Porn-Star-Turned-Christian Says Industry Refuses to Allow Her to Move On: 'They Still Make Money Off of Me'

Jul 19, 2017 11:36 AM EDT

After becoming a Christian, Crissy Outlaw - formerly Crissy Moran - did all she could to erase her past as a porn star. However, the industry has refused to allow her to move on.

At the height of her career in the adult film industry, Crissy was making a staggering amount of money.

"Just from my website, I made 15,000 a month," she recently told Lucas Miles, host of "The Lucas Miles" podcast. "If I did a shoot, I got another $1,000. If I sold stuff on my website, magazines - it all raked in money, as much as I wanted to make."

After finding Jesus, making the decision to leave the industry was immediate and "easy", she said. The hard part was following through with what God was leading her to do, which was giving up the money.

"I had a recurring income from a website, and [God] asked me to give that up," she said. "I tried to get the site taken down, and the people refused. They asked me where I wanted them to send my check, and I just said, 'I don't want the money, I just want the site down.'"

The response Crissy received from the person running the website was chilling.

They told her: "If you were trying to leave the industry to have a child or start a family, I would understand. But I can't let you out of the contract for a fantasy like God."

Crissy said she has talked to lawyers and "worked hard" to build a case, hoping to bring down the site. However, she's repeatedly been told "they would need money to pursue anything, it wouldn't be worth their time."

"To this day, they still make money off of me and refuse to take the site down," Crissy said. "I have decided that for me personally, that's not my battle. As long as I don't look at it, it doesn't exist. That's how I cope with it - it's very difficult for me, the whole thing makes me very sad."

She added, "Some of the stuff they did to promote my website after I left...it was just vulgar. They would intertwine my faith with my porn. It was just disgusting."

Through therapy, church attendance, Bible reading and mentorship, Crissy was able to get her life back on track. She readily admits, however, that the path to healing wasn't easy.

"It's been a really long journey," she said. "I leave this industry, and now the reality of, 'Who am I? What's my identity? If I don't have the hair extensions and the tan and the nails and the boyfriend, who am I?' My thinking had always been, 'If I don't have these things and I don't have relationships, then I'm unworthy.' That journey was really hard."

Now, Crissy shares her story with people across the country, warning them of the consequences of working in the porn industry. She also works with women who, like her, are working to leave their trouble past behind them.

Crissy, who also shares her story in the docu-series "Ten Million Throwaways", explained that the link between porn and sex trafficking is undeniable - and many women don't even know they're victims.

"I lot of women don't even recognize themselves as victims of sex trafficking, but technically, to be sex trafficking, it has to involve coercion," she said. "It's really hard to have a situation of porn that doesn't involve coercion."

For young women who may be considering the porn industry - or are already immersed in that lifestyle - Crissy has a strong message: "You are worthy of more than that."

"Once you get into that industry it's just going to break you down," she warned. "You're not going to be treated with dignity. You might not even know what that is like right now, but God created you in his image and he made you perfect just the way you are."

She added, "Don't listen to what society says you need to be - you can just be who you are, and that's enough."