Instead of mailing a check to pay for her tuition each semester, McKenna strutted into the admissions office and made it rain on the registrar’s desk—sometimes with $1 bills.

“I certainly had plenty of them,” she laughs.

Still, even as her bank account began to swell, McKenna’s zest for her burgeoning career was about more than her new income.

It was about her new life.

Each time the teenager returned from work at 3 or 4 a.m.—still in full glam, with a duffel bag brimming with cash—she’d tiptoe through the halls of her dorm as everyone slept, slide silently into bed with her journal and chronicle the night she’d just experienced.

While her classmates were studying in a quiet library, McKenna was slithering across a stage to Motley Crue’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” as men covered her topless torso with cash. At the same time her roommates were removing their makeup and preparing for bed, McKenna was seducing pro athletes and multi-millionaires in a champagne room. In the wee hours of the morning, as her classmates slept, McKenna was tossing back tequila shots at an after-hours hookah bar with patrons from Delilah’s, who tipped the bouncer to let her in underage.

“And the next afternoon,” McKenna says, “I’d be sitting in class thinking about the guy who paid $500 to drink my pee from a cup 12 hours earlier.”

McKenna laughs.

“I felt like such a badass on that campus,” she says. “I was like, ‘Who the fuck else is doing this shit?’ It made my skin tingle.”

Twelve years later, McKenna’s career path has slightly changed.

But the vibe hasn’t.

Now thriving as both a dancer and an elite porn star, McKennna remains invigorated by the taboo nature of her career in sex work. If ever there was ever an adult star who was “all about that life,” it’s the inked vixen from Jersey who arrives at work each day with a bounce in her step (and, oftentimes, a butt plug in her ass). Whether she’s on a stripper stage or a porn set, McKenna’s disarming bluish-gray eyes maintain a constant twinkle.

There’s nothing more satisfying, the 31-year-old says, than knowing you’re exactly where you belong.

“Doesn’t it feel good?” McKenna says as she discusses the nature of sex work with an industry colleague. “You’re doing shit that a very small percentage of people can experience and comprehend. Not everyone is going to understand the shit we see, the freedom we feel.

“The seedy, underworld vibe … I love it. I love anything that’s taboo, anything that’s forbidden. The stories we have, the people we’ve been in rooms with. It’s insane.”

Just as it is with dancing, McKenna’s passion for porn is evident to anyone who interacts with her on set or watches her perform.

When it comes to menus, McKenna’s rivals the one at the Cheesecake Factory. It’s extensive, and there’s a little something for everyone. Anal, DPs, squirting, blowbangs, gangbangs, foot fetish and even piss play—there’s not much she won’t do.

Still, there are a lot of freaks in the industry. But the traits that make McKenna unique aren’t necessarily ones you see.

“It’s things you feel,” says Mike Adriano, who has shot McKenna multiple times for various banners. “It’s her warmth and the way she looks at you and speaks to you and touches you when she walks into a room. It’s the way she laughs and smiles—it’s one of the sexiest smiles I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Adriano often tells McKenna that she is his “porn crush” and that he’d book her every day if he could.

“She has the best combination of personality, looks, professionalism and performance that I’ve ever seen,” he says. “I think she’s the most underrated girl I’ve shot in my entire career.”

That’s lofty praise—especially coming from one of the most respected figures in the adult industry. But the compliment also evokes some questions.

Why does McKenna always win the red carpet, but never any trophies? Why aren’t Vixen, Brazzers and Adult Time clamoring to book a fan favorite who always has one of the longest lines at conventions? If McKenna were truly so elite, then why is she still saddled with the “underrated” tag—and what will it take for her to shed it?

The reason is simple.

McKenna is comfortable with who she is and where she is. She knows a Philadelphia-based model with multiple tattoos and piercings may not be extended the same—or as many—opportunities as fresh-faced 20-somethings on the west coast. And McKenna is fine with that.

“I’m super proud of my career,” McKenna says. “I never saw myself moving to California and becoming an LA porn girl. I have a different type of vibe, a different type of life.”

McKenna pauses.

“I always have,” she says.

***

The bashful ninth-grader had “frizzy, greasy hair.”

Brenna McKenna wore glasses, and the pimples on her face were deep and plentiful enough to warrant a prescription for Accutane. McKenna stared at the floor as she walked the hallways at her Catholic high school, and she was so self-conscious about her small breasts that she often stuffed her bra.

“Super insecure, super awkward,” McKenna says of her vibe back in 2007. “I looked out of place. I looked poor.”

And she was.

It’s not hard to understand why McKenna would eventually become fixated on money, because growing up in Vineland, New Jersey, her family had to scrounge for every dollar.

Each summer, McKenna’s father put a cooling unit in the bedroom of their non-air-conditioned apartment, and McKenna and her brother and sister would sleep next to it, on a crowded mattress, while her dad crashed on the bed. In the winter they did the same thing but with a space heater, cocooning themselves in sleeping bags to calm their shivers in the unforgiving cold.

McKenna’s father—a truck driver—designated the little money he did have for “experiences” for his children, and one of those was paying for McKenna to be on a high-level club softball team throughout her youth.

A middle infielder, McKenna had blossomed into one of the top players in Vineland by the end of her eighth-grade year, prompting a nearby Catholic high school to offer her an athletic scholarship. McKenna would’ve felt foolish to pass on the opportunity, as it was the best thing for her future both athletically and academically.

Still, adapting to the private school culture wasn’t easy.

McKenna’s previous school was in the inner city and filled with students of similar societal and economic backgrounds. Suddenly she was in ninth grade classes with kids whose parents owned million-dollar companies and lived in mansions. Secretly, McKenna was thankful she was required to wear a uniform—complete with the cliche plaid skirt—to school each day so she didn’t have to dress in her “poor clothes” from Sears.

“I wasn’t the prettiest girl and I wasn’t a popular kid,” McKenna says. “I didn’t fit in and I felt very alone. I hung out with the alternative kids because I had no one else to relate to. It just wasn’t my scene.”

McKenna was quick to rebel. She was suspended three months into her freshman year after she and a female classmate were discovered in a bathroom stall, panties and skirts on the floor as they made out and fingered one another.

When she was 16, McKenna got her bottom lip pierced—a big no-no at her strict school. She had to use a clear plastic stud to fill the hole in her lip during classes. But on weekends she replaced it with a metal piercing which she wore during softball games, much to the disdain of her coach.

McKenna, though, was too good of a player to keep on the bench. She was drawing interest from college head coaches by the end of her junior year, but by that point McKenna was losing interest in softball and had no interest in continuing her career after high school.

“My only thought at that point was, ‘What do I have to do to not struggle?’” McKenna says. “I didn’t want to be poor anymore. I wanted to make money.”

Around the same time, McKenna’s physical appearance was beginning to improve. The Accutane had done wonders for her skin. She was learning how to better apply makeup thanks, in part, to tips in Teen Vogue magazine. And her mother had taught her how to use a hair straightener. McKenna had possessed a desire to be hot and glamorous ever since she began watching Victoria Secret fashion shows in her early teens, and now everything was coming to fruition.

McKenna was also a natural when it came to dancing. So when she became infatuated with hip-hop culture and music videos featuring women being showered with money as they danced in clubs, it was only natural for her to think, “I could do that, too.”

In September of 2011, just two months after her 18th birthday, McKenna enrolled at Philadelphia University and began stripping at Delilah’s. McKenna had come out as bisexual in middle school and had only had sex with two boys in high school.

Still, she quickly learned she was a natural at seducing men.

Whether she was doing private shows for $1,000 in a back room, $20 lap dances on the main floor or being covered with $5s and $1s on the stage, McKenna was raking in cash. One pro athlete even paid the 18-year-old $10,000 to hang out with him for a few hours at his apartment.

“We watched a movie and didn’t even have sex,” McKenna says. “I was rolling in money. I didn’t even understand what the value of a dollar was at that point.”

Indeed, McKenna was buying designer clothes and gourmet dinners for her girlfriends. She began paying her mother’s $800 mortgage and always had stacks of bills in her purse. When her friends at the dorm asked her where she got her money, or why she never went to college parties, McKenna made up a phony story. But eventually most of them found out she was stripping.

“They were being whore-a-phobic,” McKenna says. “They started to talk shit.”

McKenna didn’t care.

Along with enjoying a financial freedom she never could’ve fathomed, McKenna was also experiencing daily boosts of confidence that caused her to walk with a swagger that was missing during her high school years.

The 5-foot-3 McKenna had long been insecure about her body—particularly her small boobs and lack of curves. At Delilah’s, though, she quickly learned that men prefer all types of women, and not just thick ones.

“There were so many guys who told me they loved small tits,” McKenna says. “Men in the club were so turned on by it and started hitting on me, and then boys on campus did, too. I realized then that it didn’t matter.

“Stripping helped me fall in love with my body. It made me so much more confident and sexual, just being exposed like that.”

The good vibes McKenna felt at Delilah’s carried over into her life at school. She joined her college’s Gay and Straight Alliance and served as the organization’s president as a junior and senior. She organized drag shows, coming-out days, suicide prevention seminars and HIV fundraisers and created safe spaces on campus.

McKenna also flourished academically, graduating in 2015 with a business degree and 2017 with a master’s in merchandising in marketing. McKenna says she was the first person in her family to even attend college, much less earn a degree.

Even if McKenna had wanted to drop out of school, her regulars at the club wouldn’t have let her.

“It was like I was an underdog in life, and they were there to cheer me on,” McKenna says. “They kept me straight. They were like, ‘Don’t be like the other girls who get pregnant and drop out with no education.’ Every time I was struggling, they were there to give advice.”

McKenna says it was a club patron who helped her open her first interest-earning checking account. Others sent her crypto currency. And when she earned her diploma, a regular client with high-end camera equipment took her graduation pictures on Broad Street in downtown Philly.

After the ceremony, McKenna walked through the doors at Delilah’s, climbed onto the stage and performed a routine wearing nothing but her graduation cap.

“Everyone was so proud of me,” she says. “They were making it rain all over that stage. Even today, nearly 10 years later, those guys are in their 70s and I’m still close with all of them.”

Still, even though she’d earned her degree, and even after she’d been accepted to the prestigious Wharton School of Business, McKenna had no intention of seeking a job in the real world. She was too ingrained in the adult lifestyle—and making too much money—to consider anything else.

Whether she was commanding the stage at Delilah’s or traveling to red states during COVID to work at Tootsie’s in Miami or Buck’s Cabaret in Dallas, McKenna was finding success at every turn.

“I don’t put on a fake personality when I’m at the club, and I think guys can sense that,” McKenna says. “I’m very genuine and very real. I’m not all fucked up and I have an education, so I’m relatable.”

McKenna said the ability to smile and stay upbeat continues to serve her well.

“I don’t complain about stuff,” she says. “Everyone has their own problems anyway, so not many people have the mental capacity to listen to yours.

“My take is, ‘I’m going to keep a positive attitude and you’re going to keep a positive attitude, and we’re not going to be miserable. We’re going to feel good and have a good time and forget about all the problems out there. It’s going to be an escape for both of us—and then you’re going to give me your money.”

McKenna laughs.

“I just got to a point where I really knew what I was doing. I couldn’t imagine being better at anything else.”

Not long ago she discovered that wasn’t the case.

***

She’d squirted and pissed on men in the champagne room. She’d been fisted by a female customer and joined married couples for threesomes away from the club.

And, boy oh boy, did Brenna McKenna love her some anal sex.

So in 2021, when a friend suggested she supplement her income by becoming a porn star, McKenna didn’t flinch.

“Bitch,” she said, “I already am one.”

That’s not to say that McKenna wasn’t a tad nervous when she arrived in Florida to shoot her first professional scene. She said her stomach felt “like a butterfly garden”—just as it had the first time she stepped on the stage at Delilah’s. But as soon as the cameras started rolling and the sex began, McKenna was in her element.

“It was so fun and natural,” she said. “I felt like I belonged. For me it was the progressive next step.

“You can usually sense when you’re going to regret something, and I didn’t feel that way at all. Right after it was over I knew I wanted to do it again. It was a sense of freedom, and it had a grip on me.”

Even though McKenna had never considered becoming a porn star, there were signs—even before she started stripping—that a career in sex work would be a natural fit.

McKenna said she was “super-sexualized” as a child, kissing and dry humping with girls as early as elementary school before coming out as bisexual in the eighth grade. She watched porn and experimented with boys in high school before truly letting her freak flag fly once she became a stripper. By the time she stepped on her first porn set, there wasn’t much McKenna hadn’t done.

“She was a dynamic performer right from the start,” male talent Nade Nasty says of McKenna. “When a girl truly loves the job—and doesn’t just view it as a paycheck—it makes things go so much smoother. Brenna is one of those people. She genuinely loves the sex.”

McKenna says Nasty’s description of her couldn’t be more on point.

“It’s kind of like dancing,” she says. “There could be a really hot girl on stage, but if she looks like she’s not having fun, she’s not hot anymore. With porn, this is what I was meant to do. I was built for it. I’m taking my energy and my power and I’m owning it. It feels good to me, and I think that’s evident on camera.”

Unlike most other new models, McKenna entered the industry somewhat pigeon-holed because of her tattoos.

McKenna got her first one—the zodiac symbol for cancer, which resembles the number 69—behind her right ear on her 18th birthday. Tattoos on her chest, abdomen, neck, back, thighs and forearms would follow in ensuing years—along with nostril and septum piercings to go along with the one in her lip.

“Getting tattoos really helped me through my youth,” McKenna says. “They helped me find myself and express myself, so I don’t regret them.”

McKenna also sees nothing wrong with being tagged as an “alt” performer. She realized as a teenager she’d never be tall enough to be a runway model—“a fashionista,” he says—like the ones she saw on those Victoria Secret fashion shows.

“So I went with the ‘tattooed, inked hottie’ look,” McKenna says. “I like that aesthetic.”

Millions of fans do, too. But there are also plenty who don't. And because of that, certain studios refuse to book performers who are heavily tatted.

“If you look at the forums and look at the comments, most of the time, if a girl has a lot of tattoos, they’re complaining,” director Ricky Greenwood says. “Especially when you go into the market of stepdaughters and younger girls … they don’t look like an innocent, shy woman.

“It doesn’t come from the production side or the studio side. It comes from a fanbase that’s very vocal about it.”

Adriano believes McKenna’s tattoos are the primary reason she hasn’t achieved super stardom.

“The industry would go crazy over her if she didn’t have them,” he said. “Who else is better?”

Even so, there have been signs in recent years that tattoos are becoming more and more accepted. Katrina Jade, who has multiple tattoos on her face, was named Female Performer of the Year by XBIZ in 2017. And a massive chest tattoo didn’t keep Anna Claire Clouds from claiming AVN’s Female Performer of the Year award this past January.

“Everyone has tattoos these days, so ignoring girls who have them is pretty silly,” Nasty says. “I think things are changing, and that will be good from Brenna. She doesn’t get the recognition she deserves, but anyone who has worked with her knows what an amazing performer she is—and her fans definitely know.
“She’s known for her gonzo stuff, but I’ve done group scenes with her. We’ve done sensual scenes, extreme scenes—and a I know she could handle stuff with a lot of dialogue. She definitely has range.”

McKenna has shot about 150 studio scenes to date, an impressive number considering she lives in Philadelphia and primarily self-books. She’s received four AVN award nominations over the past three years, including one for a memorable, squirt-filled POV scene with Valerica Steele and Mr. Lucky that somehow fell short of the trophy.

McKenna shot her first scene for Kink earlier this month—“I’ve never came that many times in my life,” she says—and has been contacted by several high-profile studios and podcasts about potential opportunities in 2025. One of the directors told McKenna that they noticed her at the AVN fanfest in January because she had one of the longest lines at the convention.

That hardly surprises performer Lysagna DelRay, who is one of McKenna’s closest friends in the industry. She said the people skills McKenna developed as a stripper have paid huge dividends in porn, where she radiates positivity and warmth to anyone she encounters.

“Brenna is a big bubble of sunshine in my world,” DelRay says. “She’s a people person—so fun and charismatic. You’re never going to see anyone with a sad face when she’s in the room.”

McKenna realizes her shooting schedule would intensify if she relocated from Philadelphia to Los Angeles and hired an agent. But for now, she’s content traveling to Porn Valley for a round of shoots every six weeks or so. And she’ll have no problem making more frequent trips if the right opportunities arise.

“Every day is a good day if it’s a porn day,” McKenna says. “I’m not a morning person, but on shoot days, I wake up an hour before my alarm, just because of the excitement in my brain. I’ve never had something to look forward to like that before.

“I get up and order my different coffees, or my Red Bull and snacks that I eat as I’m getting ready. I’ll start looking all hot and it’s the best feeling ever. I feel like Randy Savage, like a pro wrestler, about to do his thing.”

McKenna also feels that way before she goes to Delilah’s, where she still works three nights a week. She’s also been dancing at Stiletto in Atlantic City, New Jersey, just to keep things fresh. McKenna says she doesn’t worry about how living in Philadelphia has impacted her porn career.

“Maybe it would hurt my career if I had goals I wanted to achieve,” she said. “But I don’t really have any goals that I have to achieve. So it’s not a letdown.

“My brand is being a Jersey girl anyway. And I’m still drawing a lot of interest. There are people who want to shoot me that have never shot me before. I’m still like a fresh face to a lot of people, a lot of directors.

“My reputation speaks for itself. When I’m around, the vibes are good. That won’t stop. As long as they love me and I love the work, I’m going to keep doing it.”