Belle Knox, 18, is paying her way through Duke University as a porn star, featured in such films as ‘Lick My Lips’ and ‘How Do You Like It?’ She still hopes to get her law degree and perhaps start a foundation to help sex workers.
An 18-year-old Duke University student, suddenly the most popular freshman on campus, is looking for a little more financial aid under the sheets.
Belle Knox, with a dozen skin-flicks under her belt, was back in Los Angeles on Wednesday preparing for another porn casting call. The budding porn star — featured in films like “Lick My Lips” and “How Do You Like It?” — hopes to screw her way all the way to graduation.
“I really enjoy sex, and I’ve always loved watching porn, so it just seemed like I could pay my way through college doing something I really love doing,” Knox, a women’s studies and sociology major, told the Daily News.
Tuition at the North Carolina school runs about $47,000 a year. The petite brunette said her family was supposed to pay for school. When that didn’t work out, she considered taking out loans, but she didn’t want to strap her family with debt. She says she wasn’t eligible for government loans and typical student jobs just didn’t pay enough.
“I didn’t feel like I had a lot of options,” she said.
Getting into porn was a cinch. All she did was send her sizes to a few modeling agencies and she was a hit.It was November and holiday break was approaching. Then it hit her.
“I literally just Googled, ‘How to be a porn star.’ It came up with all these modeling agencies, and I literally just sent in my pictures and my height and weight,” she recalled. “I was getting calls literally within days, with people saying they really wanted me.”
Belle Knox — her porn name — wouldn’t say how much she makes per film, but she has no problems paying her bills. In addition to financial freedom, she’s found comfort within the industry.
“I’m leaving my family out of this, but they are aware of what I do,” she said.
They still want her to be a lawyer, she conceded, and she has no plan to let them down.
“I want to be a women’s rights or civil rights lawyer. Maybe start a foundation for sex workers,” she said.
Several blogs identified her as Miriam Weeks, the daughter of a doctor in Spokane, Wash. She revealed herself on the website xoJane.com Tuesday after a male friend spilled her secret to members of the Duke fraternity he was pledging.
She has no shame.
“I think it’s hard for people to understand the people who do pornography,” she said. “They’re not always desperate or drug addicted. Some of them really, really enjoy their jobs.”
