“When you walk out of your house and see me it will be too late… Your next periscope will be your bloody head on a stick.”
On August 27, one day after a Roanoke, Virginia, news crew was senselessly gunned down during a live broadcast, Brian Blankenship made that threat to former adult actress Malena Morgan via email and Periscope, a video streaming social media app. The psychopathic fan had become obsessed with Morgan and threatened to massacre her in a Roanoke copycat killing, saying he would use Periscope to show him “opening fire on Malena Morgan.” The deranged would-be gunman swore he’d “end Malena Morgan’s life.”
Using the handle @brianfalcons48 on Periscope and the email address wrestlemania17@yahoo.com, Blankenship sent messages telling her, “I hope you have protection… I have a 9mm and a shotgun your dead bitch and you won’t see me coming” and claimed he would “periscope you’re undoing it’s raw and I will take my own life after you’ve life is gone.”
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Some porn stars may have dismissed the Columbus, Georgia, man as just another hate-fan spewing hollow threats, but Morgan reported it to the authorities. (Morgan could not be reached for comment.)
Blankenship, 25, was arrested by the FBI on October 8 for “transmitting in interstate commerce a communication threatening to injure an identified individual,” before he could make good on his threats. Blankenship has already pleaded not guilty to the offense, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Speaking exclusively with The Daily Beast, Jenna J. Ross, a close friend of Malena Morgan’s, says she’s not surprised by his plea because “he has no concept of reality.” Ross, who is a porn star, was also on the receiving end of Blankenship’s threats, with Blankenship bragging that he “drove malena morgan off periscope” and that “Jenna j Ross is NEXT.”
“Because she’s my best friend he decided to come after me as well. By proxy, I became target number two,” says Ross. “When Malena blocked him on social media he couldn’t get to her anymore, so he turned it around on me. The best way to hurt her would be to hurt me.”
Ross refrained from reporting the disturbing threats to the authorities because she didn’t feel he had the means to follow through. “It was weird, he kept asking us to send him money. He seemed emotionally disturbed but he didn’t seem like he had the means to execute his threats,” says Ross. “But at the same time, crazy shit does happen and he needed to be stopped.”
This was not Ross’s first experience with a stalker.
Years ago, brand new to the business, her first encounter with an obsessed fan began on social media. “He was posting dead porn star memorials on my Facebook page saying he couldn’t wait to see me in one, so I of course blocked him,” says Ross. That didn’t stop him. He created alternate profiles and found her on Twitter, where the harassment escalated. “He started sending me pictures of coffins asking me which ones I liked, then photos of car bomb explosions saying he couldn’t wait to for it happen to me… it was so scary.”
To nullify her stalker, Ross opted to shut down her Facebook page—a tactic that seemed to work.
Like most women in the adult industry, I’ve been on the receiving end of hate mail and death threats, and like most I’ve never reported them. Identifying the “harmless” hate mail from real and present danger is tricky.
Three years ago, an obsessed fan began emailing me, blaming me for his sinful porn consumption. Days would pass—sometimes weeks—but inevitably I’d receive emails threatening my life. My failure to respond did nothing to deter him. He claimed to stalk me at the gym, follow me around Beverly Hills, and said he enjoyed watching me hike at Runyon Canyon. He wanted me to see him, and offered clues as to when I might be abducted and slaughtered. In one email he wrote, “I’m warning you because I watch your porn and I like you.”
The threats would have been terrifying if those details were anywhere close to correct. But they were fabricated, and I still felt safe. Maybe he was stalking the wrong girl—an Aurora look-alike.
Porn star Nikki Delano hasn’t had much experience with stalkers, but there is one fan she’ll never forget. After too many harassing messages, Delano decided to block the man in question on social media. It didn’t stop him. “He came to the convention I was signing at because I was ignoring him. I felt so scared,” says Delano. “We’re always in the public eye and it’s hard to filter out who’s going to be a threat and who’s not.”
Delano alerted security before he approached, but that was only possible because she knew what he looked like. What if she hadn’t?
These are unavoidable safety hazards and the reason why many porn stars guard their birth names. Stage names add a layer of security in a job with precious few safeguards.
“Now it seems that a woman’s [porn] occupation can preclude the crimes of rape, sexual assault, and harassment. She is either ‘asking for it,’ or the evidence for consent would be similar for that of rape,” says Dr. Paul Abramson, a UCLA professor of psychology. “Her profession is the invitation for murder.”
While porn stars have always attracted delusional haters, threats of violence can no longer be written off as harmless, misguided rage. Malena Morgan made the right call by involving the authorities, and if my encounter had happened today, I’d have done the same.
