Trade ad taken out in honor of Stefano in 1994 (Image via tear sheet)

Shawn Mayotte aka Doug Probst has written a tough-love tribute to his friend Joey Stefano (1968-1994) on social media. I am publishing it below.

I highly recommend Doug's book Mayotte: Musings of a Narcissist — A Survivor's Story, which delves into his childhood sexual abuse, his work as an escort and porn actor and more.

Original ad for one of Joey's best (Image via Falcon)

JOEY STEFANO MEMORIAL TRIBUTE

I’m struggling. Not with outside forces, or internal pain. At this moment, those challenges would be easy to overcome. I’m struggling with how to write a tribute to a friend of mine whose fame in the gay adult film industry is so legendary, he’s already had books and documentary films made about his life. What can I add to all of this? I know I can only tell my truth about how I experienced him during the short 5 years I knew him. I’m writing today about my friend Nick Iacona, better known as international gay adult film star Joey Stefano.

I met Nick in late 1989, when he came out to California from his home state of Pennsylvania. I met him at a music industry party thrown by a gay friend of mine who is very well known, but I won’t say his name because of a falling out we had that of course I blame him for. Anyway, I was there with my girlfriend who was pregnant with my son, and I was lost in the milieu of famous people who were crowding around each other to see who was the most famous so they could get pictures taken with them.

In Hollywood, I learned early on, I was just someone to be with until someone more famous walked through the door.

I remember how people crowded around Nick, and I admit I was a bit jealous. In my mind, I was the star, and who the hell gave this short, handsome young man the right to take my community from me? He emanated confidence with a sexy swagger that was impossible not to notice. I was jealous because I was leaving the business to become a father. I still escorted with my wealthy surrogate fathers (not that my son’s mother ever knew), but they helped me afford to be able to raise my son. While my star was slowing down, Nick’s stardom was about to explode into infamy.

Because of the books written about Nick, and his fame, I’ll keep this tribute to him personal. When I saw his films, I recognized why he was so revered. He didn’t fake his pleasure while he was bottoming. Nope. He wasn’t acting. He was enjoying it, and everyone could see and hear him giving all he had. We all love a bottom who can’t stop shouting, “Fuck me, fuck me, harder, go balls-deep!” because it gets us horny. Nick was the best. Only my friend Jon King ranked a close second as the best bottom of all time. But I digress. I want to share some of my encounters with Nick that shaped my perception of him as I was raising my baby boy.

In 1990, when my son Josh was born, I had known Nick long enough to invite him to see my son. Nick declined because, in his words, “I have more important things to do.” That hurt. But I understood his thinking. Nick was a man driven to succeed and he exhibited exceptional endurance when it came to ambition. He drove himself past an average person’s limits. Because of his dedicated drive toward achievement, he reached a pinnacle of success never realized by a gay adult film star. When I started out in the adult and music industries back in 1982, I was full of myself. I suffered from an extreme case of Shawnism. Now that I was about to have a son, I was studying psychology and self-examining. I bought the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Fourth Edition in 1990 and immediately diagnosed myself as a narcissist. If I was to be a good father, I had to change. I remember my partner Neal hearing me call myself a narcissist, and he admonished me to put the book away because, “Psychology’s not helping you.”

Anyway, I apologize for my veering back to myself during a tribute to Nick. We had so much in common, it’s hard not to do that today. And the worst thing of all that we had in common was a love for hard drugs.

Sex book outtake featuring Joey, Udo Kier, Rocky Santiago and Madonna! (Image via Steven Meisel)

When Nick appeared with Madonna in her Sex book, his ego went through the roof, and he began lying to himself. In fact, he became allergic to the truth. Although I was raising my son, I admit there were a couple of times I craved getting away, and I did that with Nick. We both loved the seedy side of Hollywood, and we bought cocaine together twice. I smoked it, and got so high, I don’t remember how we ended up together in a rat infested motel on Hobart and Sunset. What I do remember is that Nick pulled out a needle and syringe, and shot the dope mixed with ketamine and heroin into his arms. It freaked me out. My addict thinking told me that as long as I was smoking it and not shooting it, I was fine. That’s like bragging about being the most popular guy on death row. “At least I’m not searching for dope in the kitty litter like that other guy.”

No one, not even the great Shawn Mayotte, could get through to the greater Joey Stefano. He wouldn’t listen to anyone. I’m not here to shame him at all. I’m telling my truth about Nick as I experienced him. I admired his dedicated drive toward achievement, his emotional intensity, and his forceful Capricorn personality, (which, pound for pound, matched my forceful Aries personality). I saw through Nick’s will of steel and saw the real Nick: A man I loved for his insecurity, his shy, reserved demeanor, and his willingness to forgo romance while climbing to the top. Unfortunately, in 1994, he would take another trip to a seedy Hollywood motel that would be his last.

I heard about his body being found with a needle in his arm, and I admit I did cry. I was in that same motel room with him on an earlier night, and instead of talking us both out of doing drugs, I carried on like the super crackhead I thought I was. I felt I contributed to his death. But many psychological truths changed my mind.

Nick, though a loving good guy inside, in the end, could not overcome his narcissism and his belief in his invincibility over everything. He let himself become a full-blown drug addict, and we aren’t what we say we are, we are what we do. In the end, that’s all he cared about. When I met him, he was sweet and shy, but by the time the drugs took over, he was all show and no substance. At one time he was a Marlon Brando, and at the end he was Lady Macbeth on her bad days. His obscene preoccupation with material things made him the type that would treat a husband like a bank account collecting interest. He did what all of us drug addicts do when we’re on our way to the bottom; he justified the unjustifiable, he dismissed regular people as if they were a spilled drink. And he never stopped hanging out with the last person he got loaded with — HIMSELF. Nick thought he was the King. But he forgot that when the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.

I want to end this honest memorial to Nick with love. I did love the Nick I knew before he started injecting drugs into his veins. He was sweet and savvy as fuck. He wasn’t ashamed of entertaining the world with his legendary sexual performances. He gave future performers someone to emulate. He was a true star that shined brightly, and he had the intelligence and fortitude to go as far as his will would take him if he had never started using drugs. Nick, I did love you, but I hated what you allowed drugs do to you. You’re not alone. Many people still hate me because they only experienced me during my drug years. If you’re listening to me, and I know YOU are, please take comfort in that it’s 2022 and people still talk about you as if you were still king. That’s something you earned. It wasn’t handed to you. I’ll always admire you for that. I want to leave this memorial tribute to you with four lines from a song I wrote when I was got sober after waking up in a hospital with 44 stitches in my right arm from being so paranoid, I tried to climb over a barbed wire fence outside of an abandoned drug-infested Hollywood building, and got caught in the wire, bleeding everywhere until I was rescued. I loved you Nick:

“If I offer my body, the scars I cannot conceal, they remind me of the price I paid for losing sight of what’s real.”