‘I spent evening with porn stars with 4 stone boobs – and have become Master Baiter’

Daily Star reporter Andrea Oldereide went to the Amazon UK premiere of Reel Rivals at London’s Soho Hotel – and enjoyed candid chats with porn stars Summer Robert and Isla Moon

I spent my Tuesday night (September 8) at the Soho Hotel in London for the Amazon UK premiere of Reel Rivals – and by the end of the night I’d somehow become the “Master Baiter”.

The event was pure glam: a packed room, a buzz of industry insiders, and more beautiful porn stars than you’d normally see outside a browser tab. The vibe was warm, too with a lot of confident people who know exactly who they are, and who all had great humour.

Later in the evening I heard rumours Helen Mirren was also in the same hotel. I don’t believe she was at the Reel Rivals viewing, but she would’ve received a warm welcome, because that’s what people in the adult industry do, they make you feel welcome.

In fact, adult workers are the most open-minded, quick-witted and genuine people I have ever interviewed.

After the screening, things moved upstairs and I ended up feeling like a rockstar on the balcony of Isla Moon’s suite, surrounded by gorgeous adult content creators.

It was a nice change of pace to see these creatives in a more mainstream spotlight – not treated like a dirty secret, but like the talent and entrepreneurs they actually are.

Because there’s a double standard that’s hard to ignore: mainstream telly and film will happily borrow porn’s aesthetics; hyper-sexualised storylines, glossy “adult” visuals, the whole vibe, then turn around and cast traditional actors to “cosplay” those roles, keeping the real adult performers at arm’s length because of stigma.

That’s why nights like this feel different. It reminded me of why former adult actress Chloe Cherry’s crossover in Euphoria hit such a nerve in the best way: proof that you can bridge that gap and treat adult performers as legitimate screen talent, not a punchline.

It was also genuinely nice to finally have face-to-face conversations with personalities I’ve written about for a while – especially Summer Robert, known as the woman with “the UK’s biggest boobs”.

Unsurprisingly, she was bluntly honest about her profession and happily answered all of my burning questions. We talked about her strong religious beliefs, the boundaries she keeps at her job, what she dislikes, what she loves, and even Bonnie Blue.

Summer insisted Bonnie wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the demand in the first place. At some point during the event, I was crowned Master Baiter…..

In reality, I posed with the show’s fish-themed “master bait” trophy.

It’s a tongue-in-cheek title in Reel Rivals, a high-stakes reality fishing competition that follows adult entertainers fishing off the coast of Miami for massive catches like sharks, sailfish and barracuda, all while battling it out for a $20,000 (£15,000) prize.

The brains behind the whole thing is Isla Moon, a 25-year-old Canadian creator, filmmaker and producer – and I spent most of the evening with her.

We both got ridiculously excited to learn we’re French speakers: she’s from Montreal, Canada, and I’m from Geneva, Switzerland. She was especially pleased when I told her I’d lived in Montreal for three years while attending the University of Montreal – and that I still visit because my best friend, a Québécoise, lives there.

Isla poured more than $4.5 million (£3.3 million) into Reel Rivals after mainstream producers repeatedly shut her down. She said she got tired of being told “no” when casting people found out what she did for work – so she decided to “make my own seat at the table”, the Daily Star previously reported.

Isla’s not waiting for permission anymore. Neither, it seems, are the people around her.

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