Grey was born in North Highlands, California and grew up in Sacramento, in a working-class family.[5] Grey's parents divorced before she started middle school and she was subsequently raised by her mother, who remarried in 2000.[5] She was raised as an adherent of Catholicism.[14]
Grey attended four high schools, including Highlands High in North Highlands.[5] She graduated a year early at the age of 17,[15] and in late 2005, she attended Sacramento City College and took classes in film, dance, and acting.[16] She bussed tables at a Black Angus steakhouse until March 2006 and saved $7,000 for a move to Los Angeles.[5]
Less than six months after entering the adult industry, Grey was featured in the November 2006 edition of Los Angeles magazine where she was flagged as a potential major star, perhaps the next Jenna Jameson.[5] In December 2006, Grey was interviewed on the syndicated entertainment industry news program The Insider.[23] In February 2007, Grey appeared on The Tyra Banks Show and discussed teenagers working in the sex industry. There was speculation the show was heavily edited and had not included her defense of adult film as a career choice. The show was also criticized for editing the interview to increase its dramatic value.[24][25]
In 2008, she became the youngest woman ever to win the AVN Female Performer of the Year Award[26] In 2008 Grey announced that she would represent herself in the adult industry through her agency L.A. Factory Girls.[27] Grey also appeared in Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge, which won in 15 categories at the 26th AVN Awards ceremony in 2009, making it the most awarded film ever at the ceremony.[28]
Grey filmed her last adult film at age 21 in 2009[29] and announced her retirement from the industry on Facebook in April 2011.[30][31][32]
A. O. Scott of The New York Times described Grey's pornography career as "distinguished both by the extremity of what she is willing to do and an unusual degree of intellectual seriousness about doing it".[33] Grey was the G4tv host in a two-hour documentary on Sexpo Australia for Attack of the Show! in 2009.[34] In 2011, CNBC named Grey as one of the 12 most popular stars in adult films and noted that her mainstream roles had kept interest in her earlier adult film work high and that several companies continued to release compilations from her films.[35]The Guardian counted her as starring in 270 adult films.[36]
Grey directed the films Birthday Party and The Seduction (2009).[37]
Modeling
Grey was named Penthouse's Pet of the Month for July 2007 and was photographed by fashion photographer Terry Richardson.[38][39] She was also profiled in the December 2008 issue of Rolling Stone and appeared twice in Playboy, in a December 2009 pictorial and as the cover feature in October 2010.[40][41][42] Grey has modeled for various clients,[6][43] including Max Azria's line Manoukian,[44]American Apparel,[45] and Flaunt.[46] Grey modeled for Richard Kern as a part of Vice's anti-fashion layout[47] and appeared in his book and in the three-part VBS.tv program Shot by Kern.[48]
Reviews of Grey's performance in The Girlfriend Experience were mixed.[71][72][73][74]Entertainment Weekly found Grey was "not so much a natural actress as a natural-born placid, affectless Barbie doll".[75]New York said the actors "appear to be improvising (badly)".[76]Violet Blue wrote that "Grey herself is as complex and layered and mesmerizing as a Soderbergh film itself—that's why Grey's fans cross all kinds of cultural and moral divides".[77] On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a rating of 66% based on 138 reviews.[78] In 2016, Glenn Kenny who played the majordomo of an escort-review site, described The Girlfriend Experience as a "digital film from another era", with most scenes being two-handers.[79]
Other
Grey appeared in a 2009 episode of James Gunn's PG Porn with James Gunn,[80] made a cameo appearance in Dick Rude's 2010 independent film Quit,[17] and starred in the 2009 Canadian low-budget black comedy/horror film Smash Cut with David Hess from Odessa/Zed Filmworks.[81] Grey played a fictionalized version of herself in the seventh season of the HBO series Entourage as Vincent Chase's new girlfriend in a multi-episode arc.[82] The season has a 57% rating (13 fresh, 10 rotten) on Rotten Tomatoes.[78] Grey played Raven in the thriller I Melt With You, directed by Mark Pellington, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2011.[83] She then starred in the Indonesian film Shrouded Corpse Bathing While Hip-Shaking, which premiered on April 28, 2011.[84] She co-starred in the 2012 horror-thriller Would You Rather, which was directed by David Guy Levy, and which has a critics' consensus rating of 59% based on 22 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes.[78] A critic noted the similarity of her role as "unflinching in the wildest of circumstances, when vying for a hefty sum of cash at the expense of [her] health" to Grey's own career as an adult actor.[85]
She voiced the character Viola DeWynter in the 2011 video game Saints Row: The Third and reprised the role again in 2015 for Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell.[citation needed] In 2013, in the documentary series Durch die Nacht mit ..., Mariya Ocher took Grey to nightlife venues in Hamburg where Grey ignored the "women prohibited" barrier of the Herbertstraße.[86] In 2014 she starred with Elijah Wood in Open Windows, which was directed by Nacho Vigalondo.[87] Nikola Grozdanovic wrote that "all of Open Windows is constructed in a way for all of the action to unfold through some kind of computer screen".[88] The Tomatometer critics' consensus for Open Windows was 40% based on 40 reviews.[78] In 2017, Sasha Grey and Danny Trejo starred in the arthouse thriller Black Licorice, which was directed by Frankie Latina[89] and in 2009 Grey was a co-producer of Latina's Modus Operandi, also starring Danny Trejo.[12][90]
Grey appeared in music videos for The Smashing Pumpkins' 2007 song "Superchrist",[91] and for The Roots' 2008 song "Birthday Girl".[92] In 2011, she appeared in the music video for Eminem's song "Space Bound", which premiered on Vevo,[93][94] playing a girlfriend whom Eminem strangles before realizing that she is only a figment of his imagination.[95]
In 2010, aTelecine released its first album, ...And Six Dark Hours Pass, and followed it up with the first of three A Cassette Tape Culture compilations.[97]Paul Maher Jr. compared Sasha Grey with Cathy Ames in John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden, describing the ambient tracks of aTelecine as aural wrecking balls, stated that Grey's artistic temperament comes close to that of the Marquis de Sade as "a proponent of freedom tethered to its furthest extremities, yet untethered by laws, morality or religion" and admired her courage and audaciousness.[98] In July 2013, it was announced that Grey had left the band, leaving Ian Cinnamon and a new vocalist as the only remaining full-time members.[99]
In 2012, Grey covered Nico for the X-TG album Desertshore.[100] In 2014, Grey and Jayceeoh produced "Heat of the Night", featuring Bella.[101] In 2015, psytrance band Infected Mushroom featured Grey's vocals in their album Converting Vegetarians II in the track "Fields of Grey".[102] In 2016, Grey contributed to the Death in Vegas album Transmission.[103] The former Throbbing Gristle members Chris & Cosey remixed "Consequences of Love", a Transmission song performed and composed by Grey and Fearless. In 2017, Michael Mayer adapted the Chris & Cosey remix in his DJ-Kicks album.[104][105]Vice described Transmission as an "EBM-inspired romp through the darker edges of the sleazier clubs in the nightlife spectrum".[106] In a cameo appearance, DJ Harvey plays "Consequences of Love" in the rave party at the Grand Palais scene of Mission: Impossible – Fallout.[107] In 2018, Death in Vegas published the single "Honey", with Grey as writer, singer, and film director of Drone Records' video for the song.[13] In August 2018 PIG published "That's The Way (I Like It)", featuring Grey, and premiered it on the website Pornhub.[108]
Since 2010, Grey has regularly performed as a DJ and has published some of her mixes on SoundCloud.[109][110][111] Grey said she uses CDJs, USB-sticks, and SD cards when making her music.[112]Earmilk editor David Sikorski considered her mixes as "testament to her wide range, eclectic taste in music, and her ability to understand the mechanics of solid electronic music production".[113][114]
Her second book, an erotic novel titled The Juliette Society, was released on May 9, 2013.[118][119]Karley Sciortino described the book as a "satirical, erotic novel that follows Catherine, a film student who enters a secret, elite sex society", and in an interview Grey stated she paid homage to novels like The 120 Days of Sodom, Thérèse the Philosopher, and Voltaire's Candide.[120] Alisande Fitzsimons wrote that The Juliette Society contains references to classic erotic literature and film,[121] and Cosmopolitan UK called it "erotica with a difference".[112] In 2016, the second book of The Juliette Society trilogy, The Janus Chamber, was published and the third installment, The Mismade Girl, followed in 2018.[122] Grey described The Juliette Society as somewhat autobiographical.[14] Allen Foster wrote that The Janus Chamber is "a brilliant work of literature", much more Satyricon than Fifty Shades of Grey, where Grey's "wry sense of humor reveals itself in the obscure pop culture references".[123]
The trilogy was translated into several languages, and in October 2019 the German translation of The Mismade Girl was published by Heyne Hardcore as X.[124]
Other ventures
In 2020, Grey began hosting a show on VENN called Grey Area.[125]
Grey began streaming video game playthroughs on Twitch in the first half of 2020.[126][127]
Personal life
Grey identifies herself as an existentialist[20][128] and as bisexual.[129] She is an atheist. [130] She was in a long-term relationship and engagement with Ian Cinnamon, who is 13 years her senior, but the couple split up in 2013.[99][22]
In May 2016 interview, rock and pop culture critic Art Tavana compared Grey with Madonna, describing her as "defiantly feminist" and as "novelist, EDM DJ, sex-positive feminist, Formula 1 racer or action star—no matter what it is, it's more than 'ex-porn star'".[131] In 2009, Meghan O'Rourke wrote that Grey "sees her extremity as helping to liberate female sexuality" but she called Grey's persona "a clever marketing tactic".[132]Vanessa Grigoriadis stated that "what's most important about her is her impact on feminism".[22][133] In a 2011 interview with Journal Frankfurt, Grey commented that she dislikes the term 'feminist', saying she would be a 'post-modern feminist' if she was one.[134]
In 2010, in an interview with Maxim, Grey said her parents were not happy with her involvement in the adult film industry but that they were on good terms with her nonetheless; Grey's father died in 2015.[144]
In November 2011, Grey participated in a guest reading program at Emerson Elementary School in Compton, California. After some parents complained, Grey responded to the controversy by stating, "I committed to this program with the understanding that people would have their own opinions about what I have done, who I am, and what I represent".[147] Grey also appeared on the American talk show The View, where she said she thought the schoolchildren's parents should have been given prior notice of the identity of guest readers and that she would not have accepted the job if parents had objected to her.[148]
Belladonna, Jenna Haze, Gianna, Melissa Lauren, Sandra Romain, Adrianna Nicole, Flower Tucci, Nicole Sheridan, Marie Luv, Caroline Pierce, Christian XXX, Erik Everhard, Jean Val Jean, Mr. Pete, Rocco Siffredi, Chris Charming, Jewell Marceau, Lea Baren, and Voodoo
^Craggs, Matthew (January 1, 2008). "A star is porn". Sacramento News & Review. Retrieved March 15, 2019. Grey never wanted out of Sacramento per se, but she did want to avoid becoming what she calls 'the North Highlands stereotype: a 19-year-old with a kid, another one on the way'
^Grey, Sasha (April 2011). "Something for the fans". sashagrey.com. Archived from the original on May 1, 2011. It's become quite evident that my time as an adult film performer has expired.
^Interviewed by Olivia Munn (May 14, 2009). Sasha Grey Interview. Attack of the Show (Television production). G4TV. Event occurs at 3:56–4:10. Archived from the original on February 21, 2018. Retrieved October 17, 2022.{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^"Unsound 2012: First Acts Announced". The Quietus. June 11, 2012. Retrieved June 12, 2012. First up is aTelecine, who will be delivering the world premiere of their live show. Consisting of Sasha Grey, Pablo St. Francis, Ian Cinnamon and Anthony D'Juan, their music draws heavily from early British industrial, with Grey having cited TG and Coil especially as influences in the past.