I’ve written articles about shady producers and douche bag agents for years. But what about when the performer is in the wrong? This actually happens far more than I care to admit. There are times when a porn star is under legal contract and says fuck you, I’m going to do what I want anyway.
Are there legal ramifications for this?
Yep, you betcha. In fact just this week, the California Labor Commission laid the smack down on porn star in a big, big way. That is, if you consider $31,000 a big deal.
Raven Rockette signed a 3 year representation deal in November of 2012 with LA Direct Models. By January of 2014 she was nominated for AVN’s best new starlet, best actress and best all-girl group sex scene. Considering she only did girl/girl and solo, having three award nominations so soon, is by anyone’s account, very impressive.
Raven Rockette did very well while with LA Direct Models and for the first year and a half there were no problems. One day, seemingly out of the blue, she decided she wanted her freedom and demanded to be let out of contract. It was never clear why she wanted out of her contract, as even she went on record as saying that she had enjoyed “a good run” for the previous year and a half with her agent (LA Direct Models).
She only would say “My beef is simply my freedom. I want out. … You do not own me. Sorry.”
The odd thing is, she immediately went to another agent, Ideal Image Models – this is despite the fact that she was already under contract with LA Direct Models. A little thing like the law or legalities obviously didn’t stop Ideal Image Models from working with Raven Rockette.
That mistake cost Raven Rockette an amazing $31,000.
And now the labor commission found in the favor of LA Direct Models and not only does Raven Rockette have to pay then the 15% commission for every scene she did, she owes them interest, and potentially even the lost booking fees from every gig of anywhere from $50 to $100 per scene.
Now let’s not forget the cost of her lawyer and the 10% of 15% commissions she already paid Ideal Image Models. That is money she just gave away since her contract with Ideal Image Models wasn’t binding.
Reading through the legal briefing it was also interesting that while with Ideal Image Models, Raven Rockette admitted she not only got less work but also made less money per shoot.
Why the hell would anyone go work with another agent for less money per shoot than you were currently making when they couldn’t get you as many bookings as you were getting in the first place, even after they cut your rates?!?!
Here are the facts … the labor commissioners ruling is binding. She was under contract with LA Direct Models when she went to work with Ideal Image Models. The labor commission found this was illegal and she now owes LA Direct Models a minimum of $31,000 in unpaid commissions.
Raven Rockette had a promising career, making good money, getting award nominations and really starting to make a name for herself. Then she went to Ideal Image Models.
How did that work out for her?
She now is in major debt.
I’m not sure if she is performing any more in adult but she is on twitter as @RavenRocketCat. She changed her name to Raven Rocket for some reason.
She seems to have done a handful of scenes in 2016 including one for Elegant Angel – the Lesbian Performers of the Year 2016, where she was listed as Raven Rocket on the box cover, although in the trailer they list her as Raven Rockette.
What bothers me about this story is the lawyers and other agents involved. While I can’t say for sure because obviously I wan’t there, but to many times people try and tell a girl they can get her out of her contract when that isn’t always the case. This is a perfect example of this. Sometimes and honestly, more often than not, they give a girl bad or misleading information to get a girl to do what the want.
In the case of Ideal Image Models, she said they told her she could get out of her contract with LA Direct Models because they failed to obtain a bona-fide offer of employment for the last 4 months — which in fact wasn’t true because LA Direct Models had continued to make efforts to contact Raven Rockette for work, she just didn’t accept any of the offers. However during that time she did accept offers for employment through Ideal Image Models.
This meant that LA Direct Models didn’t breach the contract, Raven Rockette did and that is what cost her such a HUGE judgement. And again back to my point, why was she listening to such obviously bad advice.
I mean anyone who read that section of the law knows that just because a girl ignores an offer, doesn’t mean she wasn’t given the offer in the first place. That’s a no brainer, even for the non-legally educated like myself.
Now despite the fact that she’s long ago spent the money she made from those shoots, because of shitty advice, she’s sitting there with a $31,000 debt that she is legally obligated to pay.
I just bet the people who originally gave her that shitty advice about how easily she could get out of her LA Direct Models contract won’t be there for her now, to help her pay that big ass $31,000 judgement she now has against her.
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