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 don't know why Kevin said he waited in the dark for hours when his apartment only lost power for a few minutes.It's possible that Southern California Edison gave us bad information.But I doubt they did, because they confirmed it with us twice.
So I guess there's two possibilities. Maybe Kevin didn't drive around looking for August as much as he'd said, and instead he just upped and checked into the Sheraton when the lights went out.
Or maybe, in all the panic and confusion, he's just misremembering the timeline of the night. It's a mystery without a solution, because I never got the chance to ask him that question, for reasons that will become clear.
But one time, when I told him that people were speculating on his unusual behaviour in the aftermath of August's death, this is what he said.
What I resent most of all is everyone expects me to be rational and normal.Fuck that.Tell me what grief is. Tell me why, how I'm supposed to be.I hide in this house and I don't go anywhere.
I'm not gonna sit here and justify who I am because I deal with things my way.But this idea that I'm supposed to grieve in a certain way, man, go fuck yourself.Not to you, I'm talking to the world.
Kevin had said all of this to me back in the early summer.It's late summer now, and I guess I am one of the people who expects him to be rational and normal, because what he's about to do comes as a shock.Before I tell you, here's some background.
In a few weeks, Kevin is due to fly to Canada to hand August's ashes over to her family.And as he told me back in July, I'm dreading it.
This is the moment I've been dreading all year. I like her being here.
We leave Kevin alone during August because we know how nervous he is about the trip.August's brother James is dreading his visit too, but for different reasons.
I don't even know what Jessica Drake looks like and I haven't heard anything bad about Jessica Drake other than a little bit of bullying.My focal point is Marcus Dupree, Jackson Wheeler, whoever was on that fucking set that day, Kevin Moore.
James' family is worried about James.They're worried he might do something stupid when Kevin comes to Canada.
I was trying to be talked out to go to the fucking funeral in August.Oh, you shouldn't go there with your temper.You shouldn't you shouldn't be put yourself near some people that you can't control yourself.Are you guys fucking high?
Are you kidding me?Tell me not to go to my sister's funeral.
Before the 23rd.That's all I know.That's all we don't talk anymore.
And are you planning to confront him?
I don't know what I'm going to do.I'm planning on going to the liquor store and getting a mickey and getting some Ativan and fucking getting through the day.
I didn't realize when I first contacted James that he knew as little as we did about what happened to his sister after she left Canada for the valley.
He never visited her there and instead when they'd speak on the phone he would try and gauge her state of mind from her tone of voice. Her LA life was a mystery to him, and so his suspicions grew.
By the time we made contact, he had begun to see Kevin as a malevolent, insidious figure in her life.In fact, the first time we talked, he read me a letter that he had written Kevin, but hadn't sent.
Kevin, all I know of you is what Mercedes told me, and I have to say I'm ashamed to say you're my brother-in-law.
Yes, the entire family is going through hard times and may think highly of you in your time of grieving, but what family doesn't know is the Kevin that was described to me through Mercedes.I refuse to believe her death was a suicide.
Mercedes was a Grabowski first, and no amount of bullying can tear us, break us, or kill us.We stand together.How dare you not protect my loving sister?How dare you blame bullying?
That was months ago, and now James is just days from meeting Kevin at the funeral.
You guys are allowed to come.That's my sister.You guys are more than welcome.It's public.If you guys want to go, you guys can be there.
As it happens, my family vacation is booked for that same date, and so Lena and I decide that Lena will go for the both of us.Not to record, but out of respect.
Lena phones Kevin to tell him the news and he replies that it'll be nice to have her there as a friendly face.
A few days later, Lena texts Kevin again to say she's decided to definitely go and Kevin texts back, do what you must, our relationship has reached its conclusion.
Startled, Lena phones James, who says that Kevin has been calling August's family in a rage, to say that he's so angry that they've invited a reporter, he is second-guessing whether to attend himself.That's the part that feels so startling.
Not that Kevin didn't want to see us anymore.Of course, it was his choice to stop talking to us whenever he wanted, and I am grateful for the time that he did give us. The startling thing is that his threat to August's family feels so loaded.
He has August's ashes, and if he doesn't go to Canada, the family don't get her back.
He likes to be in control, so he needed to do anything and everything he could to make sure that he still had a little piece of control, a little piece of power.
Lena and James decide that Lena won't attend the funeral.She'll stay at a nearby hotel instead and will meet the family after Kevin has gone home.
Anybody who he didn't like Like you Lena.
Well, you're the only person but I feel like he was trying to control that because because of the story you're doing Lena's not doing a bad story Mercedes Okay, you think I'd really fucking talk to this girl sitting beside me in the car right now?
She's doing a bad story.My sister.No, I'd open the door and kick her the fuck out.I
And so, on a Thursday in late August, this would have been August's 24th birthday, her ashes are spread across a lake in the tiny town of Sherbrooke, Nova Scotia.Sherbrooke is a theme town depicting village life in the 1800s.
The townspeople wear traditional clothes and they forge metal and herd sheep. The morning after the funeral, August's mother's side of the family gather around the leftovers of the previous night's bonfire.
Her father's side of the family stay away from the funeral completely.At one point, somebody says that everyone in the family had been in the military except for August.Someone else chimes in, well, she enlisted in her own sort of army.
They all talk about how reserved and aloof Kevin had been at the funeral.Later, James takes Lena for a drive.
Do you mind if I ask you a little bit about Kevin?
He's one of a kind.One of a kind for sure.Well, he never met any of the family before, so obviously he wasn't in his element.And the family obviously knows his line of work, so he just kept to himself mostly. He's different.He's a different guy.
He's not cupping the same cloth as we are.I was nervous about meeting the guy because of what I think about him.But once he brought Mercedes back, reality sank in and I was like, okay, this is Mercedes day.
I got to put my feelings aside and do this for my sister.So I just fucking let bygones be bygones.Got through the day and now there's no need for me to contact him again. I kept it neutral.I wasn't a prick, but I wasn't nice.
Okay, let's shut that off for now.
James doesn't want Lena recording inside the cemetery, so she leaves her recorder in the car.August's headstone overlooks the lake where her ashes were spread.It's inscribed with the words, My Mermaid.
I love camping and fishing and all that stuff, but I haven't found anyone out here who's really into that. My husband, the last thing he would want to do is fucking go camping.
Because I talked to Kevin about our cottages back home and how we get clean in the lake because it's fresh water.And Kevin's like, oh, fuck that.Yeah, that's exactly what my thought was.Fuck that.I want a hot shower.
To me, I'm like, I love going in the lake.I feel so clean.I love it.I love skinny dipping back at home.It's my favorite pastime, I guess.
Well, thank you so much for coming on.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
And thank you for being so open and honest and candid with us.I know we talked about some difficult subjects for you.
And I didn't want it to have like another like, oh, everything's, you know, fucking peachy keen.
That's what your Instagram's for.
I know, right?But yeah, no, I just love being open and honest.
And yeah, that's why we love you so much.
In mid-October 2018, just a few weeks before we finish our reporting, we watch the uncut footage of the scene between August and Marcus Dupree.It has never been released and I won't tell you who showed it to us.
Given that we're watching it to gauge how palpable her distress was and what that might tell us about the actions and inactions of the men in the room, I ask Lena to write down and record her thoughts.
It just felt to me that a woman may notice things that a man may not.Plus, she's been on a lot more porn sets than I have.Although, as it turns out, my perception of the video is the same as hers.
Although we promised the person showing us the video that we wouldn't reveal their identity, I will say this.They had me wait until after business hours so that no one would see me arrive.
And when I was let in, they escorted me into their office and locked the door behind me. The person showing me the video was excited for me to watch it.Before I even sat down, they said, this should clear up everything.
I think you'll be very satisfied with what you see.And what they meant was that, when we're done, we'll understand definitively that nothing bad happened that day.I asked to FaceTime in John from his home in New York.
And together, the three of us watched the footage. Marcus Dupree's mentor is Rocco Sofretti, the porn veteran who brought Marcus to America.The two men are famous for being domineering, alpha male performers.
Rocco has said of shooting porn, quote, I want to see emotion.I want to see fear.I want to see eyes going up from being surprised.Marcus has the same philosophy. I've been on more than 100 sets.I've watched more than 300 scenes being shot.
And in all that time, only one performer has asked me to leave the room when it comes time to shoot.And it was Marcus.It's in character for him.He's known for wanting to control what happens on set.
What's always stood out to me most on shoots isn't how the performers behave while the camera is rolling.It's how they behave when the director calls cut.Usually when a director calls cut, performers remain engaged.
Sometimes they'll take pictures with one another to post on Instagram.Often they'll have such good chemistry that they just keep on having sex. When the director and August and Marcus's shoot calls cut, August backs away.
She stands up straight, looks down at the floor, and avoids eye contact.She doesn't say anything, and just before the director starts shooting again, Marcus tells August that she's quote, amazing. August lets out a single, half-hearted chuckle.
The sex looks violent.In her text to her friend, August says that Marcus went full-on war machine.War machine was a professional fighter turned porn actor who was sentenced to life in prison for brutally assaulting his girlfriend.
And I understand why August compared her scene partner to him. Marcus is pounding into her quickly and methodically.He pulls her hair hard, so hard that you can see her scalp.
On multiple occasions, he pushes her head back down, and at one point he pushes it onto a table.When August tries lifting her head back up, he uses his other hand to reinforce his hold on her.
I've seen dozens of other male performers pull similar moves, choking and hair-pulling and slapping, but they all seem to have a sense of affection and intuition that Marcus lacked that day.Marcus is athletic.
He tries different positions and maneuvers on August, and I say on intentionally.On more than one occasion in the footage, Marcus forcefully repositions August, which visibly startles her.
She says, whoa, shit, and at one point, Marcus picks up her pink thong, stretches it around her head, jerks her around by it, and then shoves it in her mouth.
In her texts about the scene, August says that she was so disgusted by Marcus that she spat on him.Which is true, she does spit on him, but it's in response to him asking her to.Twice.She also has some bruises on her legs at the start of the scene.
Fewer than there are in the pictures she sends after the scene, but there are some.
And neither I nor John sees her looking at anyone off camera with help-me eyes, but the camera is not always focused on her face, so we can't say for sure if she did or didn't make eye contact with anyone on set.And that's it for discrepancies.
Otherwise, everything that August says happened in her text messages happens the same way on screen. Throughout the film, August says the word yes over and over again.It's actually one of the only words she uses.
And while I know that, generally speaking, yes means yes, I have to say that in porn, it's all but lost its meaning.There is one yes that diverges from the rest.
At the end of her scene, August is interviewed by a crew member to establish consent for legal purposes. She's staring straight into the camera, holding up her check for the day's work.Her makeup's gone.Her hair is pulled back.
She looks resigned and emotional and hollow all at once.Were you treated okay?She's asked.And flatly, quietly, she says yes.For the first time in this footage, all the camera is focused on is August's face, and she seems like she's verging on tears.
Often when I tell people that I've spent the past few years reporting on porn, they'll tell me that watching porn can be really hard for them because they imagine the women on screen to be secretly miserable.
And up until now, I felt very confident saying, no, that's not true, at least not with the girls I've met.But in this case, if this scene had been released and people watching it had worried that August was miserable, they'd be right.
It bears mentioning that Marcus is a very popular performer who's shot with hundreds of girls, many of whom love shooting with him.No one is on trial, and honestly, I can forgive the men in the room for not knowing that something was wrong.
The truth is, August never said stop.And if no one in the room was looking for something that might be wrong, they wouldn't have seen it.When Marcus ejaculates, some of it gets in August's eye.
For a moment, she tries staying in character, but she quickly breaks, looks squarely into the camera's lens, and she says, I'm done.
The day after we watch the footage, we finally get to speak with August's agent, Chris Kane.
Well, I mean, I was there the first day she got off the plane.So the day she got here from Canada to, you know, when she passed, there was rarely a day that we didn't speak with one another.
Chris declined our interview request the first time we approached him, and later he told us that he wanted us to provide him with a list of everyone we had spoken to for the story, which seemed like ominous interfering, and so we kept our distance.
But now in our final weeks of reporting, he has agreed to meet us with no strings attached. I sometimes think it was maybe a mistake for them to be living so far out because obviously being social meant a lot to her.
And so if they were living so far out, she might have felt more isolated.
Oh, I don't think there's any question about that.I mean, she brought that up many times to me that she didn't like living way out there, but Kevin didn't. You know, and I was really concerned about the relationship from day one.Kevin's a nice guy.
You know, I don't have any issues with Kevin, but he's a very introverted guy.He doesn't really like going out.I don't really think he likes people a whole lot.August, on the other hand, is very extroverted.
So you're taking a very extroverted person and putting him with a very introverted person.
It's funny that you should say that Kevin doesn't like people much because Kevin said those exact words to us once to describe himself.
Really?Oh, that's actually surprising to me.But, you know, over the years, I've asked August many times, hey, do you and Kevin want to do this?Or do you and Kevin want to do this?
And she would always say, well, you know, Kevin wants to stay in the room.
Chris said that when August first moved to California, before she started dating Kevin, she was very social.
She went out almost every single night.And going from that extreme to the exact opposite had to be hard.I don't think it was anything intentional Kevin did or anything.That's just the way Kevin is.
The worst thing was, I guess, the guilty feelings that Kevin gave her when she went out, because that definitely had some bearing.
That's the one thing that she said to me multiple times, is that it's tough to go out because Kevin always makes her feel guilty when she comes back home or whatever.
And I really didn't understand that because if if if they lead such different lives when they're at the house What does it matter whether August is gone or not?You know, but did you say that to her?Yeah, I did say that to her She just goes I know
You know, when you talk about her suicide, I just don't think that was one of the main factors that contributed to that.She didn't hate Kevin or anything like that.In fact, she goes, you know, I love Kevin, but I'm just not in love with Kevin.
She goes, you know, Kevin's done a lot for me, and it seems like we're two different people.You know, I come home from a scene, and he's in one room, and I'm in the other room.And, you know, it's like we're leading two different lives.
You know, cause there was a big age gap and stuff, you know, and she, she said she was going to ask him for a divorce.And then I spoke with her a few days before she passed the first week of December, December 1st or second.
And I said, Hey, what happened when you, you know, asked Kevin for a divorce or whatever?And she goes, well, he wants to do family therapy.And I could tell she was a little bit down on that.And I just said, well, don't I go, that's okay.
If you guys are able to work it out great.And if not three months later, you can, always, you know, ask again for a divorce.And she was just like, I know, I know.
Kevin never physically abused her because I asked her and I said, did he ever physically abuse you or anything?And she was like, no, absolutely not.He's never touched me or anything.And I said, okay.
When was the last time you thought you spoke to her?
The day she died, she called me at about 3.30 and asked me if I had seen Twitter.And I said, no.I said, why?What happened?
And she told me that she had posted on there that she didn't want to have sex with a crossover male and that there were some people that were bashing her.And she particularly mentioned Jessica Drake was bashing her.
And, you know, I just told her to ignore those people.
Do you remember what she said about Jessica Drake?
She just basically said, you know, Jessica's got a lot of nerve.I mean, she's a contract girl, a wicked, and she probably has a list of three or four guys that she does, and that's it.
What was her tone of voice like?Did she sound kind of broken by it, panicking?Did she sound annoyed?
Angry, angry.At 3.30 in the afternoon, she was pissed.She was pissed that people, she thought people in the industry should have come to her support and they weren't.I would say angry and also a little upset.
I mean, you know, the bullying was really, she was really upset by the bullying for sure. But if you were to ask me did she appear suicidal or anything like that to me, I would say no.
I gotta be honest, over the last year we've moved away from the bullying as being a kind of motive for her suicide.
Well, I mean, don't you think it's a coincidence that the day she got bullied on is the day she hung herself? August was definitely depressed at that point in time.
She had a really bad scene with a company and that scene had brought up some memories from her childhood years.
I consider that one a big factor because just from the way that, how emotional she was when she was describing the scene and crying to me and stuff like that, that, you know, I could tell that really affected her.And then, like I said, that happened.
And then in such a short timeframe, the bullying, and it just pushed her over the edge.
Chris didn't only talk to August the day she went missing, he talked to Kevin too.
Yeah, Kevin called me, I want to say it was around 7.30 at night.And he said, hey, have you heard from August?And I said, no, I haven't.
And he goes, well, she told me she was going down to the gym and I just went and looked and her car is not there and she's not there. And I was like, no idea.The last time I talked to her was 3.30, and I hadn't talked to her since then.
I think we just kind of ended, well, if either one of us hears from her, let's contact the other one and let them know.And so I text August and called August, and it went straight to voicemail.This was 7.30, 8 o'clock, something like that.
And then at midnight, I called up Kevin, because I hadn't heard anything, and I called up Kevin to ask if he had heard from her.And he said, no, I still have not heard from her.And that was it.
And then I didn't hear from Kevin until the next day at about 9.30.Kevin called me up and said that August is gone.And it's funny, because I really didn't understand what he meant by that.Did she go back home?Did she leave you?
I mean, what are we talking about?And he's like, no, she hung herself, and she's dead.
How did Kevin sound in each of those three phone calls?
I would say Kevin just sounded very calm.Calm?Yeah, calm.
In each one of the calls?Yeah.Unusually so, or...?
Well, I don't talk to Kevin enough to know, is he always like that?I've never been in that situation before, ever, and... I don't know how he reacts.
There was one last thing that Chris wanted to say.It was something a few people had mentioned to us and another reason why the porn community had begun to feel wary of Kevin.
It relates to a memorial that Kevin organised in the weeks after August's death.
First, Kevin didn't want to have a memorial, which I really didn't understand.August was well-liked by everybody.It was kind of invite-only, and it was nice.
It was at the park and everything, and all the tables had pictures on it, but none of her friends, none of her family, none of her friends, nothing.They were just pictures of her or her and Kevin.That's it.
I remember when I heard August Ames died, I texted a couple of my friends.I just jokingly said, like, oh, I'm sure he murdered her.And all three of them said, like, yeah, that's what I think, too.
From the beginning, this was the rumour circulating the industry.Although James' feelings towards Kevin have softened a little now that they've met, a lot of people in the Valley still have those suspicions about Kevin.
I was reading statistics about it.The research on it was that women don't tend to kill themselves in public.
This is the porn star Mercedes Carrera.
Women tend to think, well, who's going to find me?Are there going to be children?Women don't tend to display themselves in martyrdom.They tend to hole up and kind of die more privately.
Of all the rumours, I think the one about foul play is actually the easiest to resolve.Last week we sent the medical examiner's report about August to the forensic pathologist, Judy Melinek, for a second opinion.
And she got back to us within 24 hours.
This looks like a pretty straightforward autopsy report for a hanging case.There's a full autopsy and also toxicology included. There's a mixture of drugs in her system.
Most of them would not be considered at any levels that would be so intoxicating that she wouldn't be able to do this herself.And there's nothing at the scene to indicate that there was any kind of struggle.
So there isn't any evidence that this was done to her by some other person, either on her body or at the scene.
That said, the only significant finding really is the alprazolam at 180 nanograms per ml is higher than what I would normally consider for therapeutic levels.These are toxic levels.
But it's not so high that she would be unconscious or incapable of hanging herself.Some of it may be that she took a bunch in the suicide attempt, but it wasn't working fast enough, so she decided to hang herself instead.
Is there anything at all in this report that jumped out at you as being just in any way unusual?
The only thing that stood out for me was the fact that it was in a public space.
So we're dealing with a public park, and usually that's an indication to me that the decedent, the person who's doing this, doesn't want to be found by people who love them.They don't want to be found by family members.
So it usually shows a certain level of concern with regards to that.
During the weeks after Kevin tells us that our relationship has concluded, I listen back to our hours of interviews to see if there's anything I might have missed.
What I find is this.I had a cat for 15 years.It's from our first visit to his apartment.Her name was Kush.Kush got cancer in the stomach.
I became obsessed with trying to fix her.
I would get up in the middle of the night to check on her.Any noise she made, I'd come running.
I have to admit that at the time, this story didn't resonate with me too much.Back then, I was interested in whether the most extreme rumors about Kevin might be true, and so this story felt beside the point.
But now I realize it's the closest Kevin ever came to describing what their relationship was really like during her last days.
By October, it had gotten pretty bad.And I knew once the physical pain hit, I said I would end it.The physical pain hit, so I had to make the decision to put her down.I didn't feel better.I sort of withdrew from life.And I withdrew from Mercedes.
I just wasn't there.You don't realize it when you're in the moment. So I would sit there and look at photos of Kush.It's sad.She talked to her therapist about it, that she didn't know what to do for me.
I didn't know she'd be dead six weeks later.
Not long after Marcos, the Las Vegas stills photographer, told me how ill-equipped he was to deal with his young girlfriend's mental health issues, I raised the subject with Kevin in a phone call.
Do you think there's a problem with the fact that these kind of young women come into the industry, they meet older men, they see them as kind of father figures, presumably because of bad things that have happened in these girls' lives growing up,
But then it turns out that these older men also because, you know, they're also attracted to the porn world because they're kind of screwed up themselves and incapable of dealing with, you know, such complicated issues.
And I don't say that as a criticism.I say it's just the facts of life.They may look like 45 year old men, but inside they're just messed up kids too.
Well, you're asking that as a personal, I don't know why you're phrasing it in this vague way. You're asking about my relationship with Mercedes.
You know what?I know that it sounds like that, but I see that happening all over the place.That's interesting.I did not know that.The blind leaving the blind.
With Mercedes, I have no defence.My defence is really simple.I fell in love with her.
And then a little later on in that same conversation, Kevin said the most self-reflective thing I've ever heard him say.
I don't think there's anything wrong with sex or pornography, but I think the business is very sick. I'm getting very, very subversively sick.There's the reality that for 20 years I've lived a life that I kind of regret now.
We are making a living off the backs of the mentally ill.I can't say to the business, you guys have ruined people's lives and not include myself.
And so, in an attempt to make amends, he's trying to create what he calls the August Project.
It will be a resource so that if any of you find yourself on the edge of a cliff, help is a phone call away.
He's been talking about it ever since he made his speech at the AVN Awards.It involves him meeting and filming young performers with mental health issues.
My plan was to put out little videos centered around one performer and be like, you know, this is so-and-so's truth.Hopefully people retweet it and it gets out there.
But what I find is a lot of them aren't coping.I don't know.It's sort of like I come out of those things a little depressed, to be honest with you.
My hope was to get more of like, this was me in my depths.Now look at me now.This is how I cope.This is what I do.The problem is I'm not getting much of the other part.
During my final meeting with Kevin, I mentioned to him one more time the impression that so many people have of him, that he is emotionally distant to an unusual degree.
I couched it by saying that all of us have things about our personalities that aren't perfect.It's just us humans are all made up of good and bad character traits.
We're totally made, at least I am.We're both awkward people.Yeah.
The phrase that comes up about you frequently enough for it to merit me asking you this question is a kind of emotional unavailability.Mercedes said it to friends about you.Shazia said it about you.
The problem is, is when someone has a hole as big as both of them had, there is not enough of me to give to fill that hole.
You're talking about both of them had had horrible trauma in their lives, Mercedes issue with foster care, rejection by a father.That has long lasting consequences.It doesn't mean I didn't try as hard as I could, but then there's reality.
You can't make someone whole again, no matter what you do.
There are some facts I can now tell you for sure about that night.Although Kevin says he telephoned August thousands of times, he only texted her three times.I know this because he showed me the texts.The first was at 6.49pm.
It read, What did you want to do about dinner? The second text was at 7.37pm and it read, Babe, did you want to get some dinner?And the last text was at 10.04pm.I'm really worried.The power is out and I can't reach you.Where are you?
After that, he didn't text her again.I know August didn't go to the tanning salon. The people at TAN LA in Camarillo checked their records and told us that she went the day before, and the day before that, but not on December the 4th.
And so we don't know where she went. When I try and picture August's last days, I think about the sense of loneliness that often seems to cloud the suburbs of Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.Those long streets entirely empty of pedestrians.
The big houses that you can't see behind the high walls.As Shazia had put it to me,
I'm in this place where I don't have friends, I don't have family, and there was just this profound loneliness I woke up with and went to bed with and was on set with.
Throughout the 10 months we worked on this story, it was notable how often the very same words came up when people described Kevin and August's relationship.
She had always confided in me about how he isn't paying enough attention to her, how he ignores her.
She told me she was living with him just like as a roommate.He wasn't very attentive to her.He kind of sat in his office all day and played video games, just neglecting her.
She would kind of outwardly complain that he hasn't paid any attention to her.He's more off in his own world playing video games.
Yeah, it was literally like living with a roommate that couldn't care about you.
Can I get a piece of paper?I'm just going to draw some stuff out.
A few hours into my first meeting with Kevin, he said he wanted to draw me a diagram to explain why he felt justified in laying much of the blame onto Jessica Drake.
So this is Mercedes young, and this is Mercedes as an adult.Mercedes then moves through life.While she moves through life, all these things happen to her.She talked about it on Holly's podcast. The molestation.
What messed her up was her father put her in foster care.The new wife didn't want Mercedes.So the father chose the new family over his own daughter.That haunted her.
I will never publicly show her note, her suicide note, but the one thing she says in it, she doesn't talk about the industry, the one thing she says is, do not involve my father. So now let's talk suicide.Three circles, all interconnected.
Top one, burdensomeness.This was a common theme.She always felt like a burden.She would tell me all the time, I'm a burden.I'm a burden on your life.Your life would be better without me.Fearlessness is this one.
In order to successfully kill yourself, there has to be a bit of fearlessness.And then in the final, is thwarted community.So you have the father putting her in foster care.She created her own new community, even though she kind of hated it.
I mean, she hated the business, let's be real.But then when the bullying happened, that community was gone.They did to her what her father did to her.They rejected her, in her mind.That's why she's not here anymore.
When Kevin drew me that diagram, he was at pains to exclude himself from any responsibility.It was the others, like Jessica Drake, and not him, who had discarded August.
But those hours playing video games in his room and staring at the pictures of the cat may have felt to August like being discarded, too.I think Kevin knows that, because later he said this.
My point is that we're all poorly made, even the good ones. We all struggle.I do think there are shitty people in the world, there are bad people, there are evil people.I know I'm not evil.I know that for a fact.
I just think there are times when I have my own struggles, and that's the ravages of life.
The medical examiner said August chose to end her life in a park, most likely out of consideration for Kevin, so he wouldn't be the one to find her. It made me realise how often her actions seemed guided by consideration for the men in her life.
There was the way she tried to clear the air with her father, although that was to no avail.There was the time she was 15 and the man she was babysitting for offered her a line of coke if she'd get naked.She dismissed that one as, quote, growing up.
Like it was just a kind of silly thing that happens. And there was the reason she told the men from the Marcus Debris shoots that everything was fine.It was so they wouldn't feel unprofessional or bad about themselves.
In fact, as a porn star, making men feel good was what August did for a living. So that's how she treated the men in her life.And some of them, like her brother James, reciprocated with kindness of their own.But what about the others?
I think Kevin's been thinking about that too, because one day he said this to me.How do you feel about the fact that there's people in the industry who are going around calling you a murderer?
I'm angry, but I'm not surprised.I've been doing this 20 years.The reality is we all did it. We all are complicit.We all are.
The Last Days of August was written by me, John Ronson.It was produced by Lina Misitsis.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.
