August Ames, a performer in sex movies, was found dead Tuesday in her California home, two days after she became embroiled in a Twitter controversy.
The Ventura County medical examiner declared the death a suicide by hanging.
Ames, 23, had been the recipient of a barrage of critical tweets after she announced Sunday that she had turned down a job because it would have required sex with a man who had performed in gay porn movies.
She said her decision arose from concern about sexually transmitted diseases, but it struck some people as homophobic. Her initial tweet drew hundreds of responses, many of them criticizing her.
whichever (lady) performer is replacing me tomorrow for @EroticaXNews , you’re shooting with a guy who has shot gay porn, just to let cha know. BS is all I can say🤷🏽♀️ Do agents really not care about who they’re representing? #ladirect I do my homework for my body🤓✏️🔍
— August Ames (@AugustAmesxxx) December 3, 2017
“NOT homophobic,” she responded. “Most girls don’t shoot with guys who have shot gay porn, for safety. That’s just how it is with me. I’m not putting my body at risk.”
The following day a final message was posted on her Twitter account, a short and foul-mouthed farewell.
Her body was found early Tuesday in her home in Camarillo, between Thousand Oaks and Ventura. The county medical examiner ruled it asphyxiation by hanging, according to the celebrity news website The Blast.
Friends reportedly said Ames had suffered from depression, and some of them characterized the response to her tweet as bullying, the Blast reported.
Ames was born Mercedes Grabowski in Nova Scotia, Canada. She appeared in almost 300 sexually explicit movies since she entered the trade four years ago.
She is survived by her husband, Kevin Moore, a producer and director.
