A Tribute to Sophie Anderson, Forever a C*ck Destroyer
Friends and collaborators share their memories.
“I just want to say that I truly love u all… remember if u r lonely… I’m thinking of you… & I know how it feels to be alone. I want you to know that you are beautiful and sexy and I love you.” That was a tweet from Sophie Anderson, the beloved pornstar and viral sensation, who passed away earlier this week at 36-years-old. She died two weeks after the sudden death of her husband, former soccer star-turned-pornstar Oliver Spedding. Her cause of death is at this time unknown. She is survived by her four children.
It’s challenging to explain Sophie and her impact, especially to those not chronically online, because viral sensations are fleeting and often hollow, but Sophie was neither of those things. Sophie Anderson and Rebecca More were transgressive in a modern John Waters-esque way in being so lewd, yet… sweet? As one person on Twitter observed: “Sophie Anderson was way more than a meme and a legend. She was a fierce supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and by all accounts a sweetheart who will be missed. May she rest in peace knowing she valiantly despunked countless cocks.” The Cock Destroyers were everything the girl next door was not, and yet the girl next door would most certainly try and befriend them. I know I did!
I first met Sophie in 2019 when I was approached to profile her and her fellow Cock Destroyer Rebecca More for Interview Magazine. Here was my opener:
“In October of 2018, despite having just wrapped a private gangbang for a paying clientele that included CEOs, doctors, and one police officer, the adult film stars Rebecca More and Sophie Anderson were already on to the next. ‘The evening one was full, but we needed to recruit dicks for the morning,’ Anderson remembers. So they took to Twitter. ‘Hi, guys! Look at these lovely big tits,’ More says to the camera, while rubbing her 34G-size breasts. ‘You know what we are? We’re fucking cock destroyers, aren’t we, babe?’ That’s when Anderson, er, busts into the frame. ‘Cock fucking destroyers,’ Anderson adds, her hands on her own 32KKK-size chest.”
That profile was whittled down to only a few paragraphs by the time it made its way to print. I searched far and wide for the video of my Zoom with Sophie but came up short. I dug and dug and dug and finally uncovered the audio. This proved important because someone like Sophie doesn’t get a New York Times obituary (though she should!), so details of her life are not easy to suss out. I’m grateful to have this audio not only as a memory of my time with her, but an important record of her story from her own lips.
“I’m from Bristol in the UK — you can probably tell by my accent. South West. Very country. [Giggles]. When I was younger I was very, very into the performing arts. I loved musical theater. I just loved being out there, y’know, and happy and singing. Then I grew up and got into the adult industry at 16.”
I paused her there, and asked how she found herself in the industry, but then switched up my question and instead asked what her first exposure was to the adult industry. “Just before my 11th birthday, actually. I was sneaking my dad’s videos and watching those. He used to work in the property business and people would leave things there, like videos or magazines. I was like, ‘Wow, this is amazing, seeing big boobs and all that stuff. I got a fascination with the body and women with big, big boobs.’”
She goes on to tell me about working in massage parlors in town. “Wow, this is so, so different, but amazing,” she told me at the time. “And from there I started escorting. From a young age, I was very very sexual and going out and experiencing all different things, things like older guys and everything. It was so much fun, yeah!”
It wasn’t until recently, during a 2022 appearance on Anything Goes With James English, that she opened up about the darker aspects of her childhood. “These guys used to really shame me for my weight. I was really overweight for a child…. I would have these older men abuse me. I would have to watch my mum have sex. These guys would then fat-shame me… I can remember bits and them touching me. It was never full sex, it was always touching or I would have to kiss them. She was in the bedroom… I think that's why I could never forgive my mum. You let these men… And it’s not even my story that’s making me upset. It’s literally because if I knew that anyone had to go through anything or any kind of abuse, being hit or mentally abused or anything like that, that is what kills [me].”
One thing Sophie says in the interview that really struck me was this: “I don’t know if people see this as bad, but for me it wasn’t.” It’s this idea, one that is explored in the Todd Haynes film May December, that a minor saying something akin to “I wanted it” excuses or justifies the behavior of the abusers. It doesn’t.
Her tears, which begin to well as she speaks about her childhood, seem to be caused not by revisiting her own but at the thought of others experiencing abuse, something she herself does not draw a line between — at least in this conversation.
But it underlines something about Sophie: She cared. She really cared. “Extravagant. Ridiculous. Hilarious.” That’s how Anderson’s makeup artist Kelly Coulter described her to me when we chatted yesterday. They met ten years ago at a sex club in Birmingham where Coulter had been tasked with doing Anderson’s makeup for a video. “She’d just come back from having another boob job — ’cause that’s what she did a lot,” Coulter remarks with a laugh. “She was so warm and sweet and welcoming and funny. We’re both from Bristol and it always made me laugh how Bristolian she was. She’d call everyone ‘love,’ like ‘you alright, my love?’ She was such a caring person. And she was so funny. She was always making jokes about her boobs and about her body and about sucking people off. And she cared! She cared about her fans as well. She cared about the people that weren’t treating her as well as she deserved to be, too. Even when she had a falling out with people, she never had a bad word to say about anyone. I think it came from her not-great beginning of her life. She was always trying to, I guess, make sure other people didn’t go through stuff like that.”
Others that knew her reached out to me as well.
“As a woman, Sophie was the ultimate ray of light. She embodied the kind of liberation and generosity towards oneself that we should all aspire to. As a collaborator, Sophie was fearless and lit up the room with her kindness and creativity, making everyone feel like family. Above all, she reminded us to not take the weight of the world too seriously. Sophie's formative voice and legendary work will forever be celebrated. We encourage everyone to look up to the sky today and blow a kiss with some extra gloss, babes! We will miss you and honor you, Sophie Anderson.” — A statement from MEN.com, where Sophie collaborated on two projects, A Tale of Two Cock Destroyers and the reality series Slag Wars.
“The sweetness was real. The vulnerability was real. The humor was real. The light was real. The loss is all too real.” — Erik Schut
“What feels like a million years ago, my friends and I went to see Trixie Mattel in London. I had gone to the bar and saw her and went back to my friends and said, ‘OMG! It’s Sophie Anderson.’ We went over and chatted to her. She was so lovely and kind and was really quiet until other people started realizing it was her. The minute lots of people started realizing she was there she put on this show. She started putting on the Cock Destroyer facade. But honestly before that, she had been so lovely and quiet and nice and it was so clearly a show. But I honestly feel like she had been really abused by people around her. She was so nice. I’m so sad that she’s gone.” — Sophie McKee
“I worked for MEN.com in 2019 and we produced A Tale of Two Cock Destroyers starring Sophie and Rebecca. Rose Dommu, covering the shoot for Out Magazine, and myself flew to London for the production (we both ended up being extras in the series, haha). On the first morning when Rose and I got to the literal castle where this thing was being shot, Sophie and Rebecca were already there getting their hair and makeup done. Sophie looked super busy writing something longhand on a piece of paper, and I said ‘Sophie, what are you doing? Homework?’ and she said, ‘No, no, I'm learning my lines by copying them over and over.’ We all laughed and I said, ‘Sophie, this is a porno, you can just make up your own lines!’ and she said, '’No, no, I love this script, I wanna do it justice!’ It just speaks to the consummate professional she was. Whatever she decided to do, she always gave 110%.” — Jeremie Romain
“Sophie was one of the most professional and funny people I’ve ever met on set. In everything she did, she transmitted joy to everyone around and that is something that is not abundant these days. Definitely one of those persons that you meet once in life if you are lucky enough.” — Josep Rodriguez
It’s surreal, sad and frustrating to lose someone like Sophie, someone so committed to the betterment of other’s lives in a way that seems to have played a role in costing her her own. Frustrating, I say, because there is and will likely remain so much unknown. “I have nothing right now,” her former fellow Cock Destroyer Rebecca More told me yesterday. “I am so devastated. I just have nothing. I’m sorry. It’s all been too much.”
We love you, Sophie. Hope you're destroying cocks up there in heaven.