adult entertainment
no matter what happened to her as a teen.
She wrote in her book,
"Was I in this business because I was victimized or because I wanted to succeed at something?
I examined it from every angle I could, and every time came to the same conclusion: that
it didn't make a shred of difference."
Jenna wasn't the only member of her family to deal with drug issues.
She was close with her father, Larry, and her brother, Anthony, aside from a few rough
patches in her teen years, according to her memoir.
She ran away from home when her dad got mad at her for staying out all night after she'd
been sexually assaulted.
And when she was home, she was sometimes taking cocaine and acid with her dad and brother,
according to an interview with the Telegraph Magazine.
She recounted the times that her brother would dip in and out of the teenage Jameson's life
in her memoir, and recalls having to call her father - from whom she was largely estranged
at the time - to tell him Anthony needed help.
But in later years, Jameson started enjoying a cozier relationship with her brother and
father.
She lived close to her brother's family in Arizona for a few years, according to the
New York Times, and her father would stop by her home periodically.
Jenna Jameson wanted to have a child and underwent in-vitro fertilization in 2004, but the stress
from a brush with melanoma - the same skin cancer that killed her own mother when she
was just a toddler - may have been related to her miscarriage, according to Us Weekly.
She lost her pregnancy the day after finding out about it in the first place.
But there was a happy ending after the miscarriage - or three happy endings, to be exact.
She now has twins Jesse and Journey with ex Tito Ortiz and a daughter, Batel, with husband
Lior Bitton.
She conceived all three of her children through IVF, writing on Instagram, "​​Yes, I'm
an IVF warrior."
She added that her twins were conceived via IVF but that she was "MUCH younger then,"
and was happy to have conceived once again at 43.
For a while, Jenna Jameson and Tito Ortiz's family life looked as idyllic as could be.
But things began to unravel.
Jameson accused the MMA fighter of domestic abuse, and Ortiz hit back with drug claims
against Jameson.
Both denied what the other had said.
It all started when Ortiz was arrested for domestic violence in April 2010.
Jameson claimed he threw her in a tub, according to TMZ, while his lawyer responded, quote,
"He did not put his hands on her, he did not hit her, he did not do anything to her."
Adult film actor Joslyn James had a different opinion.
James told the New York Daily News she'd been privy to "three separate situations" when
Ortiz abused Jameson.
Jameson was also photographed with a bandaged arm, according to Radar.
But Jameson later recanted the complaint, saying,
"What actually happened has now been dramatically distorted and misinterpreted and remarks that
both Tito and I made after the police arrived reflect the state of shock that we were both
in."
After being arrested on suspicion of domestic violence, Tito Ortiz shot back that then-girlfriend
Jenna Jameson was on drugs.
He and his attorney chalked Jameson's claim of violence - which they denied - up to an
alleged year-long Oxycontin addiction, according to TMZ.
Jameson said to a paparazzo, "He's trying to save his career."
The two eventually made up, and when Jameson recanted her domestic violence allegation,
Ortiz followed suit.
He claimed that he'd actually just found two Oxycontin pills on Jameson, who said they
were old pills, according to TMZ.
Jameson also tested negative in an extensive drug exam.
The couple withdrew their previous allegations.
But years later, Ortiz seemed to recant his recanting.
He told VladTV in an interview that Jameson was spending millions on drugs, and her behavior
reminded him of his parents' drug abuse.
He told the outlet,
"She was eating 80 milligrams three or four times a day [...] She was losing everything.
She blew through $8 million in a four-year period."
"It became an addiction problem that I saw the exact resemblance of my parents."
Jenna Jameson has since opened up on Instagram about her sobriety, routinely sharing milestones
with her followers.
Jenna Jameson said she had wanted children for an "extremely long time" in an online
post when she found out she was pregnant with twins.
She wrote on her MySpace,
"I truly feel like finally, the time is right and God has blessed me.
I have never felt more like a woman, or more alive."
After the twins were born, she shared sweet details of their dad Tito Ortiz's reaction,
saying,
"He looked me in the eye today after our [doctor's] appointment and said, 'I'm the luckiest man
on earth...
thank you for having my babies.'"
But eventually, their relationship went downhill.
And following their contentious divorce, Jameson lost custody of her twin sons, Journey and
Jesse.
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Jameson was absent for two weeks when she
left to go to a Las Vegas party; Ortiz took out a restraining order against her.
But her social media posts imply that she'd like to see her kids.
She gave birth to her third child and only daughter, Batel, with husband Lior Bitton
in 2017.
She posted throwback photos of her twins in 2019 and also told a fan that the twins still
hadn't met their little sister, expressing hope that one day they would.
"I think we all need to realize what's the most important thing when it comes to a relationship
when you have children.
And that's the children."
Jenna Jameson had already mourned her mother for her entire life when, in 2010, her father
Larry Massoli died due to heart surgery complications, according to Radar.
She told the website,
"My dad meant so much to so many people.
He was the only person in my life who raised me and made me who I am so now without him
I just feel lost.
Even though I'm grown with children you're never ready for it."
Despite their turbulent relationship during her teen years, Massoli supported his daughter's
career wholeheartedly.
He even appeared on Howard Stern's radio show with his daughter and confirmed that her career
didn't bother him.
​​Massoli once told the New York Times,
”You have two choices when one of your offspring takes a non-socially acceptable job.
You can either completely divorce yourself from them, or support them.
I chose the latter.”
Jenna Jameson's health took a turn in January 2022 when it was revealed that she'd been
hospitalized after finding herself unable to walk.
Her husband Lior Bitton posted a video on Jameson's Instagram, telling fans she'd been
in the hospital for three days, undergoing procedures including a spinal tap and MRI.
"I see all your DMs and I appreciate it so much."
She revealed in an Instagram video posted on January 10 that she'd been diagnosed with
Guillain-Barré syndrome.
This is an auto-immune condition "in which a person's own immune system damages the nerves,
causing muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis," according to the CDC.
Bitton went to Jameson's Instagram again on January 12 to say that her legs had thinned,
doctors were "doubting" the diagnosis, and more neurological tests were in store.
On January 17, Bitton took to his fiancée's Instagram Stories once again to share a "little
update" with fans on what indeed turned out to be a misdiagnosis.
He announced,
"Jenna is still in the hospital.
She doesn't have the Guillain-Barré syndrome.
It was confirmed by the doctor …"
Requesting that fans "keep praying for Jenna, please," Bitton added, "We will keep you posted."
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues, help is available.
Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact
SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).