Months ago, there was a press release put out about Shy Love leaving L.A. Direct Models. No sooner was that press release out, that Eric Hunter, Love’s husband, is issuing some kind of recall. I talked to Hunter. And the following piece was the result of that conversation. Except when this article was posted, Hunter’s calling with apoplexy in his voice claiming that he didn’t know he was being interviewed and wanted the piece taken down. I interview people. This is what I do. So I went through this trying to figure out what was so wrong with it because, on the surface, it seemed like such a positive, puppy love piece. What was so wrong is some of the exorbitant claims Hunter makes on behalf of himself and Love.
Porn Valley- I was talking to Eric Hunter Monday afternoon. Hunter is Shy Love’s husband. And Hunter today had to send out a press release to announce that Shy Love was not leaving L.A. Direct Models.
Sunday, a release had gone out to announce that Love was leaving the agency. As Hunter explains it, it was one of those egg on the face deals which Hunter claims a FORMER p.r. agent, emphasis on the word former, was responsible for.
“We had a publicist- we don’t want to say their name,” says Hunter. “We terminated them. Basically Shy had a small tiff with her agent [L.A. Direct] which is normal with girls and agents.” According to Hunter, Love’s conversation with her publicist about the matter was translated as her being unhappy with L.A. Direct and was looking to terminate.
“But when it comes to girls in this industry they say that every day because that’s the way it goes from what I can tell,” said Hunter. Hunter explains that the publicist took it upon herself to write a release about it and send it out before either he or Love had a chance to see it. “Then we found out by getting a very negative call from the agency. Shy then made everything okay with the agent and I sent the release out specifically because I wanted everyone to know that’s not what happened.”
Also, according to Hunter, a few people who received the termination release called Love and that’s how she found out about it. And that’s when he and Love decided to do damage control. “I was, we have to get a release out immediately because that’s not what happened. We haven’t terminated anyone. But we learned our lesson. We have a new publicist already. And we’ve also learned our lesson about not allowing press releases to leave without being thoroughly scrutinized.”
Hunter explained that the former p.r. person had repped a number of production companies who have shot at their house. “She was on the set a few times. She convinced us that she would be able to help us. She even got us a few cool things.” Among which, said Hunter, was Love’s picture on the cover of a publication. “But all in all we were in the process of considering going on to a much bigger publicist. Especially with this thing happening with Carly [Milne] at Pure Play.”
Hunter said for the rate they were paying they didn’t think their former rep was doing such a good job. “Then this happened and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
I then get in a discussion with Hunter about industry p.r. people. I mention the fact that in all my years at AVN, even now, I’ve never had a p.r. rep call me to do a story about their client. [There’s been one exception to that since that piece was written.]
Hunter said he’s got a little experience in that realm as well. “I communicate with the guys over at Howard Stern,” he says. “I talk to Gary, Will, and the program managers.” Hunter explains that he used to do all the online marketing for Stern’s radio advertising sales. “If you wanted to buy an ad and be on the radio, nationally, I was the one advertising to get them the leads so they could close those people at Budweiser and whoever else.”
Hunter says Love is now becoming more popular and has just done a movie with Miss Howard Stern. “They’re on the boxcover, and she [Love] is going on Howard and talk to him about that.”
According to Hunter, he had a conversation with Gary Dell’Abate from Stern and was told by Dell’Abate that without publicist he wouldn’t know half of what was going on to know how to book his show. “It’s funny,” says Hunter. “I feel publicists in the mainstream world are very on point. They work 24 hours a day and when it gets to this industry, you actually have to look for the ads yourself rather than the publicists e-mailing you, look what I got. It’s ass-backwards. And I expect my publicist as soon as they put out a release within 24 to 48 hours to send me links to where it is. If it looks really nice I’ll print up one and put it on the wall. But it’s rare.”
That being said, Hunter said he specified to the new rep that first and foremost he needs to know what the release is going to look like. And once you do it I need to know where it ends up. Hopefully we’ll give this one a shot and she won’t suck, too.” Hunter said he’s tried several people in the industry including the woman they just fired. “No one did anything like near to what they predicted they would do. They’re really good at selling you and then the real work comes around, and they don’t a very impressive job.”
Hunter tells me that Love was working on a project with Wicked Pictures about 9 or 10 months ago. Heidi Pike-Johnson at the time apparently asked Love to come in and do an interview with AVN. “She only had a certain amount of time to interview Shy for the magazine and the Internet as well,” says Hunter. “It was a dual interview.” To accommodate the interview, Hunter said they re-scheduled the Wicked gig which the Wicked director apparently wasn’t too happy about. “But they worked with us on our schedule.”
“We went to AVN because we thought she really needs an article,” says Hunter. “She’s brand new.” Hunter notes that Love had a very extensive background prior to coming into porn. “She used to be the CFO for 1-800-PET-MEDS. She did all their SEC filings and brought them out of bankruptcy. She’s got two Masters degrees in accounting and taxation. There’s so many other traits about her that have nothing to do with this industry which are interesting for a story.”
Hunter said that Love who’s probably done about 336 movies [mostly anal] scored something like 40 pre-noms. Though she received no nominations, several of the movies she was in won awards including a Jessica Drake movie, The Collector.
Hunter remembers telling Johnson that he wanted to have a few copies of the AVN issue where Love’s interview would appear. “I could give it to some of her family members because her family is very supportive,” says Hunter. “They want the issue of Hustler that she’s got the spread in from January. They want it signed by the guy that she’s with.” Hunter says Love’s family is very enthusiastic about her porn career unlike his.
According to Hunter, he sent Johnson some follow-up e-mails that went unanswered. “Finally Shy got on the phone and she [Johnson] said you have to understand that these articles don’t always make it into the magazine. There’s nothing I can do.”
Hunter figured that with some pestering the article might come out in the next issue. Not so. “There was one about this girl Gia Jordan,” says Hunter. “She’s Pakistani, 34 years-old. She was a buddy of ours when she first got into the business. She stayed at our house for a few weeks. But she’s 34.”
Hunter says the Fresh Off the Bus article on Jordan which came out 12 months after Jordan came into the business stated that she was 24 and Puerto Rican. Hunter says that a quick look at Jordan’s ID would tell you that she’s not of Latin descent nor is she 24 but that Jordan wanted to emulate Love. “She told them that because she had a weird obsession with my wife because my wife was succeeding and this girl needed a role model. She was even known to have gone on to sets and asked other male performers who had worked with Shy, am I doing this like Shy Love. Does this look like something Shy Love would do.”
Hunter claims he got some calls to that effect from male performers who thought it was pretty weird.
All Hunter is asking for is that accurate information be reported. “And then we don’t want to do another interview, waste Shy’s time and not have it show up anywhere. But it’s strange that Shy never got a Fresh Off the Bus. Six months into the industry she had already done 60 anal scenes, some substantial amount. Which is a pretty big deal, I thought.”
At least from what Hunter’s being told, and the information he’s gathering, Love did more anal scenes in 2004 than any other performer by at least 50. “If there’s an award for that, she should have won it,” Hunter laughs. “That’s pretty substantial, a pretty serious accomplishment.”
Hunter and Love have been married for a year and have been together for five. “I own an advertising agency that’s located in Philadelphia [in Narberth],” he tells me. “It’s called Unreal Marketing. I’m a partner but I’d been offered a buy out about a year ago. We’ve got about 10,000 sq feet over there and about 30 employees. We do the online marketing for everyone from Howard Stern to most of the NFL websites. It’s a fairly large company.”
Hunter says the company is buying him out over three years. “I get a really hefty check every month. I kind of said what should I do now because I’m not going to work for these guys any more.” Hunter said he and Love then thought about it and, considering the fact they had a swingers background, decided the adult business was not an “irrational step”.
At the time they were engaged, Love who was still doing taxes for people went to Playboy. “We tried to get her in as a centerfold.” Hunter said they really like Love over there but if she became a centerfold she’d be contracted to Playboy for four years. The other thing was that they couldn’t take her for at least a year and the stipulation was that Love do nothing prior if she wanted to get into the magazine. Love was told she could be put on Playboy TV, however.
“She went to Jim South’s and did a few scenes for Red Light and Pleasure. Then she ended up on the set of Playboy and met Derrick from L.A. Direct. That was it.”
Hunter and Love got married last year at The Bellagio. According to Hunter, Love continues to do taxes and is converting to Judaism. “My parents were, come on. She was like, I’ll look into it. Now she’s more enthusiastic than I am.”
In the mean time, Hunter says he found a stable financial partner. “With his money and mine we formed a production company that she and I own half of and he owns half of. Shy directs all of our movies and I produce them. The second one has a street date of February 10.” Hunter says that now Love has a contract with Madness they also have a distribution deal with the company.
It’s Hunter’s opinion that because he and Love met way before the adult industry he doesn’t harbor a worry about separating over those issues. “We didn’t meet on a set and that puts us in a more advantageous position because we got through the tough years.”
Regarding Pet-Meds, Hunter explains that it’s a publicly traded company and Love sat on their executive committee and was responsible for the payroll and insurance for 200 employees in addition to SEC filings and inventory monitoring. “She was ninth from the top of 230 people. It was a great job for her.”
But Hunter said he can’t discuss the exact circumstances of her leaving. “Because there’s a lawsuit against them, currently.” According to Hunter, the Stern show found out about it and asked Love to come on the show to talk about it. “Let’s say her termination letter was completely illegal,” says Hunter. “But we have now subpoenaed the paper work and we’re involved in a lawsuit that I believe will bring us seven figures. Especially because of the circumstances of the termination letter which were complete sexual harassment.” Hunter said there’ll be a great story once the lawsuit is settled. “And she’ll be on Howard.”
Also, according to Hunter, Love at that time will produce a copy of the letter that terminated her. “They gave her an extremely, juicy severance package to compensate for that letter. Our attorney advised us that wasn’t good enough.”