An American adult film actress is suing Pornhub owners Aylo and a director after she was allegedly forced to continue with an orgy scene after her co-star overdosed on set.
Melissa Hutchison, who performs as Phoenix Marie, alleged that bosses tried to blacklist her after the traumatic incident in 2023, despite saving the actress’ life.
She is suing director Danny Martin along with Aylo and others for $ 80 million, claiming she was subjected to a smear campaign afterwards which led to her losing out on big brand deals with the likes of sex toy maker Fleshlight.
‘Danny D forcibly grabbed Hutchison and forbade her from leaving the set demanding that she finish the scene […] she was forced by Danny D to have sex despite repeatedly saying no,’ the lawsuit states.
She also alleges that Martin was hesitant to call an ambulance and later threw her ‘onto the floor saying, ‘We need to get our story straight”.
The trauma of the situation left her with ‘anxiety, panic attacks, sleepless nights, and sexual dysfunction’, according to Hutchison.
She also claims executives tried to pin the lithium on her, by falsely painting her as an ‘unhinged, grieving mother’ who had become reliant on the drug to medicate following the death of her daughter in 2019.
Hutchison’s filings allege the lithium belonged to Martin’s girlfriend, but that Martin began a ‘false narrative that Hutchison had poisoned and almost killed Zaawaadi’.
‘Instead of looking at facts, however, the porn conglomerate launched a coverup; executives made Hutchison a scapegoat for the life-threatening incident on one of their sets,’ Hutchison’s law firm Kerr Simpson said.
Hutchison says she refused to accept a $60,000 NDA payoff and claims this prompted to Aylo harm her financially.
She alleges the porn conglomerate cancelled shoots and signing events and untagged and buried her in videos on Pornhub and other sites they own.
This led to Hutchison being isolated from her friends and colleagues who feared retaliation from Aylo, so much so that she could not find a makeup artist willing to work with her, according to the lawsuit.
Aylo is one of the largest distributors of online pornography, ‘controlling an estimated 90% of all production and distribution of content’, according to the lawsuit.
This means it has a monopoly position, providing it with the ‘ability to cause significant damage to actors with minimal effort,’ the filings state.
Hutchison estimates Aylo’s actions have cost her nearly $2 million since the shoot, with tens of millions more in projected losses from the continued manipulation of her algorithm and damage to her brand.
Hutchison says she is also suffering PTSD from the sexual assault by Danny D., which has been both ‘personally and professionally devastating’, her law firm said.
Hutchison’s lawyers filed a suit in Nevada in February, but it has since been moved to federal court by the defendants’ request over jurisdictional issues.
The original complaint seeks $30 million, but her lawyers say they plan on filing for $80 million, according to the Daily Beast.
‘Melissa saved a girl’s life on set and was rewarded by Aylo and Ethical Capital Partners with physical intimidation, sexual assault, humiliation, alienation, substantial financial losses, and a smear campaign unconscionably centred on her dead child,’ said a representative of Kerr Simpson.
‘We’re looking forward to helping Melissa get justice not only to reclaim her daughter’s memory but also to hold the Aylo-Ethical Capital Partners Big Porn conglomerate accountable and stop them from continuing to wield their unregulated monopoly power to destroy people’s lives.’
The adult actress also claims that Zaawaadi has been intimidated and bought into silence since she saved her life.
