Brazzers contract star Lily Lou describes her hometown in northwestern Virginia as the middle of nowhere, and remembers her early life as being relatively carefree — at least until her parents stuck her in a private Christian school. They wanted her to be around a more “wholesome” crowd, but she just felt like an outsider. Since her parents were not even religious, Lou had to scramble for answers whenever schoolmates asked, “What church do you go to?”
Her struggle to fit in only made matters worse. Her parents’ judgmental attention became a spiral of obsessive control, especially as she began exploring her sexuality. Their mission to halt this natural development backfired, of course, leaving her distrustful of her family as well as feeling stunted in her social skills.
“I had resigned myself to thinking I wasn’t capable of interacting with people or having a real job,” Lou recalls. “When I turned 18, the boyfriend I had at the time convinced me to go to college, but school gave me anxiety.”
Discovering porn, however, opened up new possibilities. At first, seeing naked people gyrating about seemed strange to her, but soon her bottled-up sex drive exploded and she found herself fantasizing and craving the kinds of intense experiences she was watching. A BuzzFeed article about a girl selling her panties on Reddit solidified her dream of joining the industry, but the camming route scared her. She worried about interacting with strangers live, sure that they would view her as awkward and uncomfortable.
“Then, after two years in college, I finally went on ManyVids,” she explains. “I made $20,000 in a month and decided to pursue adult full-time. Making videos gave me a sense of accomplishment. I came to the realization that success wasn’t just following the formula that society presents to us.”
After a few years, she says, she felt like she had the social skills and emotional intelligence to pursue mainstream porn. She had once used porn as a coping mechanism for dealing with stress, but now it presented itself as a bona fide career path, offering a community in which she could thrive.
As Lou puts it, “Working a job that I love, making a ridiculous amount of money, being surrounded by a positive community — isn’t that what we all crave?”
Now, with her pink hair and a very Brazzers-appropriate aesthetic, Lou reflects on her path to becoming a hardcore gonzo specialist.
“In short, I’m good at it,” she says. “Not that I don’t excel in other types of scenes! It’s just that at this present moment, very few active performers have the genuine enthusiasm and ability to perform at my level. It makes sense that directors/producers are going to prioritize shooting me for scenes that not everyone can pull off. As a result, hardcore gonzo is what I’ve become most known for. I’d love to further showcase how well I can do with more sensual and dialogue-focused scenes. It’s just a matter of that skill set becoming known as well.”
Chemistry-wise, Lou vibes with just about everyone she works with, as long as they are legitimately enthusiastic about having sex with her and not just going through the motions. Fortunately, that is rarely a problem.
Balancing studio work with her indie content on platforms like OnlyFans, Clips4Sale, ManyVids and Pornhub is not easy, she says. Up until recently, she did it all herself, not trusting editors to nail her standards. Now she has an assistant to help with organization and monotonous work like uploading videos.
With social media, her approach is much the same as it was prior to joining the studio side of the biz, though she feels more relaxed about it now that she also has companies marketing her and the scenes she does for them.
“I post when I can, but if I don’t, it’s not something I panic over,” Lou says. “There’s only a limited amount of effort I can put into different aspects of my life, and it will always be more important for me to slack off a bit in other areas in order to put 100% into all of my scenes.”
Indeed, becoming aware of her limits has been crucial to helping Lou find that elusive balance between working hard and taking enough time to wind down and stay healthy — a task made all the more challenging by being on the autism spectrum.
“I get overstimulated easier than my neurotypical peers,” she admits. “But I take no shame in having less time for socializing in order to hide away in a dark room now and then.”
That occasional hibernation enables her to excel during demanding shoots, like Season 4 of “Brazzers House,” in which she won a ZZ contract along with Abigaiil Morris. Staying authentic also played a crucial role in standing out during the competition for a coveted spot on the megabrand’s roster.
“Going into it, I decided to just be my genuine self,” she recalls. “My attitude was: ‘If I win, fantastic. If I don’t, it sucks but it won’t surprise me.’ I was put together with 11 other girls, to show what I could do. It was the chance I’d been yearning for! They might be prettier than me, have a larger social media following or an agent who pushed them to the top, but none of that mattered anymore. It was an actual, real opportunity for performance and charisma to shine through.”
Despite the competitive atmosphere on the show, Lou had a blast being around peers who readily accepted her friendship and were willing to get to know one another. Finding commonalities helped everyone develop empathy and understanding, she says.
“It’s easy to think of a coworker competing with you for a position as an opponent,” Lou notes. “Instead, all I saw were candidates deserving it in some way. I’m thrilled that Abigaiil won, as I was rooting for her from the beginning! She has so much potential, and even now she certainly stands out with how much she loves what she does. She reminds me a lot of myself when I was in my early 20s and hadn’t yet come out of my shell.”
What Lou appreciates most about being on set for Brazzers, she says, is how much TLC the performers receive.
“It’s always a performer-focused time,” she shares. “There’s food, Red Bulls, coffee. Douches, baby wipes, lube. It’s guaranteed that anything necessary will be on set. I also appreciate the pre-shoot discussion of boundaries that happens with every Aylo shoot. It’s essential to know what everyone is comfortable with so we can all have a good time.”
As she begins to eye goals beyond her indie content and performing for Aylo-owned Brazzers, Lou’s effervescent, can-do spirit, her sense of discipline and self-care and her collegial approach to getting along with others — not to mention her on-camera sizzle — all leave her poised for even greater success as she heads into the new year.
