Retro Bill

Traci Lords was 15 when her mother's old boyfriend, the man she says came into her bedroom at night, drove her to a modeling agency in Los Angeles and told them he was her stepfather. He'd already gotten her a stolen birth certificate and a California state ID that said she was 21. That first afternoon, she says, the agent gave her champagne and cocaine. Over the next 3 years she made about 20 adult films. All but 1 were shot before she turned 18. In the video below, the first thing she says about him is "I really trusted him." Five seconds later she calls it a huge betrayal. In her book she calls him Roger Hays. He dealt cocaine and moved in with the family when she was 13. Her mother left him, but he stayed in Traci's life. When she got pregnant at 15, he arranged the abortion without her mother knowing. In February 1984, he drove her to Jim South's World Modeling agency. "He was very, very nurturing. He was a confidant. I really trusted him." At 15 she needs a job. "I was desperate to take care of myself." What she remembers most is the cocaine. "It was like courage." Then Jim South gets asked: did he give it to her? "Never. No need. Absolutely not." Her answer: "What do you think he's going to say? Oh yeah, I got her high all the time?" "It's two pictures," South says. "Traci wasn't nervous at all." On her first adult set, she panics and drives away. She says South talks her into going back. The interviewer asks if she looked 21. "I didn't look old enough to get a job at Bob's Big Boy." "They didn't ask, and I didn't tell." South says she was the first adult performer to demand $1,000 a day. That she knew the score all along. The interviewer puts it to her: a shrewd, calculating businesswoman? "I was not an unwilling participant. I was acting out." For all of it she is paid about $35,000, and $5,000 of that is a single Penthouse shoot. Then the part that still hurts. The interviewer tells her someone should have protected her, and no one did. "I wish someone had." Then, in 1986, police knock on her door in the middle of the night. Her films come off the shelves and the industry loses millions. Jim South and two producers are charged with filming a minor. All three point to her ID. The case falls apart. The case against her: she lied about her age and says she wasn't unwilling. The case for her: she was 15, and the man who drove her there knew it. So who do you blame: the 15-year-old with a fake ID, or every adult who never asked?

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