Donna Doll Interview
By Cindi
Loftus of Xcitement.com
She is beautiful. She exudes a glowing happiness; always smiling, always
laughing and joking. She left her poor family in Brazil to come to the
US to make money to send back to them. She was named best newcomer feature
dancer by Exotic Dancer Magazine.
Adult Fun 411: Hi Donna. I love your accent.
Donna: I hate my accent. A lot of people think I am European because
I don’t look Brazilian.
AF: No you don’t. Aren’t you supposed to have brown hair and brown eyes?
D: I don’t know. My parents are not Brazilian. I was born there, but
my family is Italian.
AF: You don’t look Italian either.
D: Maybe I’m not their daughter! (Laughs)
AF: Maybe you were adopted.
D: Maybe my Mom did something wrong. (Laughs) But I was born in Brazil
and lived my whole life there. I came to the United States five years
ago. When I came here I didn’t know a word of English.
AF: Your English is great!
D: Oh thank you. I tried so hard. When I came here the only thing I
knew how to say was “A number one, Big Mac.” When I wanted to ask for
French fries, I didn’t know how. I was asking for fried potatoes, and
the guy was telling me we don’t have that. We have French fries. I was
saying I don’t want nothing French. I just want some potatoes.
AF: That’s funny. What was it like in Brazil?
D: It was crazy. Financially my family wasn’t doing very well.
AF: I hear that there is murder and kidnapping all the time in Brazil,
is that true?
D: Oh my God. When I am driving I never stop very close to the car in
front of me because in Brazil you are trained to not put your car at
a complete stop because people will come in your car and try to kill
or kidnap you, and jack your car. So when I see the light is red I go
very slow, so there is always a place to move.
AF: That is very scary to live like that. Did you have bodyguards?
D: There were a lot of people that have them. When I go back there we
hire someone to bring me home and watch the gate and the garage door
until I get in safely. Because if you want to go out at night and get
back in the house it’s dangerous because it is dark, and when you stop
your car to get in the garage or open the gate they just come and hi-jack
you. But now that I am doing better myself, I am able to help my parents.
I hired this guy that takes care of the front of the house. Before we
were doing reasonably well and we had this huge house. But the economics
there are very crazy because now they have no money.
AF: What did you do for a living down there?
D: I was going to Law School. I was learning and working in a legal
office. But we had no money and I decided I had to do something.
AF: How did you decide to come over here? And how did you know what
you were going to do?
D: One day I just say, I can’t take this anymore. We were doing very
bad, we didn’t even have lights in the house anymore. I got all the
jewelry I had and my parent’s watches and I went to the pawnshop and
pawned everything. I didn’t tell anybody. I had saved some of the money
I was earning. (She was being paid $20 a month to work in the law office.)
I went to the airport and I asked the airline girl if I could go to
Australia. But I didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket there. So
I asked the girl where could I go with my money? She said you can go
to the very south of Brazil, you can go to Mexico, and then she said
Miami. And I said oh give me that ticket. And I came here. It was December
of 2000.
AF: What kind of job did you get when you got here?
D: I spent five days living in the airport. I didn’t have a plan. I
didn’t know where to go. Then I read the classified in a Spanish paper
and there was so many ads for dancers, $350 per shift guaranteed, no
nudity. So I got on a shuttle and went over there and it was a titty
bar! And I had never been to a titty bar. When I walked in there, there
was a stage right in front of me with a girl dancing naked and I thought
oh my God, Lord forgive me. What am I doing here? We don’t have titty
bars in Brazil.
AF: So did you decide to just do it?
D: I couldn’t. So I was leaving and this lady came and talked to me
and she was the manager and Brazilian too. I stayed and talked to her
and had a couple tequila shots and I was ready to go. My first time
on stage was that same day. So I was up dancing on stage in my street
clothes.
AF: How much money did you make?
D: Seven hundred and forty eight dollars. I started dancing early in
the day and stayed there until 2 or 3 in the morning.
AF: What did you think? You went from twenty dollars a month to seven
hundred for one day. You were rich.
D: I didn’t ever see this much money before; I had nowhere to put it.
I went back to the airport and put it in one of those lockers where
you can leave your stuff. I just kept going to look and open it to see
all that money. Then I got a little apartment week to week, and I started
making friends.
AF: How did you start featuring?
D: I got invited to go to a couple pageants. The first one I came in
second. Then I won Miss Hottest Body and Newcomer of the year. I met
Ann Marie from Pure Talent who is now my agent. I went to their feature
school. It taught me how to put a show together, and then they booked
me in a club named Babylon in Ohio.
AF: How did you do?
D: My shoes were new and I started to slide from one side of the stage
to the other and ended up hanging on to the wall. Everybody was laughing.
I started laughing. It was like ice skating across the stage and bumping
into the wall.
AF: Well your family is lucky because you are sending enough money to
support them.
D: That is why I work so hard and so much. I feel responsible. Well
now my Dad is working, and I helped my Mom open her practice again,
she is a psychologist. And I help my brother go to college.