My Third Interview with Stella Barey
We Reflect Upon Our Businesses, Friendship, Boundaries and Daddy Issues
Hot breath, sticky feet, rain dripping down icily in a majestical pattern. I adjusted myself again and again on Stella’s uncomfortable-yet-definitely-expensive blue striped outdoor chair. I fixed my hair out of my face, and felt a tinge of nervousness. I thought, why are you nervous? You have been staying with Stella in her Puerto Rican jungle mansion for over a week now, you have worked with her for 2 years. You love her, she loves you. This is the annual interview you write every year with her. It’s Stella. Get it together, bitch. The rain stopped. The smell of her boyfriend’s bong that sat a few inches from my face comforted me, and touched the wounded stoner teenager that still lives somewhere deep inside my crusted-over soul.
She came in like an always-late fabulous New York woman, except she wore tiny shorts, a shirt that covered only half her nipples, and a long kimono. Scratch that. I just looked at the photo of us when we did the interview. She actually had on a big white t-shirt and red sweatpants. A baby pink pearl necklace wrapped around her, the one that she’s had since she was a kid. Sorry. The imagery of the tiny-short-half-covered-nipple woman was from a different memory of her. Thankfully, I brought my assistant/best friend Drew along on the Puerto Rico trip to help me organize my messy thought catalog, and also bring me white wine whenever I needed it.
Drew had left for San Francisco on an earlier flight that morning, and Stella’s boyfriend (also named Drew) was asleep in the master bedroom. What I had in that moment is the thing I treasure most in this world–alone time with Stella.
She stared at me with her big sentimental baby doll eyes, something feline and intense behind them. We shifted our focus on the chrome clouds, and made small talk about the rain coming down soon again. Though our conversations typically always roll into childhood, dreams, business, sex, there is always a sense of safety and innocence. To me, our friendship has sleepover-energy. It is always warm.
In our last article, we announced that I was your manager. Were you anxious about publicly considering me your manager instead of just your assistant?
“No.” Stella let out a long laugh. My shoulders came down, and the nerve in my neck started to unpinch itself. There was a long pause in between her laugh and her next words. “Literally never. We kinda just did it slowly behind the scenes. It just made sense as your next progression.”
What has changed in our business since that shift from assistant to manager?
“You have definitely taken on more of a leading role. We’ve always been business partners, but now it feels like we discuss everything 50/50.”
Establishing yourself as someone’s manager at the ripe age of I’m-never-telling is something I didn’t actually think would be intimidating. I can’t tell you how many posts and stories I’ve taken down that planted my feet further into businesswomanhood. I found myself to be, on most occasions, a funnel of worry. A funnel that allowed intruding thoughts of fear that someone from high school would judge me. God forbid my lame ex boyfriend saw that I was working with a porn star. I know it doesn’t sound believable, but I still struggle with it. One day I hope to gain the Instagram-posting confidence of a blonde girl in a pyramid scheme.
“I loved her so much. She’s one of my favorite people that I’ve met in a long time. She’s so smart and so observant and cute and sweet. Only good things. It honestly made me really excited for the future and feeling really positive about where we’re at right now, knowing this is who I have helping us.”
Drew is smart. Smarter than me. I can’t look into her eyes for too long, or else she’d probably figure out my social security number. She is calm, and quiet, and always attaches herself to loud people. Her mom is a girlboss. Her dad is bashful. I always got the sense that her older sisters looked up to her. She reads at the fastest rate I have ever known. She missed 72 days of her senior year at our high school, and still finished with a 4.8 GPA. We once tried molly together and spent the entire time verbalizing a manifesto about raising children together as best friends. We thought it was sincerely groundbreaking.
What is it like seeing me grow Not Your Publicist while I also help you grow your company?
“I think it’s so dope.” Stella said with a sigh-laugh. “It’s just been really cool to see you take something and run with it, and see the initiative you have to build something and make things happen unrelated to me. I feel like if I was in your position I’d do the same thing.”
I think a lot of CEOs would be fearful if their employee started their own business. How do you not feel that way?
“In one sense, our businesses are very different. Your business is a service that my business requires. It’s not in direct competition. It shows that you have confidence in making decisions, and believing in yourself to build something. Which, to me, is someone I should work with.
It shows me that you’re super motivated. If you’re motivated to grow your company and take on risks like hiring employees, it gives you even more motivation to make me a profitable client. I would never wish that anyone I work with would be stagnant or stuck in a role, I would rather them be really big thinkers. So, it has made me so happy. It’s crazy to look back to when we first met. Now, we’ve both built something that’s kind of what our futures are going to be, which is just so dope.”
I smiled deep inside and decided I would beat my chest to this audio recording at a later time. Dogs began to bark in the background and we both said nothing for a nanosecond before I started on my next question.
I just decided after two years of working solely with you to take on a second client. Do you trust me to tell me to tell you if it gets too much? Do you trust that you will always be the primary example of my company?
“Yeah. I trust it because I have no reason to believe otherwise, and I do think that it’s a good business decision for you to take on this new person. We’ve always been very open about what we’re dealing with and what’s not working. I want you to be happy, so I’m going to continue to trust that if you get overwhelmed or something is too much, you’ll communicate that to me. I also think it’s doable. It is the natural progression of your company, the next step. You either take it now or in a year, or further down the line, but it’s something you’re going to have to deal with eventually. The sooner you start figuring out what solutions you’ll need, the better.”
The rain began again sonically, and grumbled into our conversation. I grabbed my heavy-ass MacBook and we shuffled inside. Our eyes darted to the coffee machine, but we instead settled quickly into our fort. Safe inside the sacred sleepover, Stella and I continued.
Can you think of a manager-client relationship that you want us to mirror? Larry and Jeff, Kim and Kris?
Stella laughed like a little kid. “I want to be able to compare us to someone,” she said in between toothy giggles, “but if I’m being honest, I don’t.” Her laughter came to an abrupt halt. She swallowed, and then revved up her smile again. “I think of us as a fluid, ever-changing thing. Hopefully we stay very in touch with the reality of what we are. I think it’s probably unique, but also common among business partners in general. Also, you’re a non-traditional manager. You just have totally different duties, and my job is also totally outside the box.” Stella looked at me piercingly (it’s hard to have a piercing glare with round doll eyes, but she tried) and we giggled all over again. “Maybe we’re the first of our kind. . . but maybe not. . .I think I probably just don’t box us into any prototype.”
Stella and I like to keep our heads below water. We love to simply just get to work, without coming up for air too often to see how far we have come or where we want to go. We don’t like to write down our goals for her, or have too strict of an image we want her to obtain. We don’t speak of things before they come to fruition. Ever. I don’t text her and say: I think I have something for you. Hold tight. I only go to her with definitive answers, deals, opinions, and she does that same. It makes us cringe when we see others do it publicly, to their fans. We purposely subscribe to scammy, over-promising Onlyfans pages from burner accounts so we are reminded of how not to conduct our business. We often talk about others who seem to be doing way too much, people who we know will burn out in a year or two. We pay attention to any “I am going to” a celebrity writes, and check if they fulfilled their promise.
Despite all this, it feels good when anyone verbalizes the success they see in Stella’s future. It feels like someone is brushing my hair.
Many established people have positive visions of your future. What is it like to hear that?
“It’s so validating.” Stella put her paws down on her oak table and arched her back. “To have someone tell you that you are going to be big is so flattering. I know it’s just words, but it’s still such a validating thing, whenever anyone sees a money-making opportunity in me. People now look at me as profitable and try to see how they can assist my goals towards the brand that I’ve built, just what me and you have built, literally. That’s what is fucking crazy, that others are starting to recognize that. It’s especially flattering, because I’m not in a traditional industry, I’m in a controversial industry, and I’m one of the more controversial ones within that.”
Before Stella, I used to be notorious for speaking too soon. I’m going to marry him. I’m quitting television and replacing it with meditation. I’m running for office. Language like that filled my thoughts and my mouth, and I always kicked myself afterward for it. I never, not even once, did that when I met Stella. I never went to a friend and said “I just started working with this girl who is going to be a star.” I never went to Stella and petted her, and told her what I knew was inherently true. She didn’t need it, but I wouldn’t have given it to her, even if she started begging. Of course I knew that she was special, but my bad habit was, for some reason unbeknownst to me, held up at its throat. Now my mom, or the occasional girl I went to high school with will ask me “how did you know?” Yes, it feels like someone is brushing my hair, but it’s still meaningless. I also don’t exactly see it that way. I didn’t make Stella who she is. We built a business together, and to compliment me on my “eye,” is to take away from who she is without me.
Would our relationship be radically different if I always told you how successful and famous I thought you were going to be?
“Probably. I’ve always been really confident in myself and my ability to build something. I think that is because I don’t focus so much on the goal in my head, I just focus on putting in the work every day. Then it grows exactly how I want, and it also grows to heights that I don’t expect. I would have coached you early on if you were doing that.”
I looked up from my list of questions and something rolled off of my tongue uncontrollably. When I am with Stella, there is barely a moment of silence. We are always interrupting each other. “Some consultation clients of mine will come to our session and say ‘I want to make $10k this month.’ I always tell them not to put a number to a goal, but instead chant things like “I want to connect to my fans more deeply this month.’” I don’t exactly know why I felt the need to add that into our convo, but Stella took it and ran with it, as she always does with my mutterings, as useless as they may be.
“Yeah,” she said. “Like improving your product in some way, or trying out a new marketing tactic for a month straight. That was always my version of goal-setting. I always knew it would build up my income or brand in some way, but it was more about forming a skill set for myself and internet knowledge. The question they should be asking themselves is: do I even have the knowledge right now to get myself to the 10k a month goal?”
Again I interrupted her: “Exactly, and even just putting a number on a goal is. . .” Stella interrupted me right back: “Especially in porn. Your career can be booming, but your income can be down that particular month, because of whatever reason outside of your control. If you just put a dollar amount on it, you won’t be fully living in the reality of knowing whether you are successful or not at what you are doing.”
Do you want to be known for your name Stella Barey? Or do you want to be recognized for your talents?
“I learned very early on that my name is the least important part of all of it. It’s all about capturing people and channeling it back to the little internet world that I have crafted. That’s always been my value, the name doesn’t matter too much to me. Plus, lots of people know me by a different name already. All of my Tiktok accounts have different handles. Some people know me as just Anal Princess, or Barey Baby, some people think my name is Ana or Bella. If I were to whore out my name to brands, I’d feel like a sellout.
It’s not like I want to be hired for things because I am a porn person. This brand is just a jumping off point. I don’t want to be used as an ad machine, I want to be in artistic endeavors. With that being said, I always want people to know I do porn, because I am so proud of it, and it’s the core of my personality”
Why did you decide to go on Graham Stephan’s finance podcast? Was it because that was the first podcast I got for you, or was it deeper than that?
“I mean it was dope that it was the first podcast you got for me, but it also had so much meaning. They had never had a porn person on before. It was definitely strategic on our part. It was a podcast that I could communicate my values on, but I didn’t have to follow the porn star pipeline, which is what we have always tried to avoid. Like why follow in other people’s footsteps just because you can? Being the first person to go into a certain space is really powerful.”
As you know, my goal for Not Your Publicist is to have an alternate route creators can take other than signing to a crowded Onlyfans agency. However, it’s going to take some time for my company to be accessible to everyone, and I recognize that. What advice would you give to someone that sees signing to an OF agency as their only option?
“I think a lot of people don’t realize that they are capable. I had an innate trust in myself. From the start, I looked at myself as a business. If you look at it that way, you’re not just going to give it away to an agency. If you look at yourself as the money-maker, you start outsourcing individual people to complete tasks. You start out small and you grow together. That’s how you build a strong business from scratch. Hiring an agency may feel like the easier option, but it can limit you so, so much.”
I let out a resounding “Mmmmm,” that aged me thirty years, and then I jutted in. “I mean you can’t blame anyone for signing to one. The way they have positioned themselves since the dawn of time makes it seem like they are the only way.”
Stella took the invisible mic back from me and continued her passionate answer. “Not everyone is able to run a business. For a lot of people, it’s way too much risk and stress. You need to be able to see reality and not involve your emotions. You need to think clearly even when things start to go down.
You are a money making machine in porn. Really, you are. A ton of people want to profit off of you, so look at yourself as a business from the start and hire people for your specific needs. You don’t know how much you may be limiting yourself by attaching yourself to a machine. You might need that, and that’s ok. You might flourish in an environment where you have an agent, but it’s not the only route. You might also flourish by being a business owner.
There are people who are great employees — their personality type doesn’t handle the stress that it takes to run a company. They want to work a set amount of hours and know their schedule. They don’t want to work when they are off the clock, which is so admirable and I honestly wish I had that lifestyle. But, I just can’t work for other people and I am very capable of working 24/7 towards a goal. I’d do it anyway.”
I hear a lot of horror stories from other creators of collaborations on Onlyfans going wrong. How have you been so skilled at setting boundaries and balancing your relationships in proximity to your work?
“I turn down a lot of requests. I get offers for things that are big that I don’t do. I know what fits my vibe and I know what doesn’t. I know how sacred my time is. I know I profit the most when I’m alone at home focusing on tasks on the internet — that’s the core of my business and how I’ve built it. It really all comes from me. That came before porn too, in college I realized quickly that if I wanted to be successful, I couldn’t be social. I really had to focus on one thing to master it.”
The night before this interview, Drew, Stella and I had a long talk about boundaries. Drew read long texts from ex boyfriends who still thought they were in a relationship with her. Stella cried to some poetry and several manic voicemails her ex had left her. I marveled at how the two of them seemed to have people still obsessed with them, and I grew quickly jealous. All of my exes have me blocked and have wonderful lives now with their new girlfriends. My therapist of ten years always told me to try to leave people better than how you found them, like a campsite. But I have to admit, Drew and Stella’s reality sounded a lot more fun.
When Stella answered my last question, I began to wonder (sorry for the cringe Carrie Bradshaw vibes), what was so different about our boundaries after all? The whole conclusion of that talk seemed to be: Drew and Stella=bad boundaries, mine=too good. Now she sat in front of me, strong-willed and speaking with conviction about all the things she has and will continue to turn down. It humbled me, and made me rethink. Who in the room was the true boundary champ?
What is the difference between my boundary-setting and your boundary-setting?
“I’ll say what I think I am worse at than you. I am really bad when it comes to letting someone down. When I have an emotional or intellectual connection with somebody, I have a very hard time. I have strong business boundaries. I can turn someone down asking to collab, because work is so different than when I am sitting down with someone and having an emotional conversation with them. It’s usually with men. It’s with men who I think are special. I know I make them feel special, and then to tell them I am not interested in them, is so hard for me to do. When I look into someone’s eyes, I don’t want to make them feel sad. That is my boundary thing. Business-wise, it’s easy for me to be harsh. I’m very protective.”
Okay, this will be my last question. Do you think it’s a coincidence that both of us have bonafide daddy issues?
Stella and I locked eyes. Hers round, mine small and cat-like. The earth stopped rotating for a moment, and then we burst out into laughter. It sounded like a combination of hyenas, wealth, and guttural Santa. Her answer was long and beautiful. It went into our dad’s missteps, our mother’s compensations, our brothers. It went into the hurt, sacrifices, little girl pain. We reflected through gritted teeth and shifty eyes. Our hearts pounded to the rhythm of our healing.
The short answer? “No.”
