Bittersweet news from the world of gay porn: Matthew Rush, the beefy star of movies like Hazed, Brief Encounters and Whorry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Balls, has announced his retirement from the adult-movie biz.
And, as he’s been tweeting, ’twas love that put the kibosh on his career:
“I retired from porn bc/I met a guy that I could easily spend the rest of my life with. Ive had a great run & Im ready to move on”
He’s even renamed his Twitter account @MeetGreg, a nod to his birth name, Greg Grove.
A former trainer and pro bodybuilder, Rush, 39, originally landed a lifetime contract with Falcon Studios in 2001, and snagged the Grabby Award for Best Newcomer and Best Solo in 2002. After some rough times (and escorting work) he was released from his lifetime deal with Falcon (who apparently have a different definition of “lifetime” than the rest of us) and reconsidered his options.
He made a somewhat successful transition into other kinds of roles, appearing in Another Gay Movie, Third Man Out and Bruce La Bruce’s explicit sex-horror flick, L.A. Zombie. (Does that count as porn? We’re not sure.) He also starred in the play Making Porn and hosts DominicFord.com’s So You Think You Can Fuck.
Rush eventually returned to hardcore and, in 2010, he won the Grabby and GayVN Awards for Most Versatile Performer. Retirement announcements are fairly common in the porn world but if Rush is true to his word, we’re glad he could go out on top—or bottom, as the case may be!
truth
Versatile is gross and spreads disease.
I won't grow up
Oh puleeze !!!!
Give me a break, another porn star “retiring”. I’ll be taking bets on how long it
takes for his comeback.
Franco
Haha. “Retire.”
dvlaries
I was always indifferent to his name in any title. Congratulations on true love -really- but most of them are here and gone in five years these days anyway. You could declare yourself a moratorium on buying or watching any gay porn for five years, buy any A-shelf title in 2016, and chances are very great you wouldn’t know a single name in the cast.
Make mine Landon Conrad and Dean Flynn, thank you.
Spike
So either he met a sugar daddy or he is in fact embarrassed by what he does otherwise why quit? Curious that we never hear from corporate ad executives that they are quitting their jobs because they have met the man of their dreams.
Brandon H
I agree, “retire” doesn’t mean much in porn. But if he means it, good for him. Porn is not a sustainable career, nor is it the healthiest (I don’t mean that as a put down for porn, just being realistic).
Frank
The world will never be the same without Mattie Rush….porn is dead…
LOL
Chadboy
Obviously, he met a wealthy older guy who is going to foot the bills.
B
No. 5 · Spike wrote, “So either he met a sugar daddy or he is in fact embarrassed by what he does otherwise why quit?”
Or it could be just what he said. Also, if you need another reason, the article claims he’s now 39 years old. A career change is easier at 39 than at 50, and I don’t think there are very many 50 year old porn stars out there.
I won’t speculate about his boyfriend – it’s none of my business to begin with and it is bad form to make comments about a person without a shred of evidence.
mike
@B: every dude commenting on this page but u, is an assholeA
Interesting
There are other porn stars in relationship so its interesting he felt the need to quit.
Allen D.
@Spike: Seriously?! Maybe his boyfriend doesn’t want him to fuck other people. Seems to be the most logical explanation to me.
Interesting
@Allen D.: I think the point is that if he were comfortable with what he did- well its interesting he ended up with someone who isn’t.
Christopher
I don’t understand why people feel the need to belittle other peoples lives and choices. Regardless of the age of the boyfriend, his financial situation or anything else …it is his choice.
I am a photographer who has worked with a few porn stars ( not Matthew) and it isn’t a forever career for anyone. It doesn’t mean he was uncomfortable with anything, just that he is moving on.so comparisons to other careers is simply misguided.
So whether or not you enjoyed his work or porn in general, this man has decided to enter a new phase in his life and has done nothing to inspire the reactions I see here.
I, for one, wish him the best.
Interesting
@Christopher: If asking about inconsistent positions is belittling, I suppose next saying 2+2=4 will now be considered bashing 3.
shannon
THESE PORN GUYS ARE SAD…LOSERS! I HAVE SEEN THIS GUY AROUND LA….IN WEHO…AND I TELL YOU HE …….ALONG WITH THEM ALL ARE EITHER ON DRUGS…OR LOOKING FOR SOME SUGARDADDY…..WHEN THE DADDY KICKS THEM TO THE CURB…THEY DO WHAT THEY CAN ONLY DO…WHORE THEMSELVES OUT TO PORN AGAIN! THIS IS SAD…WHEN YOU ARE 60 AND REFLECT ON YOUR LIFE YOU SAY WHAT A WASTE…..I COULD HAVE MADE SOMETHING OF MYSELF..
jason
Just another prostitute who’s decided now is the time to move on. Yaaaaawwwwwnnnnnn.
Robbie K.
Retire??? oh please honey he must have said he was going in for some retreading
Fitz
I wish him success in his next adventure!
Retirement statistics are pretty sad for porn actors,
but he has a wonderful personality and apparently some love–
those two things can get you far!
ke
He works in porn. Gross.
darrell66
If Matthew discovred true love then I’m sincerely happy for him! But I have to be honest, Matthew Rush has never been a favorite of mines. He never did anything for me. So his retirement is no big deal for me.
SteveC
Good for him, Prostitution is a difficult career and quite a risky one, so he’s better off out of it.
He needs to quit the steroids also – those are extremely dangerous.
Patric
I’ve met him several times and in fact, I took the photo that is cropped and posted in this article. Matthew/Greg is a really nice guy. He’s witty, sweet and from what I’ve heard a dedicated friend and hard working personal trainer. If he’s found love, great for him and I wish him every happiness. As for a career change, well who hasn’t taken their career in a different direction before? He did porn for years and at least he’s retiring by his own choice and not trying to hang on beyond all reason.
Bryan
“So You Think you can fuck”, seriously? A few years ago, crappy music was in porn was the norm, now it seems crappy film names are the new thing.
Congrats to him if his reason is sincere, that’s nice.
Mike in Asheville
WTF is up with the snarky comments?
Is it not the goal of genuine civil rights for each to follow their own “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness”? What possible business is it to anyone how this guy lives his life, so far as he is not/has not infringed another’s civil rights.
Life happens, I for one wish all to find love.
DenverBarbie
It’s really righteous of y’all to come on over to Queerty for some good ol’ fashion slut-shaming!
You can tab back on over to Treasure Island now.
Hephaestion
So many comments here are so nasty and ridiculous it is astonishing that this blog is read by adults. Many commenters sound like rotten, cruel children.
Joey
Hey “truth“, you better get your shit straight honey: the only gross, disease spreading thing around here is you.
Will
Just watch he’s “retired” from studios like Falcon but when his LOL ‘relationship’ ends he’ll come back doing bareback porn like all porn guys do.
Or he wisened up and realized that you can’t do porn as a “career” and that being a prostitute on the side like all porn people are isn’t a career either.
Speaking of disease spreading a lot of people including that troll and professional victim eew think that OMG the gov’t created AIDS! See here: http://www.queerty.com/out-of-the-past-we-were-here-director-david-weissman-was-there-at-the-dawn-of-the-aids-crisis-20111024/
SteveC
Being a porn actor means that you are a prostitute. I have no moral objection to prostitution but it’s so annoying when people claim there is a difference between the 2. This guy had sex for money – therefore he was a prostitute. He would be very wise to stay out of the prostitution game now that he is out of it. I wish him well.
Frank
@SteveC: Prostitutes are now called SEX WORKERS
Little Kiwi
i always feel sorry for gay men who feel a need to denigrate those in the adult industry in order to feel better about themselves.
good luck in life, cutting off your balls for the approval of others.
observer
In my younger years ( 1985) I had seriously considered going into the adult porn business. When a friend and I decided to go to Midtown Spa (in downtown L.A.)one night and saw the late Gordon Grant working the cash register I knew then that business did not pay what a lot of people think.
I now live in NYC and have seen so many of these “stars” working in gyms or waiting tables and getting totally embarrassed when they were recognized I actually laugh. I wish someone one would do a documentary on the “thug” pornstars and just how they are fairing after the camera is shut off.
Thanks for printing in this article how Mr. Rush had to lower himself and do escort work. I have no doubt in my mind that regardless of how hard times got he would not do black escort jobs. He did do one or two black on black porn videos but it was obvious his heart was not in the movie.
Good luck kid. Hopefully you are not looking back with regrets.
Little Kiwi
“I now live in NYC and have seen so many of these “stars” working in gyms or waiting tables and getting totally embarrassed when they were recognized I actually laugh.”
you laugh? that speaks volumes about your lack of character.
JoeyB
He’ll be back. They all come back.
Riker
@Little Kiwi: Uncharacteristically, I’m going to agree with you here. Porn stars, escorts, personal trainers and food service workers all work hard for their money, harder than most who have a desk and a cushy 401k.
I can’t understand why everyone thinks themselves so much better than these people. When I worked in food service, I had to deal with some of the rudest and most obnoxious people who felt like you were there to be their personal slave.
delurker
A 39 year old retiring from porn is about as newsworthy as a 65 year old middle manager retiring from some small company.
Cam
@Riker: said…
“Porn stars, escorts, personal trainers and food service workers all work hard for their money, harder than most who have a desk and a cushy 401k.”
_________________________
Wow, I LOVE the idea that somehow the porn stars and waiters are hard workers and the people with desk jobs and a 401k have the “Cushy” easy jobs.
I waited tables for years in college and I can tell you now that it was the easiest job I’ve ever had. Sure you get nasty customers occasionally and you’re running around a lot, but you are also paid to talk to people, make a lot in tips, and have a lot of free time to do other things. If waiting tables paid what those “Cushy” 401k jobs pay, I think tons of us would head back to them in a second.
As for Rush, meh, if he has a nice relationship, good for him. Seems like it would be difficult to sustain a relationship in that business and good on him for trying.
Riker
@Cam: I now have one of those cushy jobs with a 401(k), after doing food service for three years. I make twice as much now, work more regular hours, sit at a desk and call doctors to make sure the medical test we run for them is actually the one they wanted (among other things, like data entry and sorting blood samples). Aside from worrying about catching Legionella or something, my life is much less stressful than when I had to deal with customers all day every day.
I am still the 99%, but am upwardly mobile.
Jack E. Jett
I have interviewd tons O porn stars in my day and I can honestly say that Matthew Rush was by far the nicest, smartest and coolest of them all. He also had a great sense of humor. I wish him the best.
Chad
@33 Observer-Just watch Kiwi will claim that Matt Rush is somehow “racist” because he’s not sexually attracted to black men at all, and does not enjoy sex with black men like you wrote.
Little Kiwi
hey Chad, i get it – you’re one more gay white loser who’s sexually stunted by racial “preferences”. good for you. you’re as sexually hip as my grandma.
until i hear those words from Rush, I’ll wait it out. but feel free to keep talking about me from a place of anonymity, like you always do. wimp. 😀
truth
@Joey: Umm, scientifically proven. If you are versatile, you are more likely to spread disease.
SEXXYJAMAICAN
Who is this [email protected]Chad: OMG I guess black dudes are just heartbroken over this tragic news, I’m about to go kill myself right now. LOL, Dumb Queerty bitches.
Little Kiwi
[email protected]SEXXYJAMAICAN: RIGHT?
You gotta love these idiot gay white boys who say “there’s nothing racist about being turned off by a person because of their ethnicity”
yeah. right. what turns you off is their ethnicity, but that has, like, nothing to do with the still-prevalent racism in society. yeah. right.
oh, no. chad doesn’t like black guys. and chad’s father doesn’t like having a gay son. so it all works out 😀
Jim
Don’t be mean to Matthew/Greg. He’s a sweet man and I’m glad he found love and whose biz izit who he found? Let him move on. Life has stages and change is always a good thing. So go back to your Bravo channel and Dancing with the Stars you bitches!
Wet My Whistle
@Littel Kiwi: I love the statement, “and chad’s father doesn’t like having a gay son. so it all works out.” Someone coined the term in an earlier thread and it was brilliant!
@Everyone else: As far as Matthew Rush is concerned, who cares??? He is “39” and does anyone have current HIV results on the guy? He looks very steroid-enhanced and isn’t cute in my opinion. Regardless of his racial preferences, isn’t he old and washed up by porn standards?
Back to the race issue. I just took a long look at Matt’s photo attached to this article. His nose is really WIDE and he has many other “traditionally black” features. Honestly, he looks like a cute ape that you could see at the Myombe Reserves at Busch Gardens Tampa. LOL. Who cares if he doesn’t like blacks sexually. You typically hate what you are. That is Matt’s issue. Let him deal in the best way he can.
MikeE
I’m curious about this “racist” issue…
I’ve heard people call white guys who REALLY like black guys “racist”. That their preference for black guys is a form of racism.
Doesn’t this just end up being a “no one wins” scenario?
Little Kiwi
well, MikeE, the fact is we live in a society that worships Whiteness, Maleness, and Heterosexuality above all else (add in money/power, too)
because of this we get people with “preferences” for Straight White Males – that’s the societal gold standard. taking that into account, there are people who rather than being “sexually colorblind” are indeed fetishizing the societal “taboo” of interracial coupling – as evidenced by pornographic sites like “there’s a negro in my mom” (not i’m not kidding) that indeed play up the RACIAL TENSION aspect of interracial coupling.
it’s not what you like – it’s how you are ABOUT it, and if you have the integrity to interrogate yourself and find out WHY you are the way you are about such things. there are the guys who say “No Asians” – then there are the guys who are specifically INTO asians because they want a “smaller submissive exotic” fantasy.
a world that worships whiteness, maleness, heterosexuality…..of course this is going to affect people. and the lazy ones will say it doesn’t and ignore it and say “it’s just a preference
yeah. just a societal preference, not an innate one.
just as there are legions of insecure homosexuals out there who have a complete aversion to guys who are “identifiably gay” because they’re still grappling with homophobia, both external and internalized, and want male-male contact despite the fact that they’re still socially terrified of “gayness”
its not innate. it’s the product of living in an anti-gay culture. a white-worshipping culture. a male-worshipping culture. legions of gay men who are inauthentically living each day trying to prove to themselves, and others, that they’re not like the type of gays that their fathers mocked while they were growing up.
Alfonzo
I, for one, am proud of him, shows he has some level of integrity when it comes to a serious relationship.
I wish them both luck.
Mike Fourth
I don’t think he can stay away from the sex industry. He will supplement his income every now and then with a trick here and there.
ke
Are we having a serious discussion about a porn star? It’s no surprise nobody respects gays. And, no, nobody cares that much about Jenna Jamieson in the straight world. They jerk off to her, and shut off the computer.
Cam
@ke: said..
“And, no, nobody cares that much about Jenna Jamieson in the straight world. They jerk off to her, and shut off the computer.”
______________________-
What a complete lie, she is in the celeb gossip mags all the time and had a top 5 NYTimes bestselling book.
So nice try.
chrissypoo
THIS IS OUR 9/11!!
Matthew Rush
I’ll be back…bitches!
Wayne
“True love”?! Really? Wasn’t he just in love with “the man of his dreams” bodybuilder Biff Boswell? What happened there? And the 7 boyfriends before him? This is the “flavor” of the week and he will be back for the money. Hell, drugs are expensive and it’s hard to turn tricks at 39!
Lefty
@ke: “Are we having a serious discussion about a porn star? It’s no surprise nobody respects gays.”
You mean they’ll respect us if we start talking about stuff they want us to talk about?
Let’s do it! Coz that’s just the sort of respect we need!!!
Mrs Patrick Campbell
Matthew’s tatoos are bad enough but her tinymeat kills any deal.
MrsPatrickCampbell
With her tatoos and tinymeat Miss Rush is lucky to get anyone!
ke
@chrissypoo lol – it seriously is. You’re not joking.
ke
@Cam: Oy…the defense of porn as well shows just a lack of “something”.
Kurt
He got an STD from eating the ass of Zeb Atlas his then “true love” and then posted a weepy ranty video where he cried about it, and then jerked off.
Then again this guy is a professional cum dumpster, and not that intelligent to begin with.
Tackle
I’m not a size queen at all, but it was hilarious with claims that he was 9inchs.
Global Traveler
@Wet My Whistle:
You’re asking for HIV results? This affects you how?
If a straight organization was asking for someone’s HIV results (other than the Red Cross during a blood drive) gay people would be screaming from the roof tops, and rightfully so.
I guess it’s true, that any group is in many ways their own worst enemy.
MATTHEW RUSH aka GREG GROVE
LOL! LOL! LOL!
DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES MATTHEW RUSH / GREG GROVES STATES HE IS IN LOVE??????
MORE TIMES THAN THE COMBINED AGES OF THE GOLDEN GIRLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HE HAS WILD ROUGH SEX AT HIS GYM PRETENDING TO BE A “PERSONAL TRAINER”.
HE PRETENDS TO BE NICE AND INNOCENT BUT HE IS REALY A GOLD DIGGING WHORE $$$$$$$$$.
HIS LIFE IS NOW REFLECTING ON THE AGING SKIN ON HIS FACE LOOKING MUCH OLDER THAN HIS REAL AGE – HOW YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE REALLY SHOWS.
HOPE HE IS “IN LOVE” WITH A PLASTIC SURGEON – LOL LOL
HE SETTLES FOR THE GAY MECCA GHETTO OF WILTON MANORS FLORIDA AS LONG AS HE IS SUPPORTED BY A RICH MAN…..
poor gregg will never know who he really is after all he is a child of an ugly affair.
Leo
@truth: First of all, there’s nothing ‘gross about being versatile in bed. Secondly, you can’t spread disease if you aren’t infected with anything pathological to begin with. And if you are infected with any disease, using safe sex practices prevents infecting others. Ok?!?
Tim
@I won’t grow up: She came back in January, 2012
Dana J
Truly amazed at the amount of hate and sour remarks on this page. It appears Matthew has moved to New Orleans. I welcome him to my city and I wish him the bestoif luck in his endeavors.
Mike
Wow! Most of you are a bunch of nasty jealous old fags. WM is not a gay ghetto. Who gives a crap about love for money or love for love. BTW. Saw Greg Grove last week in WM. doubt he has move to NOLA. Greg, if you read this, good luck with what ever you do for what ever reason.
shane lyle
why cant anyone be happy for him and hope that him and his new love and have a happy life together….it was fun watching him while it lasted….and hope that they have many years together like my partner and i
Andy
I think Matthew Rush is a really nice and easy going guy. He just did an interview for our website. Since we are a site dedicated to gay themed movies, we didn’t talk too much about his porn career but more about acting. However, we asked him about the sudden death of Erik Rhodes. So if anybody’s interested, please feel free to visit and leave a comment: http://gayfilmmagazine.com/?p=2526
Greatfull
Mr. Rush starred in a non-porn movie on which I worked. He was the consumate professional as well as being one of the most polite, friendly and shy people with whom one could ever hope to work. He deserves better than the catty comments found here. One may feel small standing next to him. He is truly “a gentleman and a school bus”. lol
jwtraveler
@truth: Stupid is gross and spreads stupid.
Terrycloth
I left my job and you know what ? I was the only one who knew I left
enlightenone
@Mike in Asheville: “What possible business is it to anyone how this guy lives his life,…”
Good question, which begs to know why he/THEY make these “announcements” in the first place????
Well, Mike?