Hollywood loves a comeback, but nobody expected one from a guy who spent the late nineties getting hit in the face with shovels in Scary Movie sequels. For a long time, the conversation about Simon Rex in porn was treated like a dirty little secret or a punchline in a tabloid. People knew it happened, but nobody really talked about it—at least not seriously.
Then came 2021. Sean Baker, the director who has a knack for finding beauty in the fringes of society, cast Rex in Red Rocket. Suddenly, those old tapes weren't just a skeleton in the closet. They were the foundation for one of the most authentic performances of the decade.
💡 You might also like: Cheryl Cole: Why the Geordie Icon Still Matters in 2026
The Reality of 1993: Why He Did It
Let's be real for a second. In 1993, Simon Rex was nineteen. He was a kid in Los Angeles with no money, no connections, and a job bussing tables that wasn't paying the rent. He lived in a tiny apartment with a girlfriend and her toddler. He was desperate.
When he saw an ad in a local magazine looking for "nude models," he didn't see a career path. He saw a way to keep the lights on. He ended up filming a few solo scenes for a studio called Club 1821.
We aren't talking about a massive filmography here. It was a handful of tapes with titles like Young, Hard & Solo #2 and Hot Sessions III. He used the alias "Sebastian." It was solo work—just him on camera.
Rex has been pretty blunt about this in recent years. He told The Guardian that at eighteen or nineteen, you just don't make great decisions. You're impulsive. You're broke. You think, "Whatever, nobody will ever see this."
Then he became famous.
From MTV to the "Scandal"
Fate is weird. Not long after those tapes were made, Rex was at a modeling agency with his girlfriend. The agency didn't want her; they wanted him. Suddenly, he was on a plane to Milan. By 1995, he was an MTV VJ, the face of a generation, interviewing icons like Tupac Shakur.
But the internet was growing.
When those adult videos resurfaced in the late nineties, the industry didn't know how to handle it. Today, an OnlyFans or a leaked tape is almost a marketing requirement for some influencers. Back then? It was a career-killer. Disney reportedly dropped him from a project. He became "the guy who did porn."
He leaned into the goofiness. He did the Scary Movie franchise. He became Dirt Nasty, a rap persona that was basically a parody of a sleazy Hollywood degenerate. He stayed busy, but he was essentially a "pariah" in the eyes of serious casting directors.
Why Red Rocket Changed the Narrative
For about fifteen years, Simon Rex was just... around. He was living in Joshua Tree, mostly out of the spotlight, feeling like his time had passed. Then Sean Baker called.
Baker didn't cast Rex in spite of his past; he cast him because of it. In Red Rocket, Rex plays Mikey Saber, a washed-up, silver-tongued adult film actor who returns to his small Texas hometown.
The parallels are impossible to ignore. There is a "meta" layer to the movie that makes it feel dangerously real. When you watch Mikey Saber try to hustle his way back into relevance, you're seeing pieces of the real Simon Rex.
The industry finally stopped laughing and started paying attention.
✨ Don't miss: Ariana Grande Purple Hair: What Really Happened With That Lavender Era
- He won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead.
- He picked up the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for Best Actor.
- Critics at Cannes gave him a five-minute standing ovation.
Honestly, the very thing that almost ruined him—the history of Simon Rex in porn—became the exact thing that gave him the "street cred" to play Mikey Saber. You can't fake that kind of lived-in desperation.
The Nuance of the "Adult" Past
It’s worth noting that Rex’s work was "solo." In interviews, he’s mentioned that MTV specifically asked him back in the day if he had sex with other people on camera. Since the answer was no, he survived the initial PR firestorm.
But even if he had, the way we view these things has shifted. We live in an era where the line between "mainstream" and "adult" is incredibly thin. Rex was just thirty years ahead of the curve. He was the first real "internet era" celebrity to have his past archived and weaponized against him before we had a word for "cancel culture."
What We Can Learn From the Rex Revival
Simon Rex didn't apologize for his past. He didn't try to scrub it from Wikipedia. Instead, he waited until he found a director who saw the value in his "damaged" reputation.
If you're looking at his story as a case study, the takeaway is pretty clear. Authenticity is the only currency that actually appreciates in Hollywood. People can smell a fake a mile away. Rex succeeded in Red Rocket because he wasn't afraid to look pathetic, sleazy, and vulnerable.
If you want to dive deeper into how he transitioned from the desert to the red carpet, your best bet is to watch the A24 "Red Rocket" behind-the-scenes features. It shows the raw, unpolished side of independent filmmaking that saved his career. Or, check out his interview on the Allegedly podcast where he breaks down the Disney firing in detail.
The era of Simon Rex being a "former porn star" is over. He's just an actor now. A really good one.
To see the shift for yourself, watch his 2022 Independent Spirit Awards acceptance speech. It’s the moment the "pariah" finally came home.