Porn King: The Rise & Fall of Ron Jeremy

Ron represented a good time in my life.

Yes, we were having sex on film,

but there wasn't anything tawdry about it.

But when it all came out, I wasn't shocked.

I think you did it, you sick motherfucker.

Ron Jeremy was the biggest porn star in the world.

Ron Jeremy is ubiquitous.

He made it into the mainstream.

Ron Jeremy shirts, clothes, cigars. His own dildo.

Every man I know is like, "Oh, yeah, I know Ron Jeremy.

"He's a legend." No, he's not legend.

The man's a rapist.

I never for a second thought Ron was a predator.

Pervert? Yes. Predator? No.

Jeremy is facing 34 counts of sexual assault.

He's right up there against Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby

as this celebrity sexual predator.

People don't want to hear bad stories about their heroes.

They don't want to hear that that person's a predator.

I think there's hundreds of victims out there.

Well, we met. I was kind of like this, with my legs spread.

And I was down about there.

Christina was down about that spot.

And she looked up and I looked down, and I said hello,

and she said hello, and then...

she ate my pussy.

I'm Ginger Lynn.

I used to be a porn star.

My name is Christy Cannon and, when I was 18,

I got into the adult business fresh out of high school.

Ginger and I were huge in the '80s.

She's the petite blonde, I'm the big-titted brunette.

Christy, myself, Ron, we were three of the biggest names.

It was the golden age of porn.

There were big budgets.

There were big scripts.

There were big actors.

It was glamorous, it was exciting.

There were parties.

There were people fucking everybody anywhere and everywhere.

We were rebels.

We were doing something that was illegal at the time,

which was part of the intrigue for me.

Ron Jeremy has always been, to me, the same character...

I remember one scene, a whole movie called WPINK-TV.

The Pink Network is on the air from station KSEX.

It's TV as you've never seen it before.

Tonight, starring Penthouse Pet Christy Canyon...

Ron Jeremy.

We played like anchors, like the news anchors.

Are you tired of nightly killings and terrorism?

Are you bored with the same old reruns?

Has TV almost gotten you to a point of turning it off?

Well, don't pull that plug, because we're going to turn you on.

He just had me laughing all the time.

He was just almost like a cartoon character.

He didn't seem real.

Ladies and Germs, it is time for my favourite game show,

Beat The Cock.

And he'd stand up and he'd make his cock go around and, like,

he'd kind of move his hips and the cock would go in circles.

Want to see alternate viewing?

And then he'd say, "Now we're going to go counterclockwise."

That's counterclockwise alternate viewing.

Everyone that knew anything about in the adult business

knew Ron Jeremy.

He was notorious.

Ron started in the adult business in about 1979.

I might have seen him in some of the Pussy Cat theatres I was in,

but the adult business really took off when VHS came around

because people could watch adult movies in the comfort

of their home.

He is the average Joe.

He's the guy that's sitting at home that can't get the Christy Canyon

or the Ginger Lynn.

But you see Ron Jeremy fucking them and, and it gave men confidence.

On top of being on the right place at the right time,

he had a very large penis.

Nine and three quarters.

Everyone wanted to see nine and three quarters.

There was a scene that I'm thinking of, and this guy couldn't get

it up, and they're like, "Go to the go to the buffet table,

"get Ron, have him fill in for the pop shots."

So there's Ron fucking me and, like, eating a hot dog

cos his face was out of frame, if that makes sense.

They only needed a cock shot,

so he's like double-fisting the food

and, like, just kind of, like, pumping away.

My name is Jim Powers. I direct adult movies.

I met Ron Jeremy in 1992.

I was Ron Jeremy's cameraman.

I would shoot Ronnie typically on a weekly basis, I'd be with him.

For years.

Ron Jeremy had something to do with some of the most famous

porn movies ever made.

We did the Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a parody.

They accidentally pick up a hitchhiker

who worked at the old dildo factory.

My whole family's in dildos.

A whole family of perverts.

They get caught in this insane dildo madness.

Pussy Face, Pussy Face, give me that dildo.

Pussy Face. You used to be Pussy Face.

It was an absolutely ridiculous movie.

It was so over the top.

He was a good actor,

but I shoot porn, so I think our standards

are a little bit lower.

So don't listen to me.

There was never any drama that I heard on a set.

I never saw anybody really fighting with Ron Jeremy over anything.

I never saw him be aggressive.

Ron Jeremy is a very decent person.

He's very kind.

Nicest guy you'd ever meet.

The Ron Jeremy I knew was never a rapist.

Ron represented an innocence in my life.

Yes, we were having sex on film.

There wasn't anything tawdry about it

and I was lucky enough that he never overstepped his bounds with me.

He would always try and fuck girls,

but I never knew him in the '80s

or the '90s to force himself on someone.

Was he pushy? Absolutely.

He was definitely a pushy guy.

But I think Ron did become a caricature of who he was

in the '70s and '80s and '90s.

Maybe just decades of people adoring him and worshipping him,

maybe it gave him a sense of this entitlement

and this godlike complex.

Something in him snapped. I don't know what.

Something snapped in that man, though.

Perfect. Perfect?

It's all I need.

My name is LB Zimmerman, and I am an actress and a comedy writer.

Ron Hyatt, who is now known as Ron Jeremy,

and I met in high school in 1967.

We grew up in Bayside, Queens, New York.

We were good friends.

He came over to my house quite often,

and my parents really liked him

because he was this really cute, funny kid.

A nice kid.

He's hilarious.

Oh, my God.

The funniest kid I've ever known, you know, because he was always

getting into some kind of mischief.

We came from these nice Jewish homes where we waited

until we got married.

You know, that's what it was like back then.

He was innocent, a very innocent kid.

We were very good friends, but that's where it ended.

There was no attraction other than that.

I know he had girlfriends back then,

and I never wanted to really hear about that.

I had three girlfriends that I still love to this very day.

I, if things weren't going well, I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep,

couldn't think, totally distracted,

that's when I realised that sex is simple.

Love — that's painful.

I knew girls liked him back then.

Did you know Ron posed for Playgirl?

Oh, my God, you have got to be kidding me.

No, I never knew that.

Do you want me to show you a picture?

Yeah, you could show it to me. I don't care.

Oh, my God. I'm dying.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

I'm covering this part, cos I just want to look at his face.

Ron would call his you know what a schmekel.

And why? Because schmekel is a great Yiddish word.

He grew up Jewish, I grew up Jewish.

Ron came from an intellectual family, an educated family,

an upper middle-class family.

His dad was a physicist, was a really smart guy.

And, for some bizarre reason, a lot of the men in porn were Jewish.

The father will tell his son, "Go get 'em.

"Make your dad proud."

I was a teacher, a licensed teacher.

I even have a master's degree.

I wanted to be an actor, so I quit the teaching.

When he had the opportunity to get into porn movies,

and I think a lot of people do this

they just have a burning desire, and they see that as a short cut.

He was a young, good-looking, thin guy.

It made sense.

This is my childhood friend.

Who wouldn't be shocked...

seeing their childhood friend as a porn star?

I mean, we're not even talking like he just did a couple of films,

you know. We're talking like, oh, my God.

This guy was like the king of porn.

I was disappointed when I heard that,

because I thought he could do so much more in life.

He's a good guy.

You know, he made a wrong turn somewhere when he went in to porn.

I don't know if he was a pervert in, like,

some sort of demented sense,

but I do think Ron Jeremy was a bit of a nymphomaniac.

Ron was a guy that you could call up all the time and just toss him