LAS VEGAS—Blake Blossom and Alex Knight, the co-hosts of the 2025 AVN Awards Show, discussed the anticipated gala with AVN Managing Editor Peter Warren on Thursday evening in a special panel at The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. Sitting under a seven-foot Zildjian cymbal—a relic of The Theater’s previous life as The Joint—they spoke of the 42nd annual ceremony that is set for 9 p.m. today.
Warren started by pointing out that Blossom won Best New Starlet in 2022, at the Zoom presentation of the AVN Awards during COVID (“Medieval times,” Blossom said. “That’s when I started, so that’s all I knew.”), saying her acceptance speech was the second-best he had ever seen, after Abella Danger in 2016. “Your look of absolute shock was amazing.”
“I remember promoting it,” Blossom said. “It was my first year. When I first created the name ‘Blake Blossom,’ my first agent told me that you can win awards in this industry and I was like ‘What? It’s not that you show up, and you fuck, and you get a check? It’s competitive?’ Being of a competitive nature, I said ‘Show me this AVN thing. What is this?’ and I was like ‘I want all of them!’ I joked that I wanted to collect every one, like Pokémons. It became a goal of mine to pursue awards, and I asked people about them. Angela White gave me a lot of good tips about how to stand out, and her business partner told me Best New Starlet was one of the more prestigious ones, because you can only be nominated one time for it. I was focused on Best New Starlet from the beginning.”
Moving on to Knight, Warren asked about her name “OnlineGirl_.” Knight agreed that “Online Girl” wasn’t all that distinctive: “There are so many ‘online girls,’ but every time I’m online, I’m actually connected with my fans. It’s like my second real name.” Warren pointed out that she protested her latest fan nomination, which she explained: “Some people want to get everything, right?”—a joking reference to Blossom’s statement of a moment earlier—”But I’m not that competitive. First time, I was nominated; second time, I won; third time, I’m hosting. I love our girls’ community on MyFreeCams. I know everybody wants to be a star, and I don’t need to prove two times that I’m really a great model. I have my fans, but asking them to vote for me was out of my comfort zone. Honestly, it was so nice going on the stage, with all the girls cheering and screaming. There was no jealousy, no oh, that bitch won.”
Blossom said that Angela White gave her tips for the in-person AVN Expo, including encouraging fans to check out the website they’re signing for and putting your best foot forward, “so I definitely went into that. I’m gonna sign every fuckin’ day, a different outfit every day. My brother came with me and took pictures every day for me—people would ask ‘Is this your brother’ and I’m, like ‘…yeah. He’s my real brother, not my stepbrother.’ It was very fun. Before, I was super-nervous, but I kept going: Focus on the fans. Focus on the fans. I’m very zoned in when I have a fan in front of me.
“Now, I try to change other people’s perceptions of Expo: when they’re like ‘Too many guys’ I tell them get your stickers, get your QR code. I try to help them out. Inspire the younger girls to step it up. Sign all day. I signed seven hours today, I’ll sign seven more hours tomorrow. We’ve got a line of people. We’re selling Fleshlights.”
Knight said that when AVN Awards Show producer Gary Miller called to ask her to host the show, she was watching a Formula One race on television. “I said, ‘Come again?’ It made me very very happy and of course I said yes. It was a very happy moment.”
Blossom said that she was in Corsica shooting for Vixen when Miller called her. She was shooting a b/b/g, “my first time on camera with two guys, and we start the scene and my pelvic floor cramped up.” When the scene finally ended, Miller called “And I’m like, ‘Oh shit, what the fuck did I do? Are they going to take [the Award] away?’ I honestly thought I was in trouble. I had the hardest fucking day in my entire career—and now Gary’s calling me. I was looking out at the ocean and he goes ‘I was wondering if you wanted to host the AVN Awards.’
“I’m, like, seriously? I’m very happy and very thankful. It’s a very special privilege to be asked to host the AVN Awards.”
Knight said that she started counting down the days to the Award show, “I changed my workout routine, diet, and then I took a public speaking class. It’s not usual for me to be this public—obviously you think I’m killing it—because if there’s a camera pointed on me I freeze up. I’m used to controlling everything that’s going on. When you’re streaming, I see the picture, I know how the sound is, I set up the lighting. I know what’s good, what’s bad. I’m going to be on the stage, I want to be my best. It’s been a really good journey, I’m really happy, and I’m ready for the show. I’m ready to see all the nominees, I’m ready to see all the people who will come, and I’m excited to host with this lady.”
“I didn’t do any prep, I just talked to everybody about it,” Blossom admitted. “I ask everybody what was their favorite year and they say Tommy Pistol and Alexis Texas. If we fuck up, keep going. That’s the way that I want to go. Very funny, very… Blake. I refer to my character as ‘Blake.’ I just don’t want to trip over my words.
“I didn’t prep the way she did. She’s, like, doing chin-ups. I’m, like, McDonald’s at 2 a.m.”
As Warren brought the session to a close, Blossom interrupted with a question: “Before we go, we need to know about this Best New Starlet Curse.”
Warren pointed out that “there’s a long-standing mythology that when somebody wins Best New Starlet, their career just collapses and they’re off the map, and it’s called the Best New Starlet Curse. However, there are as many examples that defy that as there are that prove it: Blake certainly defies it, Abella Danger defies it, Chanel Camryn defies it, Stormy Daniels defies it. It’s a bit of a myth, but it’s a thing hanging out there. Nobody really knows why it is.”
“I like it,” Blossom responded. “It engages the fans. Give ’em a bone, they go crazy.” She drops her voice to a seductive whisper: “Have you heard about the curse?”
Photo by Jeff Koga/@kogafoto
