Fazing Light

At 13 she played Bach at Carnegie Hall. She had an IQ of 156 and a full scholarship to Rutgers, and she walked away from all of it to make more than 350 porn films. This year, at 52, she passed the bar exam. Jessica Steinhauser grew up in New Jersey with a Japanese father and a German mother. She spent her childhood at the piano, and by 16 she was already teaching English at a college in Japan. Rutgers gave her a full scholarship to study Japanese and economics. Then she did the math and realized dancing and modeling paid more than any job her degree would get her. So she left school and moved to Los Angeles. In 1993 she started filming adult movies as Asia Carrera, and two years later she became the first Asian performer to win the industry's biggest award for performer of the year. She was also a Mensa member, although Mensa refused to put a link to her website. In 2003 she quit and married Don Lemmon, a nutritionist and author. It looked like the start of a normal, quiet life. Three years later he was killed in a car crash outside Las Vegas. She was alone and in her 40s when she went back to school in 2015. First came a psychology degree, then a master's, then law school. In 2026 her real name appeared on the official list of people who passed the Texas bar exam. The girl who once played Carnegie Hall ended up as a lawyer, 30 years later than anyone expected. This is the interview where she explains why a genius picked porn. If you could go back, would you tell 19-year-old Jessica to stay at Rutgers, or was this the life she was meant to live?