“I didn’t know if I was going to die that night,” says Nadia North, fighting back tears.
Eleven days prior, the adult actress and filmmaker had threatened to leave her husband, porn legend Peter North, only to have him attack her, she says. But on this day, Dec. 18, 2018, she was determined to follow through with it. The abuse had been escalating, and she feared for her safety. So, she threw some clothes, personal belongings, and a burner phone into a bag, and waited for North to leave their Newport Beach home. As soon as he left to go to the gym, she sprang into action and was all ready to leave when North returned to the house.
“He caught me,” she tells me.
The next several moments were a bit of a blur. “I ran upstairs, he threw me down on the ground and kicked me in the back of my head,” she explains. “And I’ve had brain surgery in the past—I have a soft spot on the back of my head, so I can’t get kicked there—and he hit me so hard I was throwing up and got a concussion.”
As she was writhing about on the floor, semi-conscious, she decided to hit record on her phone and pushed it under the bed. She was convinced he was going to kill her and didn’t want him to get away with it.
“He shoved a bunch of pills in my mouth, sat [in a chair] and blocked the door, and waited for me to fall asleep,” she remembers.
On the audio, which you can listen to below, North can be heard laughing while singing, “Jingle Bell Rock.”
“You’re looking at me like, what the fuck is he on?” a chuckling North says. “I’m on a high… high on life… I always just wanted to make you happy, and I’m so sorry for everything that I’ve done to upset you… especially physically or emotionally scar you… or almost kill you.”
“He’s singing ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ and saying he’s sorry he almost killed me—as I’m gurgling because I’m drugged and throwing up,” she says. “It’s pretty sick.”
Later that night, North took her to the emergency room because she was drifting in and out and wouldn’t stop vomiting.
“He stood right next to me, told them I fell in the shower, and wouldn’t let me talk,” she recalls. “He would squeeze my shoulder hard if I was about to say anything… and he threatened to kill me if I went to the police.”
It would take Nadia another year and a half to escape North’s clutches.
The saga of Nadia and Peter North (real name: Alden Joseph Brown) began as a love story. The couple met in 2015, after North reached out to Nadia to help him raise capital for his nutrition company.
“We talked on the phone a lot and he seemed charming,” the 43-year-old shares.
She was aware of North’s background. By then, he was an adult-industry staple, having acted in porn since 1983 and starred in over 2,000 XXX films. North, who is now 64, was primarily known for “barely legal” content featuring the aging performer having sex with young women who were barely over the age of 18. In the 1980s, the feds grilled him for shooting a number of porn scenes with an underage Traci Lords, but the government never followed through with the investigation.
“He used to brag about how Traci Lords was underage when he worked with her. He said a lot of things that… I don’t want to get into,” Nadia says.
So, their union helped North rebrand as the loving husband. They came up with the name “Nadia North” because the two were planning on getting married, and she convinced him to film more age-appropriate porn under his North Pole Productions banner.
“I used to flip companies, so I helped bring him into the 21st century in a way,” she maintains. “He was pretty old school and didn’t like change. I was like, look, you need to start branding yourself better, get on social media, and start interacting with people.”
Nadia North
HandoutNadia alleges that North Pole Productions was in dire straits when she got involved, so she was determined to help him right the ship. While her official title was VP of Operations, she handled everything from “pulling barcodes, to box covers, to purchase orders, to booking locations, to booking talent, to writing the scenes,” she sighs. She also produced, directed, and starred in features under the North Pole banner, including helming the award-nominated Faithfully Unfaithful series, and hosted seminars for swinging couples. Before long, the company was back on its feet.
“I was the naughty wife who did everything,” she says.
The two were married at a courthouse in 2017. And that’s when things seemed to take a turn. North became controlling—both personally and professionally.
“He used to cancel my bank cards, and I have a son, so he’d say, ‘If you want to fly back and see your son, you better work,’” she recalls. “He’d make me do three extreme scenes over two days, just to save money on locations, so my body was destroyed. And he would get upset with me if I didn’t do certain things, saying I’d ‘pay the consequences later.’”
On March 27, 2017, Nadia was granted an emergency protective order against North after he assaulted her. But she loved him and thought he would change.
“I think I was ashamed, in a way,” she tells me. “I couldn’t believe it was happening.”
One of the lowest points was in January 2018, at the AVN Awards—known as the “Oscars of Porn”—in Las Vegas. It was the high point of her adult career, having been nominated in several categories, but the night before the main event they got into an argument and he locked her out of their hotel room. “I had to sleep on the floor of the bathroom of the casino,” she says. “And he had all my credit cards and money, so what was I going to do?”
The Daily Beast has observed numerous police reports, hospital reports, court documents, audio recordings, text messages, and photographs of Nadia’s bruised body that corroborate her abuse allegations against North, who did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Between March 27, 2017, and June 15, 2019, she alleges that he assaulted her on at least 11 occasions, and hospital records indicate that North has suffered broken ribs, bruising, head contusions, a spinal injury, and at least five concussions.
“He always hit me from behind—that was his thing—so I never really knew when it was coming,” she says. “When he broke my ribs, he also broke a piece of my scapula when he threw me through a door frame—he had broken my ribs another time prior to that—and it also cracked part of my vertebrae. He’s given me so many concussions. He gave me whiplash, so there’s something wrong with the front of my throat. I’m on seizure medication, because I keep having seizures.”
In June 2019, after North was arrested twice for beating Nadia in their Newport Beach home, police granted her a restraining order against him. But as soon as North paid his $50,000 bail and got out of jail, he drained their bank accounts.
“When he got out of jail that day, he went to the banks, and took out every penny that we had—and hid it,” she says. “He told me if I was a ‘good girl’ I’d get some back.”
Two months later, in August, Nadia reached out to North with an urgent plea.
“I had a restraining order on him, and we had mold because we were selling the house, and it was leaking,” she explains. “I was getting so sick from it. So, I texted him, asking, ‘Could you please get me a hotel?’ Because I had no money, and I was desperate.” She took an Uber to meet North, and then he demanded that they drive back to their home so he could look at the mold.
“He was just supposed to look at it and leave. I went upstairs to change my shirt and… he said that he missed me,” she whispers, through tears. “He decided that he wanted me, and I told him no, and that didn’t work.”
And then, Nadia says, he raped her. “He held me down by my neck… and then he told me that it was ‘my fault’ and to not tell anybody because I was the one who broke the restraining order and ‘deserved it.’”
Nadia is speaking to me from an undisclosed location. She now has a German shepherd, who acts both as an emotional support dog and her protection.
“She makes me smile and helps me,” she says. “Because I couldn’t go anywhere without shaking. I have PTSD from it all. I’ll jump at noises.”
She has a hearing this week in her divorce and abuse cases against North, who she alleges is refusing to agree to a fair divorce.
“I just want him to sign the divorce papers. He said that he wants ‘full control’ and that I ‘won’t make it to the divorce,’” she says. “I just want my life back. I don’t want to have to look over my shoulder anymore.”
She pauses. “And I’m hoping that if I tell my story, maybe it will save some other women, and inspire them to be brave and come forward. That’s why I’m doing this.”
