From porn star to the pulpit: Pastor to speak in Marlboro
MARLBORO TWP. − Joshua Broome was a young man chasing the dream of being an actor when he fell into a profession that nearly drove him to suicide.
Prior to becoming a Christian and then a pastor, Broome was an adult film superstar, making more than 1,000 such movies in six years before quitting the business.
He will be the keynote speaker at the Chapel in Marlboro's annual Men and Boys' Sausage/Sauerkraut Dinner from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Jan. 30 at the church, 8700 state Route 619.
Broome said pornography is dangerous because it distorts and ignores the intimate nature of sex.
"It's something that someone is owed; it's transactional," he said. "So, if I view a person as a product, I don't owe them human dignity. If I train myself neurologically, like that, I'm consuming content, and this is what sex is and this is what human interaction is, it's going to have a very curious carryover in my life, not only in my intimate life. It's going to impact my level of integrity to be a friend. It's going to make me believe that violent acts where these girls are saying 'no' until they say 'yes', is how things work."
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The Rev. Tom Edwards, co-pastor at the Chapel in Marlboro, said Broome's life story is a compelling testimony to God's power to change lives.
"Jesus Christ is our hope; he can transform lives. That's what he does," Edwards said. "That's the hope that he gives to us through his death on the cross on our behalf. I think Josh has an amazing testimony that, no matter where somebody is in life, when Jesus enters their life, it can be changed dramatically."
Who is Joshua Broome?
A native of Charlotte, North Carolina, Broome and his younger brother were raised by a divorced mother and church-going grandparents. At 15, he found steady work as a model. Encouraged by his success, Broome set out for Los Angeles when he was 21 with aims of becoming an actor. While working at a restaurant, he met some women who urged him to consider adult films as way to get into acting.
"They were pretty flirty and they started asking me some questions," Broome recalled. "I'd seen some magazines before, and I'd seen a video one time at a cousin's house, but it wasn't really something that I dabbled in very much. They invited me to meet with their agent."
The agent, Broome said, "offered me everything."
"It was just a counterfeit version of what I really wanted to do," he said. "I wanted to create content in some capacity where I was impacting people whether it be through modeling or acting, but I really wanted to act. He offered me money, fame, notoriety, all these things. He said he could make my name famous, which is ironic because you don't actually go by your real name."
Broome's movie name was "Rocco Reed," created by his agent.
Pursuing a dream, earning $1 million
He said he didn't make much money, initially, about $300 to $500 a movie, then $1,000 per film.
"I ended up doing between 250 to 300 movies a year," he said. "Because of the way it's shot, it's more about quantity than quality. The guys are interchangeable because the focus us on the girls so the directors would just hire the same guys, over and over again."
Broome said most of the people in the industry were people like himself, looking for a toehold into show business.
"It's full of people looking to obtain something they don't have," he said. "The unfortunate thing is as you're going out there pursuing your dream, you only have about a 5% chance of succeeding. And if joy and happiness and purpose is tied to that thing that you believe that you need to obtain, you see many people making compromises in their life doing things they never would have done because they think 'Well, if I can't have exactly that, maybe if I compromise and I can get as close to it as I could,' and that's what I believed."
Broome said that at one point, he was the Top Adult Male Performer of the Year, earning $1 million, adding that the industry still is making money from his films.
"When you have this 'achiever' mentality combined with a level of brokenness and insecurity, there's this forever-moving mark of what it means to be successful," he said. "You can never really obtain it and you become insatiable for the thing you can't really grab, and it ends up in so many cases, leading to your demise."
Broome said substance abuse in the industry is common, noting that during his first movie, he was given a drug to help him perform.
"That's the standard, across the board," he said. "All the guys are taking erectile dysfunction medication. The girls are using all kinds of stuff. It's a just a big facade."
Using drugs as a coping mechanism, he said, is more prevalent among women.
"The mental and emotional trauma that is being in that industry is because, essentially, you're doing this stuff in front of three or four cameras and 15 to 20 people on a set," he said. "A thing that's supposed to be private and intimate, and not only that, there's someone telling you what to do and how to do it and when to start and stop, it's so different than what God made us to do,. It's really abrasive on a person's mind and spirit."
Broome said the films and fears that his family would find out what he was doing — they did — left him suicidal.
"I was ready to take my life," he said. "I thought no organization is going to take me seriously; no one's ever going to want to marry me. I just thought my life is over because of the decisions I'd made."
'Joshua, are you OK?'
His lowest point came not on a movie set, but in a bank while he was cashing a paycheck.
"I'd made decision to take my life, and I walked into a bank. I was going to deposit this last check," he recalled. "Normally, I would do the dropbox or ATM because there was always a memo on the check that says what it's for. It was embarrassing But on this day, I didn't care because I was going to end my life anyway."
He was walking away when the teller asked him a question.
"She kind of locks eyes with me and she says 'Joshua, are you OK? Is there anything I can do for you?'" he said. "She didn't know I had shut myself off from all my friends and family. It had been years since I heard my own name. Everyone who cared about me, who told me that I needed to leave the industry, called me 'Joshua,' but I couldn't hear their voices of conviction, so I stopped answering their calls, but when I heard my name, I was shattered. I couldn't do anything but cry."
He went home and called his mother, who urged him to return home. He also called his agent, and quit on the spot.
Back in South Carolina, he found a job in a gym as a personal trainer, where he met Hope, the woman who would become his wife in 2016.
"I asked her out on a date, and she said no," he laughed. "She did agree to a run. Over those two years, I covered up my tattoos and deleted my social media. I did everything I could to cover up the life I lived in the last decade, but the internet is very unforgiving."
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Coming clean with his future wife
He decided to come clean with Hope.
"I said, 'Hey, before this goes anywhere, this is how bad of a person I am; this is who I am,'" he said. "She locked eyes with me and said 'Well, I don't believe a person is defined by the worst thing they've done, and I don't believe a person is defined by the greatest thing they'll ever do.'"
She then asked him about his relationship with God, and about his goals and dreams.
"I couldn't believe I told her the truth, and that she cared enough to ask me about who I was as a person," he said. "It just baffled me."
He accepted Hope's invitation to church amid doubts that God would forgive him.
"My experience was, church is very legalistic, that you know, you needed to wear a shirt and tie," he said. "And this guy gets up in a T-shirt and jeans and starts talking about how his life was transformed by Jesus, like he was his friend."
After he became a Christian, he met with the pastor. What was supposed to be a 30-minute meeting turned into a four-year Bible study and an internship "because I wouldn't go away."
Broome enrolled in Bible college and ended up on the church staff. He and his wife started their own ministry, Bible 13, traveling and planting new churches.
The couple has a YouTube channel.
Edwards said public response to the upcoming program has been positive.
"Where we come from this is a Christian worldview in that we believe Christ is able to do this in people's lives, but I would say, even from a non-Christian worldview, people generally see that the adult film industry is not good for men and certainly not good for the individuals who perform in it," he said. "There's many statistics out there that comment on how many young ladies and young boys are stuck in this industry. It really is a form of sex-trafficking."
Broome's advice for those struggling with pornography
Broome said he gets hundreds of emails from Christians who are struggling with pornography.
Statistics published in 2022 by recoveryvillage.com suggest that 40 million American adults regularly visit internet pornography websites; 10% of U.S. adults admit to having an addiction to internet pornography; 17% of all women struggle with porn addiction, and 20% of men and 13% of women admit to accessing porn while at work.
The American Psychological Association puts pornography consumption at 50 to 99 percent men and 30 to 86 percent for women.
Broome makes several recommendations.
"No. 1, I tell them they're not alone," he said. "Pornography is consumed more than any material on Amazon, Twitter and Netflix combined. It makes more money than the NBA, Major League Baseball and the NFL, combined. Thirty-five percent of all the data transferred on the Internet on a daily basis. Pornography is three out of the top 10 searches on sites in the world.
"No. 2, what stays in the dark will grow, so find someone you can trust and tell them about it, and then you have to take inventory of your life: 'What am I watching? What am I following on social media? What are the triggers that are making me consume porn?'"
Broome said he's encouraged that people are speaking out, noting that numerous studies suggest consuming pornography causes emotional and psychological damage.
"We're seeing active violence, sex trafficking, child pornography and sex exploitation rise at an astronomical level," he said. "I would say 75% of people who enter the porn industry come from a history of sexual abuse. And it all starts with seeing this fantasy that you believe is real, and no matter how deep and dark it is, if you believe it to be true, all of a sudden, it becomes part of how you see the world."
Reach Charita at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com.
On Twitter: @cgoshayREP
If you go
What: Former adult film star and now pastor Joshua Broome will speak.
Where: Chapel in Marlboro's annual Men and Boys' Sausage/Sauerkraut Dinner at the church, 8700 state Route 619
When: 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Jan. 30
Cost: Tickets are $10 for the dinner. Broome's talk is free for those wishing to hear it without dinner.
More details: The dinner is recommended for ages 12 and up. To learn more or to purchase tickets call the church office at 330-935-0132 or visit www.marlboro-chapel.com or visit https://www.joshuabroome.me/about-joshua-broome.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Adult film star and now pastor Joshua Broome to speak in Stark County
