Gage

dark corners of history. the stories that got filmed.

[Gage @Gagexbt]

In December 2017, August Ames tweeted that she had pulled out of a scene because the male performer did gay porn. Two days of pile-on later, she hanged herself in a park near her house in Camarillo, California. She was 23.

The tweet was one line. She said she didn't feel safe shooting with crossover performers because adult industry testing didn't cover the gay side. The internet read it as homophobia. By morning she was being called a bigot by thousands of accounts, including other performers. One of them, Jaxton Wheeler, posted that the only correct response from her was to swallow a cyanide pill. He deleted it after she died.

In the video below, her husband Kevin Moore sits with Dr. Phil months later. He is a producer, 17 years older than her, and the man who met her at the airport the day she flew in from Nova Scotia alone to start in the industry. He is not holding it together.

He says she had been on antidepressants for years. Bipolar II. A history of sexual abuse as a child by a family friend. She told him once that the only reason she stayed alive was him and the dogs.

The last day she was fine in the morning. They walked the dogs. She tweeted about her new scene. Then the pile-on hit a second wave and she went quiet. He came home from an errand and she was gone.

Kevin says she had tried before. He had always been home before. This time he wasn't.

Her real name was Mercedes Grabowski. She had done over 290 scenes in three years in the industry. She had just signed a six-figure deal.

Three performers from her circle died within months of her. Yurizan Beltran. Olivia Nova. Shyla Jennings a year later. Industry people started calling it a cluster.

Did she kill herself over a tweet, or did a tweet just arrive on the worst possible day for a woman already holding too much?

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@0xAikor being told you have months to live and then still being here years later is remarkable

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@suttonwwwen I get why Salvadorans want the gangs gone, but that doesn't mean every arrest is justified

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@wade1on that phone call makes the final hours feel painfully real, not just another headline

[Gage @Gagexbt]

In 1993, Savannah was the most booked woman in porn, dating Slash and Billy Idol and partying with Pauly Shore. On July 11, 1994, she shot herself in the head in her Universal City home at 23.

She was born Shannon Wilsey in Laguna Beach to a father who left and a mother who gave her up. She was raised by grandparents, ran away at 17, and reinvented herself as Savannah when she started dancing in LA clubs. By 20 she was the highest-paid woman in adult film and winning AVN Best New Starlet.

The video below is from E! Entertainment, 1994. One of the last times she sat down on camera. She looks exhausted. She answers in short sentences.

The men around her were a pattern. Gregg Allman, 20 years older, who she said beat her. Billy Idol. Slash, who broke up with her the same year she died. Pauly Shore, the roommate who was the last person to really know her.

She had crashed her Corvette coming home from a Pantera concert the night before she died. Not drunk. Just tired. Her face hit the steering wheel and broke her nose and cut her forehead. She drove herself home, called her best friend Jason Swing crying, and said she couldn't work with her face like this.

Jason and Pauly came over. She went into her bedroom. They heard a bang.

She left a note on the pillow that read, "I'm so sorry. I can't ever let anyone see me like this. I love you all."

The nose was fixable. A plastic surgeon could have had her back on set in 10 days. She had been in the industry for three years and was 23.

Jenna Jameson said years later that every girl who came after her in the 90s knew the Savannah story. It was the warning. Most ignored it.

How much of what killed her was the face in the mirror that morning, and how much was the three years before it?

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@0xvosss especially when your career depends so heavily on how other people see you

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@Cranefomo i stared at that x for a solid minute and still didn't notice it was Cyrillic

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@suttonwwwen the crash was one moment, the years leading up to it deserve just as much attention

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@aucllid hard to say, there's not much solid information about why they split

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@hammertime_one she was a huge name back in the 90s, but sadly her story is mostly forgotten now

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@0xAikor so much happened in such a short life, and none of it has a simple explanation

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@elg_oleksandr three years is such a short time, but she went through more than most people could imagine

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@mmoyshaa 39% win rate and still profitable is interesting, but I'd want to see those numbers after a few more weeks

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@Firrti seeing robots casually walking around people is more impressive than any polished demo

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@mmoyshaa @parimatch the demo balance dropping despite a few decent wins says a lot about how hard that timing really is

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@ormkaa her reaction says more than a thousand words could

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@replay_0x asking for the exact file and line is such a simple way to catch made-up claims before they go public

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@mmoyshaa down $33k in two weeks and now betting against Alcaraz again, that's a bold way to try turning things around

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@EugBass there's so much more to these people's lives than what we see on screen

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@EugBass the blindfold makes it way more unsettling than the height itself

[Gage @Gagexbt]

@_CryptoNotes_ @parimatch the simple interface makes it easy to forget you're still risking real money on every round