Alyssa Funke made one porn video in her 19 years of life, but the brief foray into the adult entertainment industry would ultimately lead to her death just months later.
Funke is being remembered as a casualty of the adult film industry after the 19-year-old committed suicide when footage of her adult film circulated and led to cyberbullying from former peers.
As The Inquisitr reported, Funke was a student at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and took part in a “casting couch” amateur porn movie. At the time she was a straight-A student, but when her film appeared on the amateur site CastingCouch-X, it sent her life into a spiral.
Though she appeared to initially be proud of her work and boasted of her “porn star status” online, former high school classmates discovered the Alyssa Funke porn movie and began posting disparaging messages about her on social media. The 19-year-old would go on to take her own life.
Now a fellow college-going porn star is standing behind Funke. Belle Knox, a Duke University student outed as a porn star, wrote a letter bemoaning Funke’s death and noting that she could have easily suffered the same fate.
“That could’ve been how it all ended for me, too,” wrote Knox, who appeared on the same site as Alyssa Funke.
Knox went on to say that she knows the struggles Funke must have faced. Knox spoke out against her own bullies, calling out fellow Duke University students who harassed her.
“As several news outlets have pointed out, your story is my story is your story — is every young porn girl’s story,” Knox wrote in an emotional open letter to the late Minnesota teen on XOJane.com. She adds, “Just like you, I was bullied relentlessly by my fellow students for my actions as a porn performer,” her letter said. “I do not think pornography caused your death. But I think society’s reaction to pornography did.”
Others have noted that the Alyssa Funke porn video saga was a sad ending to a difficult life . The teen was one of nine children growing up in a home marred by abuse and neglect, local media outlets reported. The family often struggled for money, and Alyssa spent most of the time living with her grandmother.