R-rated or empowering? East Sac ‘sexy mom’ wages war of words and nudes with the Church
I wanted to dislike the East Sacramento “sexy mom” whose once-secret life as an R-rated internet star was featured in People magazine last month after her relative fame resulted in her three boys being expelled from a venerable Catholic school in Sacramento.
The whole controversy seemed like a setup for Crystal Jackson and her husband Chris to bolster Crystal’s online brand as an adult star who was not above posing nude.
Mix in an unforgiving Catholic Church, a judgmental Catholic community, an upscale East Sacramento enclave set ablaze by sex talk — and that the whole thing was breaking at the end of TV’s sweeps month! — and you had the worst elements of 21st century American culture finding an international audience from right here in our backyard.
“The first month we got $15,000 and I thought that was a crazy amount of money,” Chris Jackson said. “I had no idea what it would grow to.”
It grew into a viral news story. The news of the affair came to me when a guy I know sent me two photos of Jackson with three other women, all from Sacramento, and all nude and in bed together in poses that cannot be fully described in a family publication.
Crystal Jackson, a 44-year-old “soccer mom,” was just trying to spice up her marriage when she found excitement, empowerment and lots of money by posing in her underwear for the subscription-only site OnlyFans. Families complained to the school and her boys were expelled. School officials have declined to comment.
The story behind the nude photos
What Crystal has been doing since the fall of 2019 is not illegal but it is racy. At the start, she was posing in the sexiest clothes she had and she seemed shy and self conscious when she danced provocatively. But as customers responded, she grew more assured.
Her outfits are now always tight and revealing. She went from a mom to wearing gentleman’s club quality garments in a matter of months. Her videos and images were meant to be endearing as they were seductive to attract dads, professionals, older guys. There are some nudes, including with other women who are mostly her age.
She is the mom next door, not the porn star who would do something graphic as on X-rated sites. She is that familiar face and an attractive presence who is outwardly wholesome but eager to share a discreet and naughty relationship with paying customers. They wouldn’t be caught dead at a strip club but feel comfortable logging onto their laptops and paying privately to watch the show.
That’s a great story, no question. But it seemed intellectually dishonest that it was being told without fully explaining that the images used to illustrate it were not anywhere close to being the most salacious photographs of Crystal out there.
Also too convenient was that Sacred Heart Parish School was posited as the villain of this story. The same thing happened on my own Facebook timeline as commenters trashed what they saw as a tone-deaf Catholic hierarchy that kicked Jackson’s kids out of school because of their mom’s racy persona but once tolerated pedophile priests.
The fact that the People story broke on Feb. 23, just two days after the Jackson boys were removed from Sacred Heart, seemed awfully suspicious. That doesn’t just happen. That kind of access to major media outlets requires connected agents and lawyers.
When I met Crystal Jackson and her husband Chris and spent time with them, it turned out this was true. By the time they were told that their kids could no longer attend Sacred Heart, they were mad, they had connections in the media and they were not in the mood to simply be tossed aside.
“It was so toxic there,” Crystal said. “We would go together to drop off the kids and pick them up. It was really disheartening. because we have done so much for that school. We did over 100 hours of volunteer work for that school every year. “
“One dad blabbed to his wife.” Chris said. “We got an email from the principal who said, ‘Hey, you’re being talked about...’ “ If the Jacksons were going to get kicked out of their faith community for doing something that was provocative but not illegal, they were going to hit back by telling their story as they wanted it told.
Naked truths
The coverage was flattering to the Jacksons, but simplistic, too. What was left out is that these are very smart people who know who they are, are comfortable with who they are, and — in the final analysis — were driven by more than just profit.
Chris has an MBA from UC Davis, and Crystal is working on one. They’ve been together for more than 20 years. They consider themselves active, practicing Catholics.
“I’ve been a parishioner of Sacred Heart for over 25 years, and Crystal and I were married at the church 14 years ago, and of course our three sons have always attended the school,” Chris wrote to the Diocese of Sacramento in late January.
“My wife and I volunteer at the Retrouvaille marriage retreats, and we ourselves have been attendees of the Retrouvaille program in the past,” he wrote. “We also have volunteered at the Sacramento Food Bank for decades now, and we are well known to the staff there.”
Picture a lot of money
The Jacksons don’t deny that their falling out with Sacramento’s Catholic Diocese has been profitable.
Their monthly royalties for images and videos of Crystal, including some nudes, are making them $150,000 or more a month on OnlyFans, they said.
That would be $1.8 million a year off OnlyFans postings if those numbers were consistent over 12 months.
“In the last week, I would say it’s about $350,000,“ Chris said. “From the marketing and the data analytics that we do, I would estimate it would end up running about $400,000 a month. But we know we’ll lose it.”
They said they are also weighing offers from Hollywood to tell their story of being a middle-aged couple looking to spice up their love life when, on a lark, they found more than they bargained for in the lucrative world of online sites selling sexual titillation. The Jacksons can have more if they want it, but they said they aren’t sure they do.
And here is where this story takes another plot turn. The Jacksons said they can easily trade on her internet persona.
“I help other models,” Crystal said. “I ask them, ‘What is your brand? How do you market yourself and who do you want to market to?’ A lot of these women don’t have business backgrounds. They don’t have much education, they don’t know how technology works in the background...But I don’t really know where it goes from here.”
But what they want most of all is what they can’t have: their kids back in Catholic school while Crystal continues her work on OnlyFans. They said they have tried to communicate to the diocese that they are a couple who has struggled but tried to remain in the church despite daunting odds.
“Most couples do not end up at Retrouvaille on a happy note, and neither did we,” Chris wrote to the diocese in late January. “While the majority of our holy matrimony has been harmonious, there was a time that I was actively addicted to drugs, my wife had restraining orders against me, and we were in divorce court (I have been a member of AA for over 30 years, the vast majority of the time sober, but not the entire time)....But we chose Retrouvaille in the critical moment, again, because of our dedication in good times and bad to the holy matrimony sacrament. It was successful, and we volunteer there to this day.”
I asked the Jacksons why, if they wanted to spice up their marriage, they didn’t simply create photos and videos that no one else could see.
“We did,” Crystal said.
But Chris posted a photo of her online, receiving a positive reaction. She said she was going through early menopause, and their intimacy was gone. He asked her what her fantasies were, and she was embarrassed and said she didn’t know.
Her initial forays in the online site and on Twitter – as “Mrs Poindexter @ OnlyFans 0.01%” – were awkward.
“All I had were mom clothes and mom underwear,” she said of the fall of 2019, when her online persona was created. But with each video, she gained confidence. Chris’ idea was to create a sexy “soccer mom” whose charm and physical beauty could attract middle-aged dads — a lucrative market.
But Crystal soon insisted on shooting videos herself. They became her concept, conceived in her voice.
An image that feels better
As a 58-year-old person, I can look back on the age of 44 as when youth fades quickly — you’re not that young person anymore, and you begin to feel the weight of oncoming years.
Add to that having three babies and struggling to maintain a home and marriage with challenges, and you have Crystal. The online persona became a release, a lifeline. She didn’t reclaim her youth but a version of herself that she liked better than the one that was developing as she grew older.
“This was a way for me to learn how to express myself,” she said. “Our intimacy level is better now than it has ever been because I can actually be more open. I can be what I want. I can tell him.”
The money was great, but how she felt was better, she said. If she had not been “outed” to the Sacred Heart community, she would have just gone on this way. The primary reason the Jacksons said they went public at all was because they were angered at being banished from their Catholic community.
It came to a head on Feb. 12, two days before Valentine’s Day. Crystal was told in an email by Sacred Heart principal Theresa Sparks that she couldn’t be the “second grade room mom” at Sacred Heart anymore because “several people” called and wrote with their “concern about (Crystal) collecting pictures of kids for the (school) year.”
“I hope you understand but you may not be room mother any longer,” Sparks wrote. “Please do not ask for pictures. I will pass that duty to someone else in second grade. I am so sorry. ”
Chris described that email as a “pivotal” event. He said they already had media waiting to tell their story. After Crystal was barred from being the second-grade room mom at Sacred Heart, he remembered saying something to the effect of, “That’s enough. Call those media people back.”
On Feb. 21, the Jacksons received a letter from Sparks saying their boys could no longer attend Sacred Heart.
“We try to teach Sacred Heart students to respect themselves and the sanctity of marriage. Your apparent quest for high-profile controversy in support of your adult website is in direct conflict with what we hope to impart to our students and is directly opposed to the policies laid out in our Parent/Student Handbook,” Sparks wrote.
“We therefore require that you find another school for your children and have no further association with ours...I must let you know that you may not come to Sacred Heart School for any reason.This is a painful decision, and one I wish had not been necessary. It was made thoughtfully, prayerfully...”
Two days later, People told their story. Before I met the Jacksons, my feelings about them were similar to those of the guy who sent me nude photos of Crystal with other women. In a text to me, he wrote: “When you have marital problems the best remedy is to nude up with three other women?”
After I met them, the fullness of their story was still interesting, but also a little sad. They are the only parties in this story who are willing to talk on the record. Everyone else, from the school, to Crystal’s fellow internet models to their detractors who likely helped get them kicked out of Sacred Heart, want nothing to do with the publicity.
So what’s the happy ending here? There isn’t one.
“Since the matter of your participation in an adult website first came to my attention, I have tried to insulate your children and the community of Sacred Heart from any repercussions,” Sparks wrote. “I recognize your children are entirely blameless, and I never want children to suffer for actions over which they have no control. In recent weeks, however, your actions have made this task impossible.”
The Jacksons wonder if Chris had committed a crime, would they have been banished? They didn’t commit a crime, and they were.
“I feel badly for the principal because there is a lot of wealth and influence at the school,” Chris said. “How do you manage a bunch of wealthy, influential people? It became unwinnable in the end.”
They aren’t sure if we’ll see a “sexy mom” cable show or movie about their experiences. But they are sure of this: They will remain Catholic.
This story was originally published March 10, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "R-rated or empowering? East Sac ‘sexy mom’ wages war of words and nudes with the Church."
