Book excerpt: Porn star ‘Penny Flame’ takes back her real name, turns her life around

Jun 24, 2012
Porn Stars
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PORN STAR Penny Flame schemed for a place on the VH1 reality show, “Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew.” She wanted fame and the fans that came with it. But she changed profoundly, and came away determined to escape the degradations of the porn industry.

She also started using her real name, Jennie Ketcham. In her new book, “I Am Jennie,” she describes how she faced the cameras again, this time as a sex addict committed to recovery on “Sober House with Dr. Drew.” This time, things didn’t go so well. Were producers undermining their celebrity guests, hoping to catch a relapse on film?

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BY JENNIE KETCHAM

I WANDERED OUT onto the wraparound patio of Sober House to have my first cigarette. There, I met other houseguests including actor Tom Sizemore who was going on sixty days clean after having participated in “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.” As we sat smoking, we were joined by Heidi Fleiss, a former madam, ex-convict, and recovering meth user, who was also Tom’s ex-girlfriend and had filed assault charges against him during the time they were together.

She was wearing tattered sweatpants and an oversize man’s T-shirt that had been fashioned into a tank top.

“Who are you?” Heidi asked me, smiling and chewing green pistachios with an open mouth.

“Jennie,” I replied, pulling on my smoke and trying to act like I had as much of a right to be there as she did.

Tom shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“No, I mean who are you,” she said. “Are you famous? What are you famous for? This is a show for celebrities right?”

Her tone was laced with insult.

Tom leaned back in his seat nervously.

“I guess I’m famous for being a whore?” I said. “I used to be a porn star.”

As I confessed, I took a drag from my smoke and tried to keep my hand steady. This woman made me incredibly uneasy.

“Oh,” she said.

Just like that, it seemed that the standoff was over. She turned and shuffled off toward the glass door. When she reached the threshold, she pivoted and turned back to us.

“I know a whole lot of whores,” she said smiling wickedly at Tom. “What was your porn name?”

“Penny Flame,” I said. “It was Penny Flame. Now Jennie will do just fine.”

A feeling of regret surged through my body that I had introduced the character of Penny Flame to Heidi Fleiss, the Hollywood Madam.

When she was out of sight, Tom finally exhaled. It seemed he’d been holding his breath the entire time. I could sympathize.

When Dennis Rodman showed up at the house later that day, it was like a real live Hollywood star had arrived.

Technically, to earn a place there, we were all celebrities of a sort. But Mike Starr, the former Alice in Chains bassist, was too insecure from years of drug abuse to have any starlike confidence. Tom was still finding his footing in sobriety, and was quietly tiptoeing around the Heidi situation. And Heidi’s focus on p—— Tom off — and she was very good at it, no matter how much Tom tried to pretend everything was fine — detracted from her potential star quality.

Dennis Rodham was a different story altogether. He started making demands while he was still in the driveway. He refused to sign the no-drinking contract, protested the location of the beds, and waved away suggestions that he should come into the house and settle down.

He finally joined the other roommates on the patio, just as the sun began to dip into the Pacific Ocean.

I summoned my courage to ask him about his star quality.

“Ahh, all drama for the camera, little one,” he said.

It’s true that reality television cannot get by on peace and harmony. With an eye toward making some riveting TV ourselves, Dennis, Mike, and I decided to go out to a club and create a tense scene that would leave the impression we were going to relapse. I figured that, as cocktail waitresses passed by, we’d give them some pensive, unsure looks. And then, even though we were never really in danger of relapsing, the commercial for the show could tease the episode by making it appear that we’d had a truly difficult time maintaining our sobriety.

Dr. Drew had no idea of our plot, nor did Production. I was totally surprised when girls began walking over to us with free vodka Red Bulls. Dennis was not impressed.

“They’re going to have to do way better than that to tempt me to drink,” he said. “Look, it’s all Production buying the drinks.”

It seemed like it must be true. Toward the end of the night, we confronted the production crew about whether they’d tried to derail our sober evening, but nobody admitted to sending the cocktail girls our way.

On another night, we left Sober House as a group, packed into a giant white van for an evening at Pimai It’s Tai. On the way down the hill, Seth (Shifty Shellshock) Binzer, frontman of the rap band Crazy Town who had been treated multiple times on Dr. Drew shows for his crack problem, said something that made me nervous.

“I’m good this time, I think,” he said. “I’m gonna follow the rules.”

“It’s okay to break the rules,” Gia, one of the field producers, said.

“You mean you’re not,” I said to Seth.

“No, I totally am, Penny,” he said.

“Jennie,” I told him coldly, squaring my jaw to Gia as if preparing for a knockout battle. This show was turning out to be nothing like “Sex Rehab,” and I didn’t feel like I could trust the producers to have our best interests at heart like I had trusted the producers on “Sex Rehab.”

I was p—– at the producers who had been around other times Seth had appeared on recovery shows, and yet with each appearance, had fallen further and further into addiction. I wondered if they subtly encouraged him to break the rules the entire time and if this had contributed to his chronic relapsing. If the crew had been whispering dirty little encouragements to him, it put the entire house at risk for relapsing; worse yet, it made the show feel like a farce. I wanted authenticity, self-discovery, total breakdowns, and a safe place to rebuild. Production intentionally throwing obstacles at us to make good television was nothing more than just that: television.

Once we reached Pimai, I tried to let the spicy yellow curry and Thai iced tea wash away my resentment, but when the bill came and we’d been charged for a bottle of sake, I lost my cool. I looked directly into the camera.

“Who the f— is drinking sake?” I said.

Production hated it when we looked directly into the camera, because it rendered the shot useless. I looked around the restaurant for someone I recognized drinking booze.

Just then I saw Gia and her assistant toss back shots of Nigori sake. I continued to look directly into the camera as I spoke.

“Gia and her sidekick are drinking at that table” I said. “And they put the bottle on our tab? I cannot believe that bitch.”

I threw the bill and my money on the table and walked outside to smoke. As I paced furiously, Gia ran out to the parking lot and tried to explain what had happened.

“We weren’t actually drinking the sake, Jennie, okay?” she said.

I felt my face heating up with rage as I heard her deny what I had seen with my own eyes. She tried to stand close to me but I spun away from her.

“Listen, bitch, I’m not coming down off heroin or crack,” I said. “I’m as sober and clear-eyed as I’ve ever been in my whole life, and I saw you and your little f—— buddy taking shots of sake. You really couldn’t wait a few more hours until you were off work? Really?”

“I know, I shouldn’t have been drinking,” Gia said in a hushed voice as she looked around for witnesses to her admission of guilt.

“You shouldn’t have been drinking?” I screamed. “I don’t give a f— what you do on your own time, but you have the nerve to get sauced while you film a show about staying sober? You’ve got a problem, lady. Get away from me.”

When we returned to the house, Gia resumed her “It didn’t happen” stance and I called Bruce, the head producer. I was so upset that after I told him what had happened, our conversation blurred into anger and tears on my part until Bruce agreed to keep Gia away from me. I crawled helplessly into my bed and pulled the sheets over my head. It was pathetic that she needed to drink, pathetic that I felt I couldn’t be near her and be safe.

The next day in therapy with Drew, I angrily laid into him about Gia’s bad behavior.

“Why is Production allowed to ruin our progress?” I said. “I wanted to be in a sober house, Dr. Drew. Not this f—— mess where the crew is allowed to violate everything that I work to maintain.”

Drew nodded and kept composed, although it was clear to me that he was not pleased with the story I had told him about Gia’s behavior.

“It won’t happen again, I promise. And if I hear about Production causing any problems like this, there will be serious issues. You are my patient. I have your back, Jennie.”

It was after another rough night that I caught a glimpse of my naked body in the mirror. As I did so, I realized that I’d been avoiding looking at myself naked since I got out of rehab and porn. I’d avoided looking at my face in the mirror or making eye contact with myself, and suddenly I realized why I’d quit spending hours in front of my reflection, as I’d once done when I was getting ready for porn shoots.

I was so afraid that I wouldn’t recognize the person looking back at me. But in the very moment that I finally dared to look at myself, I knew who the naked girl in the mirror was, with her emotions as much of a tangled and confusing mess as her hair was right now. Even if I didn’t understand every part of that girl in the mirror, at least I knew her name.

I knew what she stood for. I was starting to know her boundaries. I put my hands on the counter and pressed my nose to the mirror. When my breath fogged up the glass, I closed my eyes and whispered three words that were just for myself.

“I am Jennie,” I said.

“I am Jennie” can be purchased at online bookstores like Amazon.com.

Source NY Daily News

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Jay
Jay
11 years ago

I use to love watching her fuck. She was a lot fun.

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