For decades, Satan had a stronghold on Kevin Kirchen, one of the original Chippendales dancers. When his family and church let him down, Kirchen embraced the devil, became a porn star, binged on drugs and alcohol, and almost killed himself. But God intervened, providing a Christian wife and mentors who pointed him to Jesus.
Now Kirchen, 58, is an ordained minister who speaks and writes about redemption and peace with God. Of his 2020 memoir “My Game, My Pain, My Purpose,” one reviewer writes: “GOD turned his test into a testimony and his mess into a message.”
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Former Porn Star: Childhood Trauma Led to Anger at God
On a 2022 episode of the Perseverance Podcast, Kirchen describes his difficult childhood—including the death of his father, abandonment by his mother, and homelessness. After being invited to church at age 16, Kirchen became a Christian and a family took him in. Soon, however, the church encouraged those foster parents to send him away because the family had daughters.
In an interview with The Christian Post, Kirchen describes how Satan appeared to him after that at a college party. “I didn’t have a normal childhood. I had given up on God. I was struggling with Jesus, and I wanted the devil because I was upset with God.”
Kirchen eventually ended up in the bodybuilding scene in Venice Beach, California. Friends helped him get a fake ID and took him to bars, which hosted male-dancer contests. After Kirchen performed in one, he successfully auditioned for Chippendales and worked as a male stripper for a decade. On the podcast, Kirchen describes feeling “completely empty inside” because “the devil drained me.”
Porn Lifestyle Led to Despair
The next step for Kirchen was the Hollywood porn industry, where he earned $1,000 per day as a porn star and had easy access to drugs and alcohol. “I summoned the devil again,” he says on the podcast, describing the darkness he experienced. To do his job, he “had to put on blinders and kick it into another gear.”
Depression ensued, to the point where Kirchen almost committed suicide. “Once you put yourself on camera, you can’t get that back,” he realized. “It’s gonna follow you.”
