The last days of August contain some explicit and upsetting material involving sexuality, assault, and self-harm.It may not be suitable for all audiences.
I feel that we should kind of get to know you more.Like, you're still this sort of slightly distant figure in this story.
So I really wanted to sort of... I am a distant figure, period.
Yeah.I'm a loner.I've been that way my whole life.I, um... I don't know.I don't really like people.I mean, like, this is fine.I can have conversations with you two.
It's April 2017.My producer Lena and I are sitting in Kevin's apartment out in Camarillo, talking about his childhood and his life in porn, which began in 1996, the year he graduated college at UMass Amherst.
He created a website called Nina's World, which was a live stream of his then-girlfriend stripping.
Oh wow, you guys found that! Holy shit.We were dating.We were girlfriend and boyfriend.And I started taking photos of her.
And how was she about that?She loved it.
I want to tell you what happened in the room just then.When I said, it's a big step, my producer Lena shook her head in disagreement.Kevin noticed, and that's what motivated him to say, yeah, I don't think so.
I shook my head no, just thinking like at the time the internet probably didn't feel like
Yeah, like, I think it was just, she was sort of like, she didn't get it.
It's a tiny thing.But I think in that moment, Kevin saw an opportunity to side with one of us against the other.I mention it because it's something he's done a few times this year.
Like the phone call during which he told Lena that he wished it was just her interviewing him and not me, because I make him feel uncomfortable.And he had had a dream where I was wearing a bathrobe and I was yelling at him and Lena.
And then another phone call, where Kevin blamed Lena for asking his colleagues too many questions about him, but he made the point of absolving me.
And what's really weird about this, too, is it's never about you, Jacques.It's always about Lena.
These are, as I say, tiny things.But I can't help noticing that sometimes, when Kevin thinks he can create divisions, he goes for it.
I was probably a little girl crazy when I was younger, that's the truth.And it was easy to find that in porn.Making love to girls in magazines, you know, definitely me.
Kevin monetised Nina's World, setting up a 1-900 number for fans.It got his foot in the door.
By 2000, porn people had begun to notice him, hanging around the AVN expos, interviewing porn stars and directors for a fan site he'd created called Stunning Curves.
But he proved so professional and likable, industry people started offering him work as a producer.And by the time he met August in 2013, he was established and respected.When I ask him for his earliest memories of their relationship, he says this.
We were sick a lot.We got swine flu in Vegas and it wrecked our lives.We bonded over that. Then we got the stomach flu a couple months later.Then her appendix burst.I had to pick her up off the floor, take her to the hospital.
And then I got shingles in my right cornea.And it was fucking hell on earth.And that fucking woman took care of me like no one else.
But none of those are good stories.
But they are. Because you get through it together.And you have a real connection.
Now, I look down at my list of questions, notes of the terrible things that people have been telling us about Kevin.I have no skin in this game.I'm just saying to you the things that people have said to me.
The thing that people started saying straight away is that you have two previous relationships that have ended in these tragic ways.One was Shazia Sahari, who ended up institutionalised, and the other was Hunter, who also died.
Yeah, so Kate died.It's coming up.Wait, what's today?Kate died tomorrow.Yeah.Well, fucking seven years ago.So Kate is Hunter.Yeah.We lived together.We broke up in 2009.She died April 13th, 2011.
We tried hard to track down people who knew Hunter, but her family declined our request and we couldn't find anyone in porn who remembered her well, except for the one ex-boyfriend that Lena managed to get on the phone.
I just kind of want to find out more about Hunter and basically what you remember about her.
I think I only dated her maybe five times.
Do you remember what year this was?
Gosh, that's a really good question.
Like, was it right before she died or was it a couple years before she died?
You don't know that Hunter died?Of course you know that Hunter died.
How did she die?I feel crazy being the one to tell you this.
Lena laughed nervously along with his unpleasant joke, pretending that he didn't know that Hunter was dead.But really, it was pretty clear what a jerk he was to do that.Anyway, back to Kevin.
Going back to Amna... Amna, it turns out, is Shazia Sahari's real name.So you talked to her?No.
Oh.Amna was institutionalised.Amna and I broke up because of the cultural difference.Well, Amna's Muslim. Like her mother's like real Muslim, like wears the whole garments.They say you marry into someone's family.
That is a fucking thousand percent true.I was not prepared for what that entailed.
But the porn set gossip is that Shazia disappeared and ended up institutionalized, maybe not due to cultural differences, but because Kevin was just too difficult.
Like that story about how Kevin went crazy with his work colleague, Yoshi, for offering Shazia tickets to a Russell Peters comedy show instead of approaching her via him. There's a guy called Yoshi from... Oh yeah, yeah.
He says basically he innocently... It's not true.Gone.
This idiot breaks into the records, the model releases, and pulls girls' phone numbers off of it.Not just to my former wife, but to other girls.She calls me, like, who the fuck is this guy and why is he calling me?I went crazy on him.
You are violating the trust of these performers.Where do you get off being a guy who, by the way, his job was a DVD chapter, Arthur?He had no business breaking into records.
He said the reason why he contacted, he gave a very specific story as to the reason why he contacted.
Yoshi's real passion is being a comedian.So what he would do is he would try to get girls to come to comedy shows.So he cold called?That's what you do?Come on, that's psychotic behavior. You don't just go to model releases and pull phone numbers.
A number of people have called you controlling.
Yeah, I mean, I completely disagree with that.And here's why.If anyone knew the relationship, they know it was the opposite.Mercedes called the shots.I think any man that has a healthy dose of fear of their wife is what makes a good relationship.
She ran the relationship. Now, here's partly where that probably comes from.Mercedes had horrible social anxiety.It would affect her sometimes wanting to go to work.It would affect her having friendships.I'd always tell her, blame me.
You don't want to go to work, blame me.Fuck them.They want to get mad at me, they're not gonna.They're not going to call me.They're not going to say anything to me.That maybe is where it comes from, but
If I was controlling, then she wouldn't have gone off to the Snoop Dogg roasts.You know, she wouldn't have done all the things that she did on her own.She did lots of things on her own.
Later, when I listen back to this tape, Kevin's explanation feels frustrating.His blame me turns him from controlling into big-hearted and self-sacrificing.It creates a world where accusations against him are hard to prove.
But there were the times that they were seen out together, and August seemed different.Like when her friend and fellow performer Ryan, the man she was texting with the day she died, stood with them on the red carpet at the AVN Awards.
She was quiet.You know, she was like, hi.But she wasn't, come here, give me a big hug.And it was weird to me that this is a good friend of mine in line, and we're like not talking.
Actually, that's not all Ryan told me about that night.His story went on.
And I'm just thinking, like, you've got to be kidding me.Like, this is who I wish I was with.And, of course, they're right behind you, like a bad movie.
It sounds like you were in love with her.
I loved her very much.I loved her very much.Like, I just... It just wasn't anybody.I mean, it was just nobody I liked more.
Before I take you back to my interview with Kevin, I want to play you a story that Ryan told me.It happened in May 2017, seven months before August died.She'd attempted suicide and had ended up in the hospital.
And so I had reached out to Kevin.I texted him and I said, this is Ryan McLean. I'm really good friends with August and she's not okay.Can you please like tell me where I could come visit?
You know, I want to let her know that I care about her and I want to visit her and let her know that I care about her.She's got friends and people that love her and that she's okay. And he did not respond to my text message.
And instead, he tracked down the person I was with at the time and said, who's Ryan McLean?Why does he know that August is sick?He was mad that I was trying to make sure she was okay.
And did you go and visit her in the hospital?
And by the time you got there, was anybody visiting her?I'm asking Ryan this question because we heard from two people that Kevin didn't arrive at the hospital that day until seven or eight hours after August was admitted.
No, the medical staff was there, but there were no visitors.
And how long had she been in hospital for by then?
Before noon.Let me put it that way.And I got there at 7 p.m.
He did turn up.Her and I were there and then he did show up when I was there.The nurse said, you know, your husband is here.And she said, yeah, I want to, you know, she wanted to see him.She was very adamant about that.I left.
I didn't say hi to him because I did not want to make anything awkward for her.
And what time did he arrive?Do you remember?
I believe it was around 7.35 p.m.
Okay, so her friend Ryan McLean said... Who wasn't her friend?Go on.
So, in May, Mercedes had a nervous breakdown.She ended up in a hospital.He showed up at the hospital, uninvited.Like, first off, who the fuck does that?Who shows up at a hospital uninvited?She was so freaked out by him showing up...
I had been waiting all day to see her.I had one hour.I'd been with the doctors all day.I had to have all my stuff searched.I was only allowed to see her for one hour.So I show up at the hospital to see her for the one hour.He's there.
And then he's removed.Someone removed him.Either she did or the hospital staff did.
If you could only see her for an hour and you were being like kind of searched and everything, how come he just got to walk in?
Well, he probably didn't have anything with him.I brought all kinds of stuff for her, like I brought toiletries, clothes, you know, I brought stuff.I had also been meeting with the doctors because they wanted to know what was going on in her life.
Why did she have this breakdown?We were going over medication she was prescribed. Also, I'm going to point out, when she got out of the hospital, she changed her phone number.For what reason?Because of these people.Because of that guy.
He said he was on a red carpet at the AVN, and he was standing in front of you, and he said that her personality was different.And his implication was she was with you, and so she was much more nervous, or much more kind of reserved and quiet.
We say it was not reserved or quiet.That is not true.She let me know it. I'm not even sure what the guy looks like, to be quite frank with you.I think he used to be a driver back in the day.I don't recall ever being on a red carpet with him.
What you're saying implies to me that she saw him as a kind of stalker.
She never used that word.
I'm spending a bit of time on the hospital incident because the two stories offer very different versions of Kevin. In Ryan's version, Kevin didn't show up until after 7.30pm, perhaps because of thoughtlessness.
That even though his happiest memories of their early courtship took place in hospitals and sickbeds, a few years into their marriage and he wasn't so keen to spend time with August in the emergency room.
But in Kevin's version, he was prevented from showing up by forces beyond his control.And so August was abandoned to the creeps and stalkers she needed him to protect her from.
She found it very strange that he showed up.She was very uncomfortable with that.That really bothered her.
Did she talk about him in any other scenario?
Nope.Never.Nope. But she was really bothered by him showing up.And then when we got out, she goes, I need to change my number.I can't have these people in my life.
We later do some fact-checking, and now I can untangle some of this.In March 2017, August posted on her Instagram a picture of her and Ryan holding hands at Disneyland.And in the caption, she describes Ryan as one of her best friends.
Also, when she was on the Holly Randall podcast, the conversation turned to why she changed her phone number.
Cause you had to change your number.I changed my number a few months ago because I started getting like 50 random calls a day from fucking weird places.And I answered one and I just said like, hello?
Like I try to, I try to do like a, like a man voice.And it was just like a long pause.And they were like, is this August?And I just hung up and then I blocked all the numbers that were calling me.And I was like, I need to fucking change my number.
And a few weeks after she did change her number, she sent Ryan a text giving him her new number.No one in the industry was her friend.
She would tell me all the time.Think about this for a second.She wouldn't even let me be in a room alone with any of her female friends within the industry.She didn't trust any single one of them.
Now, our conversation turns to December the 4th, 2017, the night August went missing.
I don't understand why you've laid so much blame on Jessica Drake, because after I talked to you, I went back to look at her tweets, and they seemed pretty innocuous to me.Sure.
I can explain.So it goes deeper than just a tweet.Listen, we can get in this whole thing of how women interact, especially in this business, because there's a toxic element.It's not like how men interact.
I get mad at you, I'm like, John, go fuck yourself.You tell me to go fuck myself, we scream at each other, and then it's over.Women don't interact that way.
I should say that I probably wouldn't interact that way.
You know what I'm getting at.There is a certain dynamic with women that's very different.I've always said feminism is dead in this business because of the way women treat each other.
She's fake.She's fake to the core.I can only go back to what I said before, which is I went back and looked at her tweets.And you know, I'm very sensitive to the multitude of malevolent ways that people behave on Twitter.
And I know that sometimes the all-out aggressive tweets are sometimes so ridiculous that you just ignore them.But the ones that kind of wrap up a bit of tenderness and kindness in the insults can hurt the most.So I know all of that stuff.
But even so, like I'm staring at Jessica's tweets and I'm thinking, Kevin has on three occasions, to my knowledge, effectively blamed Jessica.
Jessica didn't kill Mercedes.Jessica contributed to a mob mentality.All of this would have ended, John, if someone just had called me.Just said, you know what?I'm really fucking sorry for what I did.I need to change.
I need to re-evaluate how I handle things.Come on.Come on.
And then I asked Kevin about Marcus Dupree, about why he didn't mention any of that in his statement.Kevin doesn't hesitate.
He says, She came home, and I knew immediately something was wrong.She looked white as a ghost.You know, I immediately go into, like, dad mode.And she just kind of collapsed right here, started crying.And then she told me everything.
She said it was really rough and violent, and I fucking lost my mind.
I mean, I went crazy.Like, people talk about me going, OK, that time I did go crazy.Because, you know, no one hurts her.
Why didn't you mention any of that in the statement?
So there's a couple of reasons.The first and foremost is I wanted her to go public with it. She got really angry at me and said, no, it's my fault.She kept telling me it was her fault.It's her fault.It's my fault.It's my fault.
I mean, it was something I got of a Lifetime movie, you know, she kept blaming herself.I'd be like, and this was when the Harvey Weinstein thing just kind of hit and it was at its height.
And I'm like, Mercedes, if you go on about this, the world's going to be at your back. She was adamant.She actually yelled at me.She goes, you have to let this go.
I understand what Kevin's saying, and it's crossed my mind too, that August didn't want to make a big deal of it when she was alive.And so Kevin was just respecting those wishes.
But when I met August's brother James in that motel room in Hinton, Alberta, he had a different view.
It's probably impossible, but I mean, can you speculate on how she would feel now that she's gone about the Marcus Dupree story being out in the world?
She'd be happy now that she's gone, right?Now that she's gone, I would assume if she was alive and still living in LA, she wouldn't want that out there.She wouldn't want more fucking eyes on her, right?
But now that she's gone, I'm sure I guarantee that she wouldn't want another girl to feel the way she did.
The next problem is she talked to everyone involved in it and told them, I'm okay, everything's fine.So then what am I gonna do now? people telling me I have control over her.I couldn't control her to like not, I wish I could have.
You know, the problem with you not mentioning it in the statement is that it's led to suspicions about you.
People have said, with justification, people have said, how come he's pinning all the blame on Jessica Drake when this thing... No, I'm not pinning the blame.
You guys totally have it wrong.She shouldn't have been running XBiz.That's the point of the statement.The statement was for a specific moment in time.
She had no business being on that stage and she has no business being a spokesperson for this industry.
What Kevin means is that Jessica Drake had been booked to present the ex-biz porn awards a few days after he'd released his statement and he wanted her to be fired.
But even if Kevin had intended his statement to be for just that moment in time, it's still the only page on augustaimes.com, a domain Kevin controls.And it's the pinned tweet on August's Twitter account.
Kevin had worked out her password and posted it there for maximum impact.As it happens, around the time I see Kevin, I visit Jessica Drake to find out if things are getting back to normal for her.And this is what she says.
I talk about this in a room with my therapist with the door closed and a box of tissues on my lap.Like, I'm fucked.Like, emotionally.Now I can walk into a room of people and put myself
out in front of these people that I really thought were my friends, that I really thought like, you know, oh, we're in this industry, we're kind of like a band of outlaws or whatever, but we have each other's backs and we stick together.
I'm not a part of it anymore.
You can't take away the fact that my wife said two hours before she left to kill herself, Jessica Drake hates me.And I resent the fact that you keep trying to diminish that.And you also don't know the real Jessica Drake.
You know the manufactured version. If you would sit here and put a microscope on her life, you would find out much worse things.You're going to find a string of dead bodies there too.
I'm not talking, I'm talking in the more the, you know, yeah, the metaphorical way.
Actually, the only negative thing we ever hear about Jessica Drake is that her social media is a bit holier-than-thou.
But then again, she volunteers with a charity that builds houses in poverty-stricken areas of Cambodia and Tanzania, so there's that. But you did put a lot of emphasis on Jessica Drake on the statements.Mercedes Carrera retweeted Jessica Drake.
And people were tweeting, Mercedes Carrera saying, how can you retweet Jessica Drake?She's the one who murdered August Eynes.
But that has nothing to do with me.I never said that.I don't believe that.I believe she's a bully.You're going to keep defending her, and it's just going to make me more mad.And that's fine.
Why did you go to the Sheraton Agoura Hills that night?
Well, as I told you in the interview, there was no power.There was a fire.So we lost power at about, I'm going to say a little before 10.I had no power.So I realised by midnight I was going to have no phone.
Because of the fires, everyone was evacuated. So I had to go all the way to Agora to find a hotel room.That was the closest hotel room I could find.They had one room available.
So with the hotels in Camarillo, no?There's no power.
We had no power anywhere.All of Camarillo had no power.So I checked in there, charged up my phone, went back out and looked for her some more.So then the cops called me somewhere between 6.30 and 7 a.m.And I was awake.
I would wake up every 45 minutes to an hour and call her a bunch of times.
A lot of this we managed to later verify. An article in the Los Angeles Times about the power outages that night said, quote, many hotels in Camarillo didn't have power and the ones that did were fully booked.
So it does make sense for Kevin to have driven 18 miles to a hotel.Also, Southern California Edison confirms to us that the power at Kevin's address did fail just before 10pm, at 9.53pm to be exact.
Why didn't you mention the Sheraton to us in the interview or in the statement?Because both the interview and the statement were pretty detailed about what you did that night.
I didn't really think about it.I was only there for a couple hours.You know, I mean, I did say that, like, there was no power, the wind, all that stuff.Never really occurred to me.I mean, there was so much that occurred that night.
Seriously, John, it was like biblical.I'm sitting there talking to this coroner who's telling me my life's over.And on the TV, like, everything's burning.
I spend three hours with Kevin that day.When I ask him if we can do another session soon, he rolls his eyes but says yes.A few weeks later, something happens.My producer Lina receives a telephone call.
Can you hear me?Yes.I can't tell you how crazy it is to be talking to you.I mean, yeah, I do make myself a bit hard to reach.
So then can we say that a week from today we'll see you in Chicago, say in the early afternoon?
Absolutely.I'm actually excited.I got a lot of tea to spill.
In the end, six months passed between us first hearing that Kevin once had a wife named Shazia, who ended up institutionalized.In the moment, Lina managed to get her on the phone. Later in the story, I'll tell you how we tracked her down.
It's quite a saga.When we finally do, she asks us to meet her here, at an alehouse in the Loyola district of Chicago.
Something got triggered in me when August died.I think it wasn't just the visceral nature of her death, because I've tried to hang myself in the past. I felt a connection to her.I felt I understood her hurt.And I felt, like, in a weird way.
I wish I had kind of just reached out to her and just been like, hey, you know, I'm Kevin's ex-wife.Congratulations.But I didn't.You know, like, come on.Like, who, you know, contacts their ex's spouse?
But it broke my heart hearing that, because I could only imagine the hurt she must have been going through.
A few days ago Shazia emailed Kevin to tell him that we'd made contact and she'd decided that she would meet us.But she says the email didn't turn out how she'd planned.
I got a little angry, because you know, once you start typing, at first, you know, I'm trying to have class and grace about it.And then, you know, as you're typing, you're like, oh, I got angrier.But I was just like, you're a piece of shit.
I'm so lucky I got away from you.I feel so sad about this beautiful young girl who had the misfortune of meeting you.
I didn't give him a chance to respond.And I told him, like, this is the only way you'll be able to reach me.And you better believe this will be deleted, this whole account, within five minutes.And that's that.
After Shazia contacted Kevin, he called us to say that she has severe mental illness.Her reality isn't the same as other people's.
And if we're expecting a reasonable conversation, it's not going to happen, as she doesn't remember things how they actually were.
Yeah, so I don't know where you guys want to start.
The Last Days of August was written by me, John Ronson.It was produced by Lina Macitsis.The music is by Joel Ronson.The sound engineer is Paul Schneider.
Thanks to Eric Newsom, Colin Campbell, Jonathan Kurland, Vanessa Harris, Rosa Oh, Jose Acevedo, Elaine Ronson and David Bloom.
If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal urges or ideation, you can phone the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1800 273 8255.
