Tragic Details About Jenna Jameson
The following article references addiction, sexual assault, and domestic abuse.
Jenna Jameson, who was born Jenna Massoli, has lived enough lives for 10 people. Prior to becoming one of the biggest adult film stars of the 2000s, she raked in the cash as a stripper in Las Vegas, making thousands of dollars per night at the tender age of 17, according to her 2004 memoir "How to... Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale." She would later transition to glamour modeling and adult films.
But over the course of her life and career, Jameson encountered predatory men and dabbled in plenty of drugs. She also had an especially messy divorce from Tito Ortiz and described disturbing encounters with Marilyn Manson when other stars' allegations against him became public.
After a few controversial social media moments, she seemed to mellow out and started focusing on her daughter, Batel, with husband Lior Bitton. Then, tragedy struck when Jameson was hospitalized in 2022. But it's far from the first tricky situation the entertainer has had to navigate.
Her mother died of skin cancer when Jenna was just two years old
Jenna Jameson's mother was a Las Vegas showgirl named Judith Brooke Hunt, per Vanity Fair Italia, and she looked strikingly similar to Jameson. But Hunt died of malignant melanoma when Jameson 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, per Biography.
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. ”Everybody has sex," Jameson's father said to The New York Times. "The only difference is that Jenna lets you watch and makes a lot of money.”
She says she has been sexually assaulted
Her mother's death wasn't the last trauma Jenna Jameson would suffer as a kid. When she was a high school sophomore, a group of boys raped her and then pelted her with rocks. She details this in her memoir and claims that her boyfriend's uncle raped her on a boat the first time she met him. 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 methamphetamine, 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. "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," she supposedly wrote on her now-deleted Twitter account (via Film Daily). "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. "Was I in this business because I was victimized or because I wanted to succeed at something?" she wrote in her book. Jameson continued, "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."
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
Her brother and her dad also dealt with drug addiction
Jenna Jameson wasn't the only member of her family to deal with drug issues. She was close with her father, Larry Massoli, and her brother, Anthony Massoli, 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 allegedly been raped.
And when she was home, she was sometimes taking cocaine and acid in the company of her dad and brother, according to The Age. 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. When asked by the Times whether he'd seen any of her films, Larry answered with an emphatic, "No!"
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).
The WWF star The Undertaker took an interest in Jenna Jameson when she was a teen
Jenna Jameson would have brushes with plenty of celebrities over the course of her career. In her interview with Howard Stern, she reveals overtures from Matt LeBlanc, Charlie Sheen, and more. And in her 2004 memoir, she recounts having Nicolas Cage as a regular customer during her stripper days.
But not all of her brushes with big stars were light-hearted. For example, Jameson recalled to the Daily Mail that when she dated Marilyn Manson in 1997, she broke it off due to his troubling habit of fantasizing about burning her alive. "Once he started speaking to me violently, I was like... goodbye Brian. Also the bruises from him biting me weren't fun," she told the Mail.
Something similar happened with WWF star The Undertaker, with even more troubling connotations due to her being underage at the time. She met him when she was just 16 and hanging out at a tattoo parlor, the author explained in her memoir. "He would put people in coffins and set them on fire in the ring. And the scary thing is, that character he played was not an act," Jameson wrote. She found him way too possessive when, after someone ordered her a drink at a bar, he said, "You can get me a shot of Jaeger and you can get yourself a shot of shut-the-f***-up."
Jenna Jameson had skin cancer and a miscarriage
Jenna Jameson wanted to have a child and underwent in-vitro fertilization in the 2000s, but 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, Us Weekly claimed. She lost her pregnancy the day after finding out about it in the first place.
"My whole world just imploded," she said (via AdultFYI) about learning of her diagnosis at 31. "Staying out of the sun is something I always minded, but when you're younger, you think you're invincible."
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.
An eyewitness claims she saw Jameson's ex abuse her three times
For a while, Jenna Jameson and Tito Ortiz's family life looked as idyllic as could be. But things began to unravel. Jameson accused Ortiz 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, per TMZ, while his lawyer responded, "He did not put his hands on her, he did not hit her, he did not do anything to her."
Adult actor Joslyn James had a different opinion. James said she'd been privy to "three separate situations" when Ortiz abused Jameson. "They would be partying, and she wouldn't do anything in particular to set him off," James told the New York Daily News (via HuffPost). Jameson was also photographed with a bandaged arm, according to Radar. But Jameson later recanted the complaint, per E!, 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."
If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.
Tito Ortiz accused her of being addicted to Oxycontin
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. "She was eating 80 milligrams three or four times a day, and it became an addiction problem that I saw an exact resemblance of my parents," he said, referencing the fact that his parents had been heroin addicts. "She was losing everything," he said of Jameson. "She blew through $8 million in a four-year period."
Jenna Jameson has since opened up on Instagram about her sobriety, routinely sharing milestones with her followers.
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).
She lost custody of her twins post-divorce
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, per Express. "I truly feel like finally, the time is right and God has blessed me," she wrote in part. "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 doctors appointment and said, 'I'm the luckiest man on earth... thank you for having my babies'" (via Express). But eventually, their relationship went downhill. And following their contentious divorce, Jameson lost custody of her twin sons, Journey and Jesse Ortiz, via The San Diego Union-Tribune. According to the outlet, Jameson was absent for two weeks when she left to go to a Las Vegas party; Tito 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 Bitton, 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, per People, expressing hope that one day they would.
Her dad died of complications following heart surgery in 2010
Jenna Jameson had already mourned her mother for her entire life when, in 2010, her father died due to heart surgery complications, according to Radar.
"My dad meant so much to so many people," she told the website. Jameson also said, "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. ”You have two choices when one of your offspring takes a nonsocially acceptable job,” Massoli once told The New York Times. ”You can either completely divorce yourself from them, or support them. I chose the latter.”
She was hospitalized when she couldn't walk
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'm in the hospital still, and we've gotten some answers," Jameson said in an Instagram video posted on January 10, revealing 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. "I just wanted to let you know that see all your DMs, and I appreciate it so much," Jameson added in the same video. However, Bitton returned to Jameson's Instagram on January 12 to say that her legs had thinned, doctors were "doubting" the diagnosis, and more neurological tests were in store.
By 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. "Jenna is still in the hospital. She doesn't have the Guillain-Barré syndrome," he announced (via Yahoo! Entertainment). "It was confirmed by the doctor after a second test and five rounds of IVIG [intravenous immunoglobulin therapy], so she does not have the Guillain-Barré." Requesting that fans "keep praying for Jenna, please," Bitton added, "We will keep you posted soon."