Racking up around 270 film credits since entering the business in 2003, her death sent shock waves through the adult entertainment industry this week.

August Ames died in her Camarillo home in California on Tuesday morning, and the Ventura County Medical examiner confirmed that she had died of asphyxiation due to hanging.

Ames, whose real name was Mercedes Grabowski, was prone to depression, close sources reveal, and that sadness “may have stemmed from a troubled childhood, with Ames telling friend and podcast host Holly Randall weeks earlier that she had been sexually abused when she was a child,” reports the Daily Mail:

‘I have an awful relationship with my dad,’ Ames told Randall. ‘I tried to forget about it and talk to him about how I was feeling about my childhood and everything, because there was a lot of sexual molestation — not from my father but from his [redacted] — so I had to suffer from being molested by my [redacted]. When I finally told my dad, he didn’t believe me,’ she explained to Randall on September 13.

‘The issue was never resolved,’ Ames continued. ‘All my life I grew up a liar by my dad and his side of the family.’

During the interview she also told her Randall about her first experiences with narcotics. She said the father of a child she was babysitting offered her cocaine if she would strip naked:

‘Some days I’ll be fine, and if I’m not doing anything I’ll get these awful flashbacks of my childhood and I get very depressed and I can’t get out of bed and cancel my scenes for like a week or two,’ Ames admitted.

It is suspected that Ames’ recent actions might have been a trigger:

Ames recently suffered a torrent of online abuse after posting on Twitter that she would not be doing a scene with a male performer who had previously done gay porn.

She continued, saying that “medical testing was different for straight vs gay sex scenes, and did not want to participate”.

Known as “crossing over”, some male performers in the adult film industry do both gay and straight scenes for extra money:

A majority of female performers are apprehensive about doing scenes with male co-stars who have a history of gay pornography in their resume, believing it exposes them to a higher risk of contracting HIV.

Following the post, Ames was accused of being homophobic, as social media users demanded she issue an apology:

Here’s the final tweet she sent out:

RIP.

[source:theindependent&dailymail]