On July 15, a Santa Monica judge approved a $3 million settlement in a lawsuit brought by former adult performer Emily Willis’ mother and legal guardian against Malibu Lighthouse Treatment, the company that owns the exclusive Southern California rehab center Summit Malibu.
After fees, Willis will reportedly receive $1.26 million, funds which she herself cannot access or spend without her family’s help. According to the complaint, Willis has been left completely incapacitated since a brief stint at Summit Malibu in early 2024, unable to move or communicate beyond occasionally opening her eyes and sometimes grunting.
She was 25 years old when the paramedics tried to revive her after she was found unresponsive at the facility.
Only three years before that, Willis was among the most prominent adult performers in the world, having received the 2021 AVN Female Performer of the Year award — the adult industry’s Oscars equivalent — in a remote ceremony forced by pandemic regulations. She had also been awarded the top XBIZ award, a feat she would replicate in 2022, becoming an incredibly rare back-to-back winner.
Having entered the industry as a starlet in 2018, Willis had reached its apex in less than three years — and was already looking past the glass ceiling that separates adult performers from mainstream recognition. By 2023, she was at the Sundance Film Festival as part of the cast of the Steven Soderbergh-produced experimental sci-fi film Divinity, co-starring alongside Scott Bakula, Stephen Dorff and former Disney star turned OnlyFans pioneer Bella Thorne. The Soderbergh connection was not trivial. The last time the Sex, Lies and Videotape auteur had helped a porn star transition into mainstream, it had been global sensation Sasha Grey, star of The Girlfriend Experience. Willis was treading a storied path.
