Even her origin story is fortuitous: once upon a time, there was a girl attending college on a competitive cheerleading scholarship. The girl was game for almost anything (a self-described “yes girl”), and, conveniently, exhibitionistic. So she put a mask on, named herself “kaitlynrawr” on Reddi,t and off she went.

“That’s where I very first started,” she tells Porn Crush. “I was just kind of posting for fun. It was around COVID time. I’m a sexual person. I was posting everything. I was posting pictures and videos. And then the photos would go so viral because I’m in my bathroom, taking a mirror selfie, and I’ve got carpet on the floor. I didn’t choose that, okay? I’m a broke college girl, and I didn’t choose to have carpet in my bathroom! And all the comments are like, ‘Carpet? Why would you do that? It’s so stupid.’ And all they’re doing is building engagement and pushing my post higher and higher, which is literally part of the reason I am where I am today. Thank you, carpet on my bathroom floor!”

This early exposure to what was not yet called “ragebait” did not deter Kait, who was learning, as many did before her, that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

“Back then, I was just having some fun with it. Then I was going home to go see my parents for the weekend, and I was listening to the podcast ‘Call Her Daddy’ which I love — all about sex, relationships, fun stuff. And they brought up the topic of OnlyFans, and I was like, ‘No, no. I think this has been fun, but that might be a little too far.’ I don’t know why I initially reacted that way. It was the getting paid part that made it feel so different. I think it just felt more official and not as funsy, like just doing it. But then on the way home, I was like, ‘You know what? This is kind of cool. What if I did look into this? What if I tried this?”

Kait spent the next month researching, watching YouTube videos, and reading up on Reddit.

“You can literally see right now, on Reddit, there’s a post by kaitlynrawr years ago asking, ‘What kind of lighting do I need to buy to create the best porn?’ I was researching hard how to build a brand! I didn’t just start my page. I really took time to plan it and come up with almost a business plan. I’m a planner. That’s what I do. If you don’t plan things out, you plan to fail.”

Now all she needed was a name. “Cheerleading just took so much priority over my life,” she says. “It just has been my whole identity forever. I was in gymnastics at three years old. So it just felt right.”

But it went beyond pure obviously gimmicky marketing (“It definitely works for me very well getting the boys”). After all, clichés exist for a reason. Kait had also decided that authenticity needed to be part of the deal.

“One thing about me is I’ve tried to be myself throughout the entire process,” she notes. “From day one, even hiding behind the mask, I still would be myself. And so the name just kind of fit, it kind of worked. I liked the ring to it. And it was really me. But I think it also makes me stand out. I am actually peppy, I am fitness-oriented, and I just feel like producers and directors have booked me because of my name. When they see it, they’re like, ‘Okay, she’s fitness. We can put her in this scene that deals with football players, or athletics.”

There’s also the implication of physical flexibility, which came to play during her Brazzers Podcast scene.

“The coolest position I think I’ve ever done was Damion Dayski was sitting on the ground, and Alexis Fawx is doing the job in the front, right here on him, and he’s laying back, and I am straddled across, like, completely middle splits! Yeah, it was so cool and so I think I’ve gotten a couple scenes just because of that. My second scene was with Manuel Ferrara and they definitely tested my limits with my flexibility, and that was so cool too. I think I popped my hip out of place at one point because we were so long in a position!”

The branding, she adds, has worked for her, even if initially people were a bit confused that she was going to keep her livestreaming and OF sex tapes name during her transition to mainstream porn.

“I think what’s worked for me is just being authentically myself, going so hard in that, and not letting anybody change or buffer that. And if you do it with confidence, people will just learn to love it. I feel that’s a lesson that I’ve learned over the years, and a lesson in confidence too. And I’m also just thankful that the cards were played correctly and all the stars aligned in the exact place.”

The transition from head-turning creator to mainstream happened during a fateful first visit to AVN in 2023, when the Best New Starlet crown was not even a glimmer in Cheerleader Kait’s imagination.

“It was my defining moment,” she tells Porn Crush. “I fell in love with the environment, the community, the laughter, the relationships. I didn’t know anybody. I was like a little OnlyFans girl making content in my own little room in my own little house. I was so not connected at all, but the second I stepped into the convention center and into the environment, I just felt, ‘This is where I belong, and I love this and I have a passion for this and it’s so cool to see other people have passions for this.’ Because at the time, I had to keep that passion quiet in my life. Everything was behind closed doors. I was a masked creator for two years, and then I went to the AVN and found out I love it, and it’s possible to make a career out of this.”

Walking around, Kait was fangirling about future colleagues Riley Reid and Johnny Sins, and personal faves like Emma Hix and Jill Kassidy.

“I felt I could go around and talk to anybody. The girls that I was talking to were so sweet. I was just asking them questions and they just were so willing to share information. I felt so included and in the right place. It felt easy. I remember in college, I was trying to find my passion, and what I wanted to go to school for. Do I want to do healthcare? Do I want to do fitness? And I don’t even realize how much the sparks are going off until AVN. I’m like, ‘Oh shoot. What I was trying to find in college is it’s just over here!’”

Kait decided then and there to take the plunge and, once again, started plotting. It did not hurt at all that on her corner she had one of the greatest adult performers and entrepreneurs of the last decade.

“Riley Reid has been a huge mentor, literally from the beginning,” Kait reveals, reliving the tale with full excitement. “I just had a lot of connection with her through email, and that’s really where it started. She was ‘It’ for me. So we decided to make a video that would be my unmasking. Riley brought an awesome guy, and we did a sex tape together, the first one after her baby, which was really, really cool that, you know, she had been out for a while, she comes back, and she shoots with me? With me? That is out of my wildest dreams. And in the sex tape, I’m getting fucked. I’ve got my mask on. And at the very end, Riley is like, ‘No, no, he has to come on your beautiful face. Let’s see it.’ And so we’re in black leather pants, silver body chains, nothing covering our tits. And when she got to, ‘Take the mask off!’ he came all over my face!”

The mask coming off, she explains, may seem like such a small detail, but it was a pivotal moment for her.

“It was the weight coming off of my chest. I had no idea what it would feel like, but as soon as she said, it just felt the whole world was my oyster. And I just felt a change. I just felt that this was exactly where I wanted to be.”

The Riley Reid cosign did the trick. Doors started opening. The award-winning student remains grateful to her mentor.

“Riley started out in Miami. She went to college, didn’t go so well, you know, and then she switched to this world. Her journey was kind of similar to mine, so we related so much. But there’s also her personality. I think that she’s a freaking rock star. She is so upbeat, bubbly, and driven. And she is so ridiculously creative. I know she had gone to college for creative direction and sets. She wanted to design sets, and then ended up doing porn instead, but that makes it so fun shooting with her because she brings that creativity to the shoots. She brings the outfits, the purses, the bags, the mood boards. I’ve never been to a collab like that where she just brought it all. I am just so thankful every day she took a big chance on me.”

During our interview, we shared with Kait the story of the rubbernecking producers who fell silent and followed her with their eyes around that Miami pool, back when she was a relative unknown. She’s curious as to what they may have seen in her, and we tell her about the Old Hollywood concept of “It,” that elusive ingredient that made a performer stand out.

What does she think that “It” factor can be that others see in her?

“I’m just having fun on camera, and that’s real,” she conjectures. “And I catch myself being like, ‘Oh yeah, the camera is over here, I probably should pay attention!’ I don’t totally lose myself in the scenes, but I definitely enjoy them.”

There’s something to the idea that effective porn sex stands somewhere between “real sex” and a calculated performance.

“I think eye contact is something intimate that you can have in both personal and professional sex,” she says. “But, they’re definitely not the same for me. I thought they were, but if I think about it, off-camera sex is a lot closer, more intimate. You can’t get a camera angle in there, you know? That’s the home stuff. And then for a performance, I try to bring as much of that chemistry as I can, while still allowing the camera to capture the good stuff.”

Kait says the most fun day she had on set so far was with Reality Kings down in Miami.

“They took us out to this open field, and we were having a redneck party! And I’m from Nashville — I’ve done the bonfires, I’ve done the crawfish boil, that’s my role. That was just such a fun day. I was literally on the back of the four-wheeler, I’m shaking my booty, I’m wringing my shirt in the air, and I just had a blast. It was just a huge redneck party, and it just kind of felt like home.”

Her favorite performances are her AVN-nominated Tushy Raw scene with Milan Ponjevic, the aforementioned Brazzers Podcast threesome with Alexis Fawx and Damion Dayski, and her five-in-a-row Nubile scenes.

“Dayski,” she muses, getting a bit flushed, “Dayski has got it all… He knows exactly how to put you in different positions — it’s very, very unique. We did the whole podcast before, so we had such an emotional connection, and chemistry kind of already going, we’re laughing at each other’s jokes and riffing off of each other. And Alexis Fawx is a freaking legend! For Nubiles, I got to do the ‘Mean Girls’ dance and got to play Regina George. That was a childhood fantasy — I was her for Halloween two years ago. Their director is really fantastic. I love to watch him work, and the attention to detail.”

And even though she’s taking the mainstream industry by storm, Kait continues to do brisk business as an OnlyFans creator and carefully observes everything that happens on pro sets to step up her indie scene game.

“My OnlyFans content may not be all perfect like mainstream, but the fans love that. I don’t have to worry so much about angles. In fact, at times my legs are closed… because I’m coming so hard. I’m just, I’m feeling it. I’m in the moment. I’m giving more intimate dirty talk they can’t quite hear. That’s also part of my style, and I want it to be authentic: that’s just me being in the moment with the guy. But every single mainstream shoot that I go to, I am learning. I am such a learner and a grower. I love personal development. I was with Gal Richie, and we were doing a BGG with Richard Glaze, and we’re down doing a hand job. And so she’s got her hand there and tells me, in her cute little British accent, ‘Here, interlace your hand and mine,’ and so we’re doing it together. And I was like, ‘That is such a cool move.’ Obviously, I brought that to my next threesome for OnlyFans!”

Building on what she learned from being mentored by a powerhouse like Riley Reid, Kait says she has constructed her whole empire from the ground up, one lesson at a time.

“Back when I first started OnlyFans, I had only kissed a girl, and that was it!” she marvels. “I had hookups with boyfriends and randoms, but that was it. Then OF started, and I was really curious about girls, and I got to have some fun with girls. And then I started having threesomes and everything. And I just kept growing into my sexuality, which is super cool, because it’s always been very strong, but it’s been so fun just being able to use OnlyFans as my journey.”

That trajectory, she estimates, was a big part of her Best New Starlet win.

“I think that something that helped the voters look at me as a serious performer is that I do it all,” she says. “I do anal, I’ve done DP. Some of the new girls are told to save it for later or for more money, but I like it, I enjoy it, I love it, and they can tell. Even though I hate that I can’t eat the night before, I actually do enjoy anal days. And as much as in the scene I’m told to say, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s my first time,’ inside, I’m really going, ‘Oh, this is nice.” As a content creator, I’ve already had the DP, DVP, gangbangs… I’ve already had so many of the “firsts,” now I’m having a really good time. That’s been such a fun part of my whole journey.”

Entering her fourth year in the industry, Cheerleader Kait remains convinced that she is exactly where she should be.

“I have met my lifelong best friends in this industry,” she says. “I have never been closer with people. I think that it just unlocks a much deeper level of friendship, whether you’ve done tapes and collabs with them, or you’re just shooting ideas off of each other. I really just think the connections that I make with people here are so valuable.”

She compares her path through adult with people in her civilian life who chose a safer path.

“It’s hard to make friends as adults and it’s hard to feel included and have a group,” Kait adds. “And here I get to fly across the country and go hang out with my bestie for a week and work and make content, do livestreams and not even feel like I’m really working. I didn’t expect that from the industry, especially starting when I was alone, taking nudes in my bathroom, and messaging fans online, and everything was just all me for a long time, six, eight months, until I think I finally brought in another girl and started having some fun. So I think just the connections really shocked me, the community that is here.”

And of course, the support and encouragement of the fans, whom Kait has studiously cultivated across several platforms, including lifestyle social network FetLife, where she is something of a site celebrity.

As we are winding down the interview, we start talking about the fans, and how much they stand by her, and that’s when Kait reveals that two days before her house burnt down.

She takes a few seconds to collect herself and points at the brand new pink suitcase that’s been at her side all the time we’ve been talking.

“I don’t want to cry, but my fans are so amazing,” she says. “Two days ago, I just haven’t told you yet, but two days ago, my house just burnt down, completely. There’s nothing left. I grabbed three pairs of shoes. I have one pair of jeans to my name. All of my belongings are literally in this suitcase. And my fans are just giving me the utmost support. They have no idea what’s happening or what’s going on in my life, but the fact that they are just sending out so much love, and they just care about me so much, it just, it just speaks mountains. I feel so loved by them every day. They have helped my confidence grow. I used to hate the way my pussy looked, and then people on Reddit are like, ‘Sexiest pussy I’ve ever seen!’ So they’ve just made me feel so loved, so supported. And every livestream, I’m so nervous. I don’t know why, I’ve done close to 200 of them, but the second I turn the camera on, and they start popping on, I’m doing rollcall. Like, Hey, Johnny, what’s up? User 8190101, you know, like all of my people are there and they mean the world to me, and I wouldn’t be where I am without them.”

These are the ride-or-die fans who were the first people Cheerleader Kait thanked when getting the Best New Starlet award.

“This week they’ve been everything for me. It was already in perspective for me, but it solidified it even more.”

It didn’t go unnoticed that Kait could have easily cancelled the interview we had set up weeks before the fire, and for a much better reason than the usual porn commitment cancellations.

She did not. And she wouldn’t have even brought up the fire if we hadn’t probed her about the fans. The pink suitcase would have remained a mystery. A total pro.

So, who’s Cheerleader Kait?

A planner, a student of the game, an open-minded seeker on a personal sexual journey, an exhibitionist, someone up for the challenges of the industry, who has effortlessly attracted mentors and collaborators, who has grown a pandemic hobby into a lucrative eggs-in-several-baskets operation, the center of a devoted fanbase, and someone who shows up and does the gig and gets invited back.

She also gives a great scene. And, even if she’s not really sure what “It” is, she’s got It.

“I want people to know that I’m coming, and I’m ready to shine,” she concludes. “Winning this award was a solidification that all of the hard work that I’ve done has paid off, all of the little details in between, the late nights, all of that has paid off. And now that I know what I’m doing is working, I’m ready to go. I’m ready to step into as many open doors, look at as many opportunities as I can, and just really explore those. Because from there, that’s phase two of figuring out exactly my interests and direction. And then comes phase three. And I don’t know what phase three is yet, but that’s the phase where I’m going to bring something back to the industry.”

“So I’m just ready to go. I’m ready. I feel like this is the start of my journey. I’ve built up the beginning, and now I’m ready to run. I thought getting the award was the end of a race, but it’s so not. It is just the beginning of a whole different race. And I’m just so excited for it, and I don’t know what I’m excited for. I’m figuring that out along the way.”