Joanna Angel, who grew up in River Edge, is appearing this weekend at the Exxxotica adult expo at the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center in Edison. Watch video
RIVER EDGE - As an English literature major at Rutgers, Joanna Angel of River Edge waited tables at Applebee's in Piscataway before breaking into the porn business.
"Me and my roommate at Rutgers University decided it would be fun to start a porn site," said Angel, 34, now a porn industry entrepreneur in Los Angeles.
Angel (her stage name) is appearing this weekend at the Exxxotica adult expo at the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center in Edison. A punk porn actress - a model with piercings, tattoos and strange hairstyles - Angel has appeared at every Exxxotica in New Jersey over the past eight years and has attended the sex-and-love convention in other states.
So what made this college-educated woman from Bergen County decide on a self-styled career in porn?
"I was not a very good waitress," she said. "But I did it. I had fun."
Lacking a clear business plan, Angel said she simply worked all the time.
"This has never been easy money for me," she said. "I've had to work very hard since day one, getting this thing off the ground."
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While still a Rutgers student, Angel decided to tell her family about her plan to launch a website.
"We were eating dinner and I sat down and told them, 'Um, there's a bunch of naked girls on it,'" she said.
She said her mother was horrified. Her father told her to finish college. "Get your degree and then you can run whatever the hell business you want," he said.
She eventually did finish Rutgers, earning a degree in English literature with a minor in cinema studies.
"I don't regret going to college," she said. "I'm very thankful that my parents kind of forced me to go because I've made a lot of good friends and I definitely learned things and did things that I wouldn't have done on my own."
Despite earning her degree, some family members were unkind, she said.
"I had distant family members not talking to me anymore," she said.
Friends and associates had mixed feelings.
"Everyone was kind of like either disgusted or enthralled with the website," she said. "And everyone wanted to talk to me about it."
The attention was in stark contrast to growing up in River Edge, where she admits she had few friends. "I think I didn't know who I was yet. I wasn't a person," she said.
Occasionally, former classmates will call her show and speak with her on the air.
"I had somebody I went to high school with call my radio show the other day," she said.
"He was like, 'I went to high school with you.' I'm like, 'Well, then why didn't you talk to me then, when I needed friends? Why are you talking to me now when I'm trying to do a radio show?'"
Angel laughed about the exchange, then brought up her family.
"I'm close with my family," she said.
"They live on the East Coast, but they come out (to Los Angeles) a couple of times a year, I go out there a couple times a year," she said. "They don't let me go too long without seeing them or talking to them. We're all good."
Exxxotica opens Friday night and runs through Sunday. For more information about the convention, visit the website.
Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.