Meron

Martha has had 30 overdoses. She got knocked out cold on the street for her backpack. She lies in her own vomit when the dope runs out. She used to work in a hospital lab with a college degree. Her mom has her 11-year-old son and won't even tell her if he's okay. It all started with a dentist. Today she pulls copper wire out of the trash for $10 a day. She's from Northeast Philly. Mom and dad stayed together. "Great Christmases, great birthdays. Anything we wanted, we had." At 17 she fractured her teeth and the dentist prescribed Percocet. At 20 she hurt her back and the doctor gave her more. And more. Then it stopped. Heroin was $10 a bag. "It ended up being a more fiscally responsible way of getting help." She got her degree. She worked as a clinical lab tech, handling blood every day. She got clean after she had her son. Then her father died in 2020. She's been using ever since. In the video below she explains what the new dope does to a person. How does she start every day? "Every day I say today's going to be my last day. Every day." How many times has she overdosed? "30." What does Narcan feel like? "I'd rather be dead than Narcan'd. That's how I feel at the time." What's withdrawal like? "You're going to the bathroom on yourself. You're laying in your own vomit. You cannot physically get up. Hell on earth." Would she wish it on anyone? "I wouldn't wish this on Satan himself." A few months ago a man came up behind her at 7:30 p.m. and knocked her out cold for her backpack. She woke up alone a few minutes later. Nobody saw anything. Her son is 11 now. The last time she saw him, he was 8. He lives with her mother. Her mother doesn't speak to her. "They won't even tell me how he's doing." Asked how her son would feel if he saw this: "I think he'd be proud of me for trying." Some people will say she's a grown woman who chose the needle. Others will say a dentist chose it for her at 17. The woman who used to test other people's blood in a hospital now gets Narcan'd on the sidewalk. Is Martha responsible for where she ended up, or is she exactly what the pill companies made?

Porn star Pinky's father has been locked up since she was 17. In prison he watches whatever he can get his hands on, and he's a big fan of another p*rn star, Cherokee. When his own daughter shows up in the same orgy scene, he just fast-forwards to someone else. She was supposed to be the one who made it. A scholarship to a special high school in Minnesota, violin, ballet, a shelf of awards. Everyone knew she was going to college. She didn't, and after years of recitals her mom had one rule: "Tell me first. I don't want to know from somebody in the street." So before she shot a single scene, Pinky sat her mom down and laid out the whole plan. She'd do it independently, sell her own DVDs in the club, build a website, then shoot for other companies and blow up. Her mom kept repeating the same thing: "I don't want to hear it." Then she convinced herself, and Pinky's grandmother, that her daughter wasn't doing p*rn at all. She was just "taking nasty pictures." That lasted until Pinky started showing up in magazines and in the little ads in the back. People kept mentioning her name. Her mom couldn't believe she was that popular, and Pinky says she still doesn't understand how popular. Now it's "my baby, my baby." Telling her father was worse. She says it was hard enough admitting she danced at the club, and people from San Francisco had already told him. With p*rn, she was "really embarrassed." "That's embarrassing that my father sees me f*cking on film," she says. "But it is what it is." His answer came from a prison fire camp. "I love you," he told her. As long as she's protecting herself, as long as it's what she wants and nobody's making her do it. He still has 4 years left. He might get out early for good behavior. Half the internet calls it the most supportive dad in America. The other half says no father should ever be in that position. Almost nobody talks about the fact that he's not skipping her scenes out of shame. He's skipping them because he still has to watch. She was the kid who got the scholarship. Her dad watches her career from a prison cell, one fast-forward at a time. Was Pinky a grown woman who built a business on her own terms, or a girl who never stopped performing for a family that was never in the room?

Capri Anderson was a 22-year-old p*rn star paid $3,500 just to have dinner with Charlie Sheen, the highest-paid actor on TV. Hours later she was locked in a Plaza Hotel bathroom in her underwear. She says he had choked her, thrown a lamp at her and come at her with a knife. It was October 2010. Her agent called with what sounded like easy money: a paid appearance at a dinner party in New York. $3,500. No s*x, just dinner. The host was Charlie Sheen, star of Two and a Half Men. At the restaurant she spent most of the night talking to his ex-wife, Denise Richards. Sheen kept drinking. She says he got louder and louder, threw around racial slurs and kept disappearing to the bathroom. At one point Denise Richards got up and left. By the end of the night his friend asked Capri one favor: just make sure Charlie gets up to his room and stays there. In the suite, she says, she watched him snort a white powder. There was a massage, some kissing, and she took her dress off. She is clear that she was there willingly. Then he put his hands around her neck. That's when it all fell apart. She pulled away and went for her phone. He started throwing things. First a lamp, hurled across the room. Then she saw something shiny in his hand, maybe a letter opener, maybe a knife. She ran into the bathroom and locked the door, in her underwear, and called a friend. Hotel security and the NYPD came. Sheen's lawyers later claimed she had expected to be paid for s*x. "Absolutely untrue," she says. She never even got the $3,500. Four months later Sheen was fired from the biggest show on TV. He got a meltdown, a sold-out live tour and a new sitcom. She got called a liar. Do you believe Capri Anderson, or was she just after Charlie Sheen's money?

Sophie Anderson slept with 20,000 men. 100 every weekend. £100 an hour. One of them was a dad from her son's school, and his wife made sure every parent knew. Her son had to change schools again and again. And his private school was paid for with that money. Before she became the "Cash or card?" meme and one of Britain's best-known p*rn stars, Sophie was a single mum working as an escort. She charged £100 an hour. On weekends she worked 48 hours straight, at least 100 clients from Friday to Sunday. By her own count, at least 20,000 men. She kept it all secret from her son. Then one of the school dads booked her. His wife went through his phone, found the messages and pictures of Sophie, and made sure every parent knew. She told her son to tell Sophie's son exactly what his mother was. Sophie had to move him to a new school. Then another. "Quite a few times." When he was 10 she sat him down at the kitchen table and told him the truth. Not the s*x, she says, but what she had to do for him. Because the money was real. "One of the oldest professions," she says, "and I was getting paid f*cking good money." It paid for private school for years. For every club, every instrument, every holiday he wanted. "Someone who's a prostitute, who people judge all the time, could put her son through private school. I felt the best ever." But she admits it spoiled him. And that he was judged for her, over and over. "I feel so bad. The worst ever." When her son was in year 8, she stopped hiding. She went into p*rn, became a gay icon, and turned "Cash or card?" into one of the most famous memes on the internet. She died in December 2023. She was 36.а

Lexxi Lovelace made $20,000 from one client at the Bunny Ranch. No s*x, he just wanted her to pee on him, and she called it the best day of her life. Then she sat in her room on mushrooms, counted how much the house was taking from her and quit the most famous brothel in America. It happened at the Bunny Ranch. She grew up in England, started in s*x work at 18, and went through everything: webcam, dominatrix, OnlyFans, dancing, sugar daddies. Then she landed at the most famous legal brothel in America. When she's asked about the most she ever made from one client, she laughs. A man booked her, she put on a dress, and the whole session was her peeing on him. That was the entire deal. About $20,000. She says she still thinks about him and hopes he's doing great. Her sugar daddies were a different level. One in San Antonio was a professional athlete. Others were CEOs. She swears none of them were married. But she quit that life too, because it felt like a full-time relationship she never signed up for. The Bunny Ranch looked like a dream from the outside. Inside it was 12-hour shifts, isolation, and brutal competition. Some women had been there 13, even 20 years, and a new young girl making fast money got hit with envy from every side. One day she microdosed mushrooms, pulled out her binder of earnings and started counting. The brothel takes 50% off the top. She saves 27% for taxes. Then airfare to get there, taxis, cooking three meals a day for herself, and around $300 a week for mandatory doctor testing. Run a $20,000 booking through that math: half goes to the house, 27% of the rest goes to taxes, and she's down to about $7,300 before a single flight, taxi or test. When she saw the final number, she packed her bags. "I never had a pimp," she says. "But giving away 50%? It was like having a pimp." Today she works for herself in Arizona. No house cut. No shifts. No one taking half.

Kendra Sunderland was 19 when she did an X-rated live cam show inside her university library. Her full name leaked. Her grandparents watched it on the evening news. Cops showed up at her door with a printed screenshot. That scandal made her one of the biggest names in p*rn. She had just started camming in college. The advice she got was simple: go somewhere public, you'll get more viewers and more money. Someone suggested Starbucks. She was afraid of getting banned from Starbucks, so she picked the university library instead. The show itself came and went. Months later, someone reposted the recording with a title using her full name. The whole campus passed it around. Then it hit the news. Her grandparents found out from TV that their granddaughter had been "arrested" in a public library. Her family already knew she was camming, and the way they found out is its own disaster. She made a secret Twitter account for her cam work under a fake name. When she added her phone number to secure it, Twitter automatically texted every contact in her phone: your friend just joined, go check them out. That included her mom's friends, the women whose kids she used to babysit. They told her mom. Then came the knock on the door. Police asked if she knew about "this library video." She said no. They held up a printed screenshot of her in the library. "We've seen it." She gave up: "All right, fine, you caught me." A fellow student had reported her. She pleaded guilty to public indecency and was fined $1,000. She left school. The internet named her "Library Girl," and she built her whole career on that name. Today she is one of the best-known names in the adult industry. She jokes that she can't afford a second public indecency charge. Career-ending scandal or the best marketing move of all time?

Carolyn Arellano was a stripper at 18 and a dr*g boss at 19. A man she rejected wore a wire and put her in prison. She kicked the door open and ran. For 14 days bounty hunters hunted her family. Then she walked back to the prison gates with Xanax hidden inside her body. She grew up in Newark, New Jersey, between gang members and dealers. At 15 she was one step away from joining a gang. On her 18th birthday a strip club hired her. Behind the bar she made $150 a night. On stage the girls made $800. She got on stage. The customers were dealers, and within months she had her own supply and her own people selling for her. The club manager wanted her. She said no and cut him off. She had no idea the cops had already raided his house and turned him. He came back wearing a wire. One day he stood outside her door, begging to use her bathroom. Two minutes inside was all he needed. Weeks later undercover cops threw her against her truck in the street. They kicked in her door, took her stash, took her jewelry, and sat her in a room: "10 years. Your kids go to foster care. Give us names." She didn't give them a single one. 18 months to 5 years. Her cellmate one bunk over was her own daughter's aunt, locked up for armed robbery. Inside she fell for a woman and ended up in fist fight after fist fight with that woman's exes. Girls planted contraband in her room to get her written up. She was weeks away from job release and knew that if she stayed one more day, she was going to seriously hurt someone. So she called her fiancé: pick me up at this time. Then she kicked the door and walked out. 14 days on the run. Manicure. Pedicure. Fresh tattoo. She even bought a car and registered it at the DMV while she was a fugitive. Then bounty hunters started banging on her father's door, and her grandmother was about to lose her house. She had her fiancé drive her to the prison, called the guards on speakerphone and said, "I ran away two weeks ago. Here's my ID number. Open the gates." She went back in with tobacco to sell and Xanax for herself, smuggled inside her body. They threw her in maximum security and solitary. Today she owns a cleaning company. Would you have walked back in?

Chloe Ayling was 20 when she flew to Milan for a photoshoot and woke up naked inside a duffel bag in the trunk of a car. Her kidnappers injected her with ketamine, chained her to a dresser and demanded €300,000. If nobody paid, she would be auctioned off on the dark web. It was July 2017. A British glamour model from London got booked for what looked like a high-profile gig in one of the fashion capitals of the world. She walked up to the studio, reached for the door, and a gloved hand clamped over her mouth and nose from behind. A second man rushed her from the front. They pinned her to the floor, the needle went in, and everything went black. When she woke up, her mouth was taped, her hands were cuffed to her ankles and she was zipped inside a black bag with no clothes and no shoes. She banged on the trunk and screamed "driver, driver." Nobody stopped. They drove her two hours out of Milan to a remote farmhouse and handcuffed her to a piece of furniture. When she asked why, the answer was worse than the kidnapping: "You've already been put up for sale." Her photos were posted on the dark web like a product listing, and her captor told her there was "huge interest." He told her that if she tried to run, she would be killed. For six days she kept him talking. Then she told him she had a two-year-old son. That changed everything. They drove her to the British Consulate in Milan and let her go. And then the internet turned on her. During those six days she had gone shoe shopping with one of her kidnappers, so half the world called it a publicity stunt. Other models posted photos mocking her. "It's disgusting," she says. The court didn't think it was a stunt. Lukasz Herba got 16 years and 9 months in prison. His brother Michal was extradited from the UK and convicted too. Years later, Chloe was diagnosed with autism, and she says that explains why she reacted so calmly that people refused to believe her. In 2024 the BBC turned her story into a six-part drama called Kidnapped. Do you believe Chloe Ayling, or do you still think it was staged?

Charles Manson ordered 7 murders in 2 nights, including Sharon Tate, 8 and a half months pregnant. The Beach Boys and Guns N' Roses recorded his songs. Sentenced to death, he lived 46 more years. In 1987, he told TV cameras: "Maybe I should have killed 500 people." Half of TODAY's own staff said that interview should never air. They aired it anyway. And it wasn't even the worst thing he said. In the video below, Manson is asked if he has ever felt remorse. He doesn't even let the question finish. "Remorse for what? You people have done everything in the world to me. Doesn't that give me equal right? I can do anything I want to you people at any time I want to." Then he goes further. "I haven't done anything I'm ashamed of. Maybe I haven't done enough." That's when he says it: "Maybe I should have killed 500 people. Then I would have felt better." He picks up the interviewer's book. "If I wanted to kill somebody, I'd take this book and beat you to death with it, and I wouldn't feel a thing. It'd be just like walking to the drugstore." A minute later, he flips completely. He calls himself stupid, a failure, a petty car thief. He says he's had all the money in the world 3 times and had to give it back. And then, to the camera: "What do you want to call me a murderer for? I've never killed anyone." His last words in the interview: "Believe me, if I started murdering people, there'd be none of you left." His death sentence was wiped out in 1972, when California abolished the death penalty. He was denied parole 12 times. The book about his case, Helter Skelter, sold over 7 million copies, the best-selling true crime book in history. Manson died in prison in 2017, at 83. Was Charles Manson a mastermind who controlled people like puppets, or a petty car thief the world turned into a monster?