Porn legend Ron Jeremy is renowned for his on-camera stamina – but he looked like he would rather do something else in bed as he was caught short catching forty winks during his ‘rum job’.
Last night in the Northern Quarter, he did two sets of his solo show (no, not like that), which was one-part stand-up comedy with a pinch of a Q&A session on his unusual, peripatetic life in adult entertainment as he promoted his new rum, Ron de Jeremy.
Between sets he whizzed over to Revolucion de Cuba to grab a bite to eat before playing with a live band.
He plays the harmonica because ‘a violin wouldn’t fit in his pants’.
Afterwards he signed bottles of his rum, Ron de Jeremy (Ron being the Spanish word for rum) and posed for pictures with fans, signing more than a few breasts. It’s sort of his trademark.
Jeremy, widely considered to be porn’s greatest star and certainly its best-known, is a natural-born performer. He has real stage presence – the one-liners are sharp and his stories engaging.
Off it however, he can’t keep it up.
Anyone who saw him last night might have marvelled at how a 61-year-old could be that lively after a busy day of rum-flogging, which started in Berlin at 7am.
It turns out he likes to catch up on his sleep while eating.
With his chin in his chest, Jeremy spends a good portion of dinner slumped over, while his business partner explains apologetically that he had a late one last night.
BOTTOMS UP: Ron is promoting his new rum Ron de Jeremy
It was understandable, if a little disappointing but as his food arrives he perks up a little and then, miraculously, after a couple of mouthfuls of his cappuccino he’s back up to full speed.
On the subject of Manchester, he says: “Oh I love it – I’ve been here before. I get stopped all the time in the street. People come up to me and say ‘Ron Jeremy you’re such a legend’. Most ask me for a photo.
“Although that does happen everywhere in the world. I don’t mean to brag, but I get it a lot.”
After that initial question Jeremy goes off-script as his manic stream of consciousness takes over.
“This whole rum business is quite competitive,” he adds.
“I’m up against Captain Morgan, but I always say I have the upper hand because he’s on one leg and I’m on three.”
Swiftly moving the conversation back to porn, he tells the table that porn stars aren’t like regular people at all.
He elaborates: “You see, we don’t buy things like you buy things. If you see a motorbike you think to yourself ‘how much is this? A couple thousand dollars’.
“Whereas I think ‘that’ll be a couple hundred anal scenes, 165 vaginal scenes, 60 blowjobs and one dialogue day.
“New hubcaps? That’ll be another blowjob.”
Jeremy’s mouth work is smooth, honed over many years of performing stand-up across the United States.
Unsurprisingly, much of his material is sex-related and his famously-large member is the source of great inspiration.
“My dick is so big when I was born my dad had stretch marks,” he tells me.
“It’s so big Stephen Hawking can’t count it.
“It’s so big I’m fucking a girl tomorrow, today.
“It’s so big it won’t take calls from Steven Spielberg.”
Jeremy understands his public perception and he plays up to it. He isn’t ridiculed, but he knows he’s not always taken seriously. He knows people will buy Ron de Jeremy mainly because he is porn’s pre-eminent performer.
But, to his credit, he’s business-savvy and he’s wholly committed to making a good product.
He says: “We knew we had to make the rum taste good because people might drink Ron de Jeremy once for the novelty because of my name, but if it wasn’t good they wouldn’t go back for that second drink.
“I dare anyone to find one bad review of Ron de Jeremy. We got great reviews in newspapers all over the states.”
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So why did Jeremy decide to get into the rum business?
“Ron is Spanish for rum, of course, so Olli, the brand’s owner, came to Los Angeles to meet with me because they were looking for a famous Ron,” he said.
“I always say Ronald Reagan is dead, Ronald McDonald makes hamburgers, Ron Howard makes movies and Enron makes thieves.”
At the end of the night, as we watch him schmooze the last stragglers from his final set, one of his fans approaches me.
She tells me, having met him numerous times, she knows people don’t know the real Ron Jeremy.
She says: “I’ve never seen a celebrity so involved with their fans. He gets so many people coming up to him but he’s got time for every single one of them.
“I just wish he was happy. You see him chasing these people around all the time but you can’t have happiness in random people all the time. I worry about his real connections in life.
“Is he married? Is he happy? He lives by ‘any hole’s a goal’ but he must get bored. People don’t see the real Ron Jeremy but deep down he wants to be loved.”
Undoubtedly a life in porn takes an emotion toll, but on the evidence of last night Jeremy will be signing bottles and body parts for many years to come.
Main image courtesy of Jennifer Abbott, via YouTube, with thanks
