Porn star Jessica Jaymes dead at 40

Jessica Jaymes, one of the most popular porn stars on the internet and the co-founder of Spizoo, has died after being found unconscious at her home in Southern California, local officials say. She was 40 years old.

Jaymes, whose real name was Jessica Redding, was pronounced dead at her home in North Hills near Los Angeles at 4:20 p.m. on Tuesday, according to a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner. An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death.

Born in Anchorage in 1979, she began her career in the adult industry in the summer of 2002, when she was 23 years old. Her porn pseudonym was a combination of her real first name and the name of her then-boyfriend James, according to her profile on Hustler.

Jaymes became Hustler magazine’s first contract model in 2004 and she was subsequently named “Hustler Honey of the Year.” She also won the Best American Starlet trophy at the International Erotic Fair in Milan in 2004, co-founded the adult website Spizoo in 2009, and was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame in 2018.

Throughout her career, Jaymes appeared in more than 360 scenes and her videos on PornHub alone were viewed more than 127 million times. Outside of porn, she had a small role in two episodes of the Showtime series “Weeds” in 2007. She also appeared on HBO’s “Vivid Valley” and “The Howard Stern Show.”