Dallas Housewife Tiffany Hendra Addresses Her Racy Acting Past
The #RHOD 'Wife opens up about her former life as an actress and the rumors that she worked in adult films.
The Real Housewives of Dallas' Tiffany Hendra is addressing the speculation about her acting days head-on by opening up about headlines that claim she starred in pornography, noting that the projects in question never veered into that territory. "Now's the right time to address it because I am so ready. I am so willing every day," she told The Daily Dish about her resume's unwanted attention.
Tiffany shared that she studied under Ivana Chubbuck, who worked with Halle Berry during Monster's Ball. She noted that those projects, like the Cinemax series Black Tie Nights, were filmed under strict guidelines about what she would and would not do. "In my contract, my manager was great, and she helped me. It [had] a nudity clause and they could not show any full frontal, like nothing below my belly button and nothing below the top of butt crack. You can see the side of my body, you can see my breast. But I'm sorry, if you're watching Vinyl, Olivia Wilde and the male lead actor are both seen in full frontal. So are we calling all of these types of shows now [porn]? I'm glad to take it on and be a voice."
The Dallas 'Wife went on to explain the distinction between nudity in film and pornography. "The label 'porn star' does not stick to me because I know it's not porn. If you've seen Monster's Ball, Halle Berry's love scenes with Billy Bob Thornton are way more explicit than anything I've ever done," she said. "So it was just kind of shocking. Did I do simulated love scenes like most of the shows and movies that we see? Yes."
Tiffany has no regrets about her time in Hollywood, and takes pride in her achievements. "I actually went out to L.A., I built a resume. I worked my ass off and I'm proud of every single thing that I've done," she explained. Her other credits include Walker Texas Ranger 3: Deadly Reunion, the showtime sitcom Primetime Glick starring Martin Short, and hosting the game show Beat the Geeks.
Wanting a change of pace from their fast-paced life in Hollywood, Texas-native Tiffany and her husband, Australian musician Aaron Hendra, moved back to the Longhorn state to be closer to her family. And now she's hoping to use her celebrity platform to change the conversation around more important issues that women are facing. "I have people's attention and now it's up to me what I'm going to do with it,” she noted.
"All of that [attention is] gonna come and the stuff that I've been through with this 'porn thing' and my acting career in L.A. and now just starting to share my story about being sexually assaulted [at age 16]…I knew all of that was gonna come," she added. "I knew it, and I knew it was going to inspire people, so I really didn't care."
Tiffany hopes to continue to inspire others and help give them a voice on her Sanctuary of Style blog and YouTube channel. In fact, she's hoping that by sharing her story of her sexual assault she can help other women find their voice. She's previously been less willing to talk about it, but noted that she "felt in [her] gut that God was going to have the right time and the right moment" to talk about the incident.
"Once I started healing [after my assault] and talking to other women and mentoring other women I see that so many women are living this life of shame and they're making decisions out of a place of fear instead of competence and power,” Tiffany said. "I just want to stop it. I'm on this mission for teenage girls to learn the power of positive thinking to learn their self worth, [to learn] that it's not validated by their looks or the guys that like them. I just want women to learn to love themselves, bottom line."
RHOD airs Mondays at 10/9c. Check out a preview below.
