Ted Cruz pulled a campaign ad featuring a softcore porn actress, and her fans are mad

By Fusion Staff  |  February 12, 2016 | 5:07pm
Latest

On Thursday, the Ted Cruz campaign pulled an ad featuring a former softcore porn actress. The short commercial shows seven people speaking in what appears to be a support/focus group about how they’ve been hurt by Marco Rubio.

“Has anyone else here struggled with being lied to?” someone asks. “Well, I voted for a guy who was a Tea Party hero on the campaign trail, and then he went to DC and started playing patty-cake with Chuck Schumer and cut a deal on amnesty.” A woman, played by Amy Lindsay, responds with “Maybe you should vote for more than just a pretty face next time.”


BuzzFeed discovered Lindsay’s filmography—which includes appearances in the 1990s TV series Erotic Confessions, and the R-rated Secrets of a Chambermaid among others—and reached out to the campaign for comment. In response, spokesman Rick Tyler said the ad would be replaced with one not featuring Lindsay, adding:

The actress responded to an open casting call. She passed her audition and got the job. Unfortunately, she was not vetted by the production company. Had the campaign known of her full filmography, we obviously would not have let her appear in the ad.

Tyler did not offer further comment in a brief phone interview.

Lindsay has also appeared in more conventional films, like the Star Trek: Voyager TV series.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Lindsay said she understands the decision to remove the ad. “I didn’t want to hurt the Ted Cruz campaign,” said the actress.

As the Post points out, she did express disappointment on Twitter:

She also retweeted a number of her supporters, some of whom did not have very nice things to say about the GOP hopeful:

Many people also posted messages of support to Lindsay’s Facebook page. Some of these were also not especially kind to Cruz:

Lindsay, at least, was aware of the possibly positive impact her presence in the ad might have on the campaign. From BuzzFeed:

She emphasized that she did not do hardcore porn and that she also appeared in non-erotic films, Lindsay said she thinks it is “cool” that an actor who has appeared in softcore porn could also appear in Cruz’s ad. “In a cool way, then hey, then it’s not just some old, white Christian bigot that people want to say, ‘It could be, maybe, a cool kind of open-minded woman like me,’” she said of people supporting Cruz.

Fair point.

Danielle Wiener-Bronner is a news reporter.

 
Join the discussion...