Belle Knox

Career

Knox chose the name "Belle", inspired by Belle from Beauty and the Beast and the character of Belle from Secret Diary of a Call Girl (meaning "beautiful" in French); the name "Knox" is after Amanda Knox, exonerated in the murder of Meredith Kercher. She decided to enter into the pornography industry because she enjoyed sex and pornography, and compared it to her previous work as a waitress for a boss who treated her poorly, with a schedule that interfered with her studies, where she earned less than $400 a month after taxes. Pornography allowed her to control her schedule, and she could make about $1300 per scene. Knox had tried to apply for government loans but was told that she was ineligible, and did not want to apply for private student loans as she did not want to "strap her family with debt." She began working in pornography in November 2013, flying out to Los Angeles while on school breaks to perform in the films.

She did a scene for the controversial website "Facial Abuse." In the scene she is repeatedly choked, spit on, slapped, gagged, and forcibly held. The person filming her notices cut marks on her upper thigh and asks why she'd cut herself; when she answers "I thought I was fat" she's told "You are fat ... You're skinny fat ... like a skinny cow .. You're thin but you have that malnourished bubble in your belly ... You're obviously stupid."

In early 2015 Knox declined to comment on whether she is still filming adult movies, but announced later in the year that she was no longer in the industry.

Activism

Weeks is involved in the organization Students for Liberty, an organization that bills itself as "the largest libertarian student organization in the world", and is the campus coordinator for Students for Liberty at Duke. In addition to her work with Students for Liberty, Weeks said she was recently appointed to the national board of directors for the Sex Workers Outreach Project. Weeks also said she has given speeches at other colleges.

While her work in porn helped fuel her political beliefs, Weeks says she began developing her ideology earlier in life. "I grew up Catholic, so I grew up in a very, very, conservative background and that, I think, really was kind of the impetus for why I wanted to become a libertarian. I was always being told to cover up my body and I was always being told to wait until marriage to have sex, that my body would go down if I didn't wait till marriage to have sex," Weeks explained, adding, "That really made me become a libertarian and become a feminist."

Outing and harassment

Knox faced harassment after a fellow Duke student watched her pornography and recognized her. He then exposed her work to his fraternity brothers. He stated that Knox revealed her work to him and asked him to keep it private, which he agreed to do. That evening, however, he shared her secret, and the news quickly spread through the community.

After returning to campus from winter break, Knox discovered that her personal Facebook account had received more than 230 friend requests. Then, fellow students started following her porn persona's Twitter account, at which point she realized that her porn career had been discovered. Shortly thereafter posts began to emerge on the anonymous college discussion board CollegiateACB under the thread title “Freshman Pornstar.” Knox received threats of violence and death, as well as harassing messages via social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, with some individuals endorsing people raping and beating her. Other posters also stated that they would like Duke University to expel Knox. Knox's identity, contact information, and location were posted as well.

In February 2014 Knox gave an interview to the campus newspaper, The Chronicle, in which she used the pseudonym "Lauren A.," and referred to her stage name as "Aurora" to avoid identifying herself. She expressed frustration over her treatment stating, "I feel like girls at Duke have to hide their sexuality. We’re caught in this virgin-whore dichotomy." She posted similar sentiments in blog posts on XoJane. Knox reported that she received additional harassment after posting her initial blog post through XoJane, which prompted her to write a second post where she revealed her stage name. She detailed some of the threats and messages of harassment, violence, and rape against her, but the reports, according to Knox, were largely "belittled or ignored by the police." Media outlets noted the trolling as slut-shaming, and characterized it as relentless, with the comments saying she "deserves to get raped," blasted her appearance and demanded that she use her real – rather than her stage – name in porn." Knox also has discussed what she, and others in the industry, see as a double standard sex workers face from those who seek their services. According to critic and former sex worker Eric Barry, "It's impossible to separate those trying to violate sex workers' right to privacy, from those who believe sex workers somehow deserve to be devalued." Elizabeth Stoker, in The Week, noted the "reprehensible and personal" comments of threats and harassment through social media were "odious and inexcusable," and characterized them as unjustifiable, as well as being "disproportionately aimed at women in the public sphere." In an interview in early March 2014 with Playboy regarding her experiences, she noted, in regard to just disclosing her stage name, that "I'm scared, because I've already been getting stalked and threatened." In her interview on TMZ Live she detailed a few of the threats, and together with the TMZ staff talked of the hypocrisy of the consumers of porn being some of those who outed and threaten her.

Response

The Poynter Institute's Kelly McBride commented on the reception for Knox's story, stating that it "[presented] a lesson in crowd behavior," and noted, "While her critics were loud and destructive, advocating that people call her dad to let him know his daughter is a porn star, no one suggested a phone campaign to inform the mother of the frat boy who outed her that her son is watching porn." A journalist for TIME magazine expressed skepticism over Knox's comments stating that she viewed her pornography career as empowering. The journalist continued that while shaming her was wrong, Knox "doesn’t know how to process her newfound fame," and that her decision, "will likely haunt [her] for the rest of her college and professional career." Elizabeth Stoker, in The Week, criticized Knox's statements, noting the sex industry did not have a trade union, and male sexual desire would ultimately oppress women and dictate their performances on camera.

A representative for Duke University issued a statement saying that while they would not comment on specific cases, the college's community standard did not have any restrictions concerning off-campus employment. Of Knox's allegations that campus police did not take the threats against her seriously enough, the representative remarked, "We are committed to protecting the privacy, safety and security of our students. Whenever we identify a student in need of support, we reach out to them and offer the many resources that we have available on campus to assist them." Knox has been asked to speak in Duke classes about being a sex worker.

Media appearances and other work

A fictionalized version of Knox's story was featured in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit titled "Pornstar's Requiem," which aired on October 22, 2014. In May 2014, Knox announced that she would be hosting an online show called The Sex Factor along with four other porn stars, where they would oversee 16 contestants that would compete for the right to participate in a sex scene with Knox. In February 2015, it was announced that Asa Akira had replaced Knox as the show's host. Knox has also been the focus of the five-part documentary series Becoming Belle Knox, which was produced and released by Stateless Media and Conde Nast Entertainment. The series was released in September 2014 via Conde Nast's digital site The Scene. A TV docudrama "inspired" by the life of Belle Knox titled From Straight A's to XXX premiered on the Lifetime network in February 2017.

Personal life

Knox is half Canadian and half Punjabi Indian. She was raised as a Roman Catholic in Spokane, Washington. For high school, she attended Gonzaga Preparatory School and was featured in Salt & Light, a Catholic Christian magazine, as well as the newsletter for Catholic Charities for her volunteer service. She has one sister and one brother.

As of 2014, Knox is pursuing a major in women’s studies and sociology and has expressed interest in becoming a women’s rights activist, and civil rights lawyer. Knox is a College Republican and considers herself a sex-positive feminist and libertarian. She identifies as bisexual.