“She’s so popular right now it’s almost stupid," says Alex Mack, Dangler's agent with Hussie Models.

Dangler was hardly a stranger to the limelight when she began shooting professional scenes in October 2023. The 28-year-old had already spent years building her online brand as a competitive gamer and streamer. One national publication even called Dangler “one of the most popular Call of Duty: Warzone streamers on the entire Twitch platform.”

Eventually, Dangler began streaming in Twitch’s “Pool, Beaches, and Hot Tubs” category, appearing in skimpy bikinis and other sexy attire while interacting with fans. Dangler’s follower count quickly soared beyond 500,000. One fan even sent her $10,000 in cash to help pay for a Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL).

Still, nothing could’ve prepared Dangler for the level of notoriety she’d attain once she started having sex on camera.

“It’s very overwhelming,” she tells PornCrush. “You see it happen to musicians and other entertainers, too. When you start excelling in your career too fast, it takes a mental toll on you. There’s just so much to deal with. It's scary sometimes.”

Dangler pauses and laughs.

“But it’s also a lot of fun,” she says.

*******

One of the more awkward texts Dan Dangler ever received came a few years ago—from her mother.

It was a picture of Dangler’s boobs.

Dangler says her parents had been “stalking” her online activity since she was a teenager, and they were far from pleased after discovering she’d launched an OnlyFans account and was posting racy (and sometimes nude) pictures of herself online.

“They started trying to control me at a very young age,” Dangler says. “I felt like I was living two lives. I was being one person in front of my family—and I was myself around everyone else.”

Dangler hardly seemed destined for a career in the adult industry as a teenager growing up in Clinton Township, a suburb about 25 miles north of Detroit.

She was a standout soccer player who starred on elite travel teams and was the only girl to make her high school’s varsity squad as a freshman. Dangler’s stunning appearance made her the envy of many of her female classmates. Still, even though she was “boy crazy” like so many other teenage girls, Dangler wasn’t the type to sleep around. She said most of her experiences came in committed relationships.

“I had a weird, co-dependent thing,” Dangler says. “I was always dating someone.”

Even if she had to sneak around to do it.

The youngest of three siblings, Dangler’s household was strict. She said she was grounded “more often than not” during her teenage years—most of the time for silly reasons. Posting a picture of herself in a bikini with friends at the pool was enough to draw her parents' ire. Another time, she was grounded because the song that played on her MySpace page contained curse words.

Eventually, Dangler figured out that the best way to have fun was to sneak out of the house after her parents were asleep or to spend the night at the home of a friend whose parents were more lenient.

“It impacted my happiness, for sure,” Dangler says of her upbringing. “I lived in a my-way-or-the-highway type of household. If I talked back, if I wore the wrong thing, if I was 10 minutes late coming home …. all of those things would get me grounded.”

Still, Dangler excelled in school, graduating magna cum laude from Oakland University in Michigan with degrees in graphic design and illustration. Yet, as much promise as she showed in her field of study, Dangler’s true passion was online gaming.

Competing in first-person shooter games such as Call of Duty, Dangler had turned her hobby into a significant source of income before she ever finished college, often earning thousands of dollars per month through gaming.

Profits skyrocketed in her mid-20s when Dangler began streaming on Twitch, which is where she came up with the stage name she still uses today. Dangler says she chose the moniker because she knew having a boy’s name (“Dan”) next to a picture of a hot female would turn heads and create a buzz in a Twitch community dominated by males.

So perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised at the reaction she received after she began appearing in Twitch’s “Pools, Beaches, and Hot Tubs” community, where fellow streamers suggested she open an OnlyFans account.

Dangler took their advice, posting mostly bikini pictures for a few months before eventually going topless. Even though she wasn’t shocked when her parents discovered the photos online, Dangler was still irked when her mother texted her that picture.

In some ways, Dangler says, it was a breaking point.

“I always told them, ‘It’s my life; you need to leave me alone,’” Dangler says, “but it never sunk in. At that point, it became too much, and I finally said, ‘Fuck it!’ I’d lived 26 years for them—and not for me. Life is too short to live for someone else.”

Not long after, Dangler was contacted by a representative from the Ash Agency, a company formed by Riley Reid that manages content platforms and advises creators on brand enhancement. The agency wanted to sign someone famous in the Twitch and streaming communities, and Dangler seemed the ideal candidate.

A few weeks later, she was on a plane to Los Angeles to shoot with Reid and Angela White. This marked the beginning of Dangler’s adult career—and the end of her relationship with her family.

“I broke my promise to them that I’d never do porn,” she says. “But at that point, my choice was to continue to struggle at home or do something that made me happy and make money.

“It took me 26 years to let go of my parents’ grip. Once I released myself from their judgment, I went full-blown.”

*****

They filmed outside for hours in the 90-degree Las Vegas heat. It was October of 2023 when Dan Dangler shot her first studio scene, and considering the conditions that afternoon, no one would’ve been surprised if it was her last.

As if the punishing heat wasn’t enough, the poolside shoot was for SexLikeReal’s virtual reality banner, and everyone in porn knows that VR scenes are the most taxing and tedious to shoot.

Welcome to porn, Ms. Dangler!

“Her attitude was amazing the whole time—and she absolutely crushed the scene,” says Mack, the producer that day who would later become Dangler’s agent. “I seriously looked at my assistant and was like, ‘Whoa! This girl is special.’”

SLR subscribers agreed, as Dangler’s scorcher with Damon Dice still ranks as one of the top scenes on the studio’s website. Even though her intent at the time was mainly focused on collaborations for OnlyFans, Mack began to spread the word about Dangler, who quickly landed shoots with A-list studios such as Brazzers and BANG!

After she joined the Hussie roster last spring—with Mack as her agent—the buzz about Dangler increased even more.

“I got calls after every one of her shoots from producers telling me how great she is,” Mack says. “As hot as she is, when you talk to her, she’s very cool. Talking to her is like talking to your buddy. She’s from the midwest so she’s very down to earth and personable.”

Even so, there was some natural skepticism about Dangler when she started shooting professional scenes. The influx of influencers and content creators who have entered the industry in recent years has yielded mixed results. While a few have blossomed into legitimate stars, many shoot only a handful of scenes and realize that studio work isn’t for them.

“(Influencers) are always kind of hit or miss in terms of their performance and attitude,” says Isiah Maxwell, one of the industry’s top male talents. “They’re not always good at following directions, or they don’t want to take them. It’s not what they thought it was, or maybe the pay isn’t what they thought it was. Some of them want to shoot for 10 minutes and be finished.

“Dan is different. She’s the best of the bunch, as far as the creators that have crossed over. She’s more of a performer. She works on improving her performance.  When I first worked with her she could only shoot for a short amount of time, less than 15 minutes. Now, she can shoot full-on feature scenes. There isn’t anything she can’t do.”

Dangler says Maxwell is one of her favorite scene partners, and their chemistry was obvious when they teamed up for Dangler’s debut for “Blacked,” Vixen Media Group’s most popular banner. Released in August, the scene currently boasts a 9.3 rating, making it one of the website's most well-received features.

Mack says Dangler plans to shoot almost exclusively for Vixen and Brazzers.

“She can afford to be choosy,” he laughs.

Even though she excels in all genres, Dangler prefers gonzo the most.

“I really like the fast-paced stuff,” she says. “I'm not much of an actress. It’s not my favorite. When I have really long days with big scripts … to me, that isn’t smart from a marketing standpoint. People want to watch people have sex. They don’t want to watch a movie. Maybe there are a few people who do, but not enough to make it seem viable. That’s why I love Gonzo the most.”

As believable as she is on camera, Dangler calls herself “very corporate” and views porn as more of a job than a passion. She says she doesn’t flirt or get physical with scene partners before the camera starts rolling and isn’t consumed with sex outside of work.

"I tell everyone, ‘I’m not a porn star. I’m a girl who does porn,’” Dangler says. “People like Angela White are porn stars. She loves sex. She’s all about it. Sometimes, I’ll come onto a set and see my scene partner, and I’m like, ‘Ugh! Fuck!’ Some people are about the lifestyle, but I’m not about the lifestyle. I just want to make money.

“If this didn’t pay, I would not do this.”

Dangler says her best experiences in the adult industry to date don’t involve sex at all. She mentioned a recent promo day at the Orange County Fair for Vixen and similar campaigns for Brazzers and OnlyFans.

She’s also a frequent guest on the popular podcast “Pillow Talk with Ryan” and does multiple other interviews seemingly every week.

It makes for a hectic schedule, but Dangler always finds time to chat with her supporters on OnlyFans and Twitch. She also responds to the comments viewers leave under her scenes.

“I love chatting with fans,” Dangler says. “I really value getting to know them. I don’t want it just to be sexual interaction. I want people to tell me what’s going on in their lives, and I tell them what’s going on in mine.

“I even have some fans that I text with. I’m good at sensing who to trust. Almost all of my friends are people I’ve met online.”

Anyone who has grown close to Dangler knows animals are her biggest passion. With one brother in the military and another frequently hospitalized because of Crohn’s disease, Dangler often felt isolated as a child. The situation caused Dangler to become extremely close with her pets, and she remembers begging her parents to take her to local shelters to play with dogs.

Dangler now has seven dogs living with her in Los Angeles, ranging in size from a 14-pound chihuahua to an 85-pound Great Pyrenees. Four of them sleep alongside her in bed.

“I have a lot of mental health issues with my anxiety,” she says. “Whenever I'm feeling weird, my Great Pyrenees totally senses it, and my bull terrier does, too. They’ll come over and nudge me. If I cry, one of my dogs will also cry. They are my service animals, honestly.”

Dangler says she’s attempted to host fundraisers and meet-and-greets at local animal shelters, but organizations are hesitant to attach themselves to porn stars.

“They’d rather put dogs down than have an association with anyone in porn,” she says.

Dangler’s goal is to work in the adult industry until she’s 35, at which point she will open her own shelter and help find homes for abandoned animals.

“It’s just something in my head I’ve always known I’m meant to do,” she says. “I’m happy with where I am in life right now—but that’s where I want to be down the line.”