Where Are They Now: Trent Atkins Talks 20 Years in the Industry, Drug Abuse in Porn, and Finding Happiness in Sobriety

Some like their porn stars as beautiful young boys; some like them as manly men; but luckily we got both from Trent Atkins. In his almost 20 years in the business, we saw Trent evolve from twink to zaddy. With his piercing blue eyes, inviting smile, and buff bod, Trent was the perfect prototype for the Falcon models of the 2000s. Over that time, Trent worked some of the best of the best and made one hot scene after another.

He joined us for an interview to share how well he remembers his time in the business, and how happy he is today.

Could you tell us about your journey from joining the industry to becoming a star?

Let me start first by saying thank you for calling me a star and confidently being able to acknowledge that I was a star during the Golden Era of Porn, which is something I never thought of myself as. My work and awards speak for themselves (If anyone at Grabby's is reading this, I’d really love a copy of the awards I won and never received as a keepsake and memento of the past!) My journey to porn could be a book in itself. As anyone who followed me knows, I was a competitive springboard and platform diver. I competed in many Junior and Senior USA National Championships and The America’s Cup and won three silver medals and one gold medal at The Gay Games in Sydney back in 2002, when I was also there shooting for Falcon, but that’s another story. I believe it was during the spring nationals of '98 in Atlanta Georgia at The Olympic Pool where I met a bunch of internet models and strippers from Toronto who were staying at our hotel. They were there for the Gay World Softball Series representing a strip bar called Remington’s. I wasn’t really out at the time but all of them were so beautiful. I remember running around the hotel and getting stopped by one of them and introduced to their manager and a man who ran an internet model house in Toronto, which was very popular in that time. He gave me his card, laughed when I told him I was straight, and said to call him in a couple of years if I ever wanted to come up to Toronto and stay at the house.

The next year, my mom and her partner passed away at the same time I was coming out in the gay world of circuit parties. I quit school and my scholarship and started my life of circuit parties, drugs, and doing anything I could to numb the pain I had deep in my heart and soul. I moved to Los Angeles with my partner at the time, a man named Zane, who ended up doing a couple of films, and his manager, Dad King, said if I ever wanted to try porn, to give him a call. At that time, I had no interest but after a crystal meth bender that resulted in me trying to kill myself and a 5-day stint in Cedars Sinai Psych Ward, I left Zane and moved in with friends who lived in Marina Del Rey and were going to school at Vidal Sassoon Hair Academy. I didn’t have health insurance, the bills were mounting, and I needed money quick so I could file bankruptcy. I called Dad up, and the next day I was down at his place in Long Beach having pictures taken of me and sent to whoever he sent them to. Within a couple of days, I was shooting my first scenes that included my first shoot for Falcon, which in my eyes, was a dream come true. I mean, IT WAS FALCON for god’s sakes, and they wanted me to work for them! I was speechless, shy, but knew I could go far if I was polite, got the job done, and let my skill and personality shine.

You worked at several of the different studios and with a lot of different performers. How do some compare with others?

At that time, I believe I worked for almost every major studio that was around, except for the ones that only shot men who were much bigger and hairier than myself. However, I always felt out of place because I was there to do a job and wasn’t interested in kissing anyones ass just to get the next part or be a part of the cool kids crew, which almost every studio had. Knowing what I know now, I wish I would have been more vocal about choosing my scene partners. I had some really fantastic ones and some really terrible ones. I mean, I was paired with the biggest dicks and the biggest names, so I must have done something right, and yet because I wasn’t an exclusive for Falcon or a few of the other studios, I always felt like I was looked at differently. I felt cool enough to be partnered with stars and mega stars but not cool enough to sit at the lunch table, if that makes sense; and I was ok with that because sitting at their table meant taking part in things I had already left behind and had no interest in doing. 

Who were some of your favorite fellow performers? Still in touch with any? Anybody you wish you'd worked with?

I was lucky to co-star with some of my favorite performers in the industry at that time, and some of them I wasn’t. Ken Ryker, Chad Hunt, Brad Patton, Adam Wolf, Josh Weston, Chase Hunter, Trenton Ducati, Drew Sebastian, Rocco Steele, Nick Fitt, Ken Houser, Tommy Brandt, Race Copper, Aiden Shaw, Erik Rhodes, Trevor Knight, Rafael Alencar, Johnny Hazard, and many others. As you can see, the list of stars I was paired with was immense. In this list, the ones I didn’t get to work with but would have liked to were Josh Weston, Erik Rhodes, Tom Chase, and I would have loved to have worked with Arpad Miklos. At that time, gay trans stars, were an oddity more than they were accepted in the mainstream porn world. I would have loved to have worked with a few FTM performers like some of the ones around today such as Chance Hart, Luke Hudson, and Buck Angel. However, Buck was very much a star during that time and I have always admired his work personally and professionally. I keep in touch with a small group of stars from back in the day and we’re very much like a little family. We paved the way for all of the OnlyFans and JustFor.Fans performers.

What was your favorite scene and why?

People always ask me this question and it’s s hard to answer. I don’t have one single scene that I could name as an absolute number one. My favorites were with Aiden Shaw, Chase Hunter, Rocco Steele for his OnlyFans, and Brad Patton. There is a whole story about how Brad and I were paired together, and that scene turned out to be one of my favorites and not just because his dick is prayer worthy. He was a really beautiful soul and fantastic person to work with. Whenever I hear his name, I hear Chi Chi LaRue in my head screaming, “STAB HIM STAB HIM FUCK HIM WITH ALL YOU’VE GOT!” It was a perfect pairing that wasn’t even meant to be at first.

What brought on your exit? Miss any of it?

I was very lucky to have my library of work span 20 years from 2000-2020. There were periods of time I didn’t shoot videos but they were not retirements. They were moments in time where I was in a relationship, focusing on school or training, and doing other things. I don’t think there are many performers out there who can say they were accepted and wanted for work for that span of time. My last two shoots with Chi Chi LaRue that came out in 2020, came at a time where I was about a year sober from any and all mind altering substances but specifically heroin and pain medications. I had worked very hard on my mental and physical health and was proud of looking as good as I did at 40. I should be dead. There is no medical reason I should be alive as I was ingesting 20-30 Percocets, 5-10 Xanax, 2-3 Ambien, and 3-5 grams of heroin a day. I survived more overdoses than I can count and know people who have died from far less. I had to believe I was saved for a purpose and part of that purpose was to enter the industry again under the beautiful heart and hands of Chi Chi LaRue, film a couple of scenes, and tell my story to show other men in the industry that porn is not life. It should always be your side gig, and being sober is more important than being a star or popular.

Could you tell us about your life today? You are traveling the world!

I am traveling the world and loving every minute of it. I chose to go back to school for Substance Abuse and Addictions Counseling and finished the Associates portion of my degree, a year ago, with a 4.0. However, it came at a time when I was dealing with some really difficult and personal situations that were completely out of control. I was burning the candle at both ends taking care of everyone else and had no time to tend to my mental and physical health. I promised myself when things started to calm down, I would take a year off of school and work to travel, connect with old friends, and get back to living my life. I just got back from a trip to Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, England, and Iceland. I’m planning on going back to Europe for Octoberfest in Germany and possible trips to Paris, Prague, and Turkey. After that, I have a three park African Safari planned at the beginning of December to Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. After that, it’s time to get back to school and finish my new degree but, for right now, I am blessed for each day I am given as a sober man, and don’t take anything for granted.

Some of your fellow performers from this time also struggled with substance abuse. Was there something about the industry that you think contributed to that? How were you able to avoid such troubles? 

The thing we all have in common as with most people who end up in porn, is that we didn’t love, respect, or trust ourselves enough to make better decisions in life and to understand how to deal with our deeply rooted depression and need for validation, which we all received from porn. But that never lasts. And unless you deal with those demons head on the proper way, the industry, escorting, and the people in it will use you for everything you have and then forget about you when they’ve decided you’ve done for them all you can. The industry at that time wasn’t concerned with people's mental health or well-being. Studios knowingly hired drug addicts and alcoholics. Hell, people who ran studios or produced films were partying right along with the talent. Where there was a film or bar appearance, there were drugs and alcohol. Anyone who says there wasn’t is lying.

The problem with that is there were plenty of people who weren’t doing that stuff and treating it as a business like they should have but had to deal with being stereotyped because of what was going on in the industry by many others.There are a lot of very good people in the industry who don’t know how good they are and think the industry is going to give them the happiness and fulfillment they want and need. If you look around, there are a lot of men who worked back then who are struggling today. They didn’t have a backup plan, and now they are 40 to 50, have no retirement, no education, and by today’s standards, are long past their prime and can’t survive from the industry that once provided them with everything. I worry about those guys. They remind me of the Kelly Clarkson Song, “Beautiful Disaster.” I was no different, except I never used substances while I was shooting porn. My addiction to pain medications from surgeries and surgeons who overprescribed pain and anxiety medications, started in 2008 and continued until 2018 when I finally went to rehab and got sober. Today, I am almost 3 years and 7 months sober from any and all mind altering substances. When I shot my films, I did so sober, and it was a business. I was there to work, collect my check, and that was it. Clearly, I did the right thing because I was able to grow from a boy to a man with 20 years of work in the industry. I never took myself or porn seriously. I always knew it was for fun and a side gig. I knew my looks wouldn’t last and understood that the rotation of beautiful and young men changes every year.

Honestly, at the height of my use I was taking 20-30 Percocet, 5-10 Xanax, 2-3 Ambien, and 3-5 grams of heroin a day. I should be dead. I have survived plenty of overdoses and woke up face down in my own vomit. Any one of those times if I had of crawled into bed and laid down on my back, I would have been dead. But, I think I was meant to go through what I did to be exactly where I am right now, giving interviews like this and talking about my experience and story to as many people as I can. If I can reach and help just one person, especially a younger man trying to enter the industry then I consider my life a success. We can’t blame the industry for our addictions or problems but we can certainly hold it accountable for knowingly working with and enabling people with those issues to work. If you wanted to help, you would test for hard drugs like you test for STDs and STIs. I’m sure that statement will cause a lot of people to say something negative to me but I don’t care. Ive witnessed too many people in and out of the industry die and it’s absolutely avoidable.

Do you miss the industry at all? What aspects?

I think everyone misses the notoriety and publicity that came with having your face on magazine covers, centerfolds, box covers, etc. However, it was all surface level happiness that I needed because I wasn’t prepared for or understood how to deal with the pain that came from not loving and accepting myself, and I think that always comes with age. As I sit here today at 43, I no longer need that gratification from anyone. I know as long as I am happy and taken care of and surrounded with good and positive people, that’s all that matters and all I need in this world. The rest is just icing on the cake.

Would you ever consider a comeback?

It’s important to know when your time in the industry is done and move on. If I chose to shoot studio films, it would only happen if it was with the right director, the right story, and I was in the best shape of my life. People keep asking why I don’t have an OnlyFans and if I will make one. As I said earlier, porn should always be your secondary income and right now I haven’t felt like it was something I wanted to do for myself. However, as I travel, see other countries, and meet other people, I do think a little more about opening one for fun that incorporates all aspects of my life, where content relating to sobriety is free and things considered to be X-rated were for a fee. However, I will only do it if I have the time to commit to it and do it well. For right now, I am perfect where I am but I never say never and there is always something for everyone.

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