Wesley Woods, the gay adult performer who made headlines in 2017 when he came after fellow performer Colby Keller for his support of Donald Trump and in 2018 when he was the victim of an anti-gay hate crime in West Hollywood, has announced his retirement.
Woods told AVN: “I can’t get out fast enough. My asshole hairs are burning. I love the industry; I love everyone in it. But definitely the past year, I have treated it much more like work. I show up when I need to and I live my life. I realized I had to start protecting my energy and myself—and sometimes that means backing away. When you’re constantly surrounded on social media by dicks, assholes and bodies it can become toxic, and you have to know when to put your phone down and walk away.”
Woods told Askmen that the anti-gay assault ultimately led him to the decision: “After my assault in August 2018, I felt completely isolated from the world. It’s hard to explain, but I’ll never forget that feeling. The assault stirred up so many emotions and I began to back away from friends, withdrew from family and slowed down on social media. Initially, I didn’t handle the situation very well. I threw myself into work, constantly traveling and drinking. I didn’t feel like myself, and in some ways I took on the emotional energy that it was my fault that this happened, and that I deserved it. It became harder and harder to wake up happy, which was something that once seemed so inherently natural to me.”
“I spoke with a few therapists and after months of intensive work on myself emotionally and mentally, I finally began to allow myself to focus on me what makes me happy, what I want to do, where I want to go and who I want to be,” he added. “My isolation made me seek out a different approach to what I’m doing, a deeper listening to who I want to be, where I want things to go. I want to do more standup, I’d love to somehow help queer homeless youth and I want to be a source of light, love, and inclusivity in our community. I’ve given so much time and energy to the adult film industry, and I want to focus my time and energy elsewhere. This isn’t to say that you can’t do and be it all, I’m just being called to something else. I can feel it.”
