An award-winning adult film star has died at just 35 years old after battling Crohn’s disease and suffering a life-threatening infection.
Raven Alexis died last Wednesday in , her husband confirmed in videos posted to and one day later.
He said she was brought to a local hospital on March 20 ‘with some complications and some stomach Crohn’s/colitis issues she had dealt with.’
Crohn’s is a chronic autoimmune disease that causes inflammation and irritation in the digestive track. The most common form affects the small intestines and the beginning part of the large intestines, according to the
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‘It was a great ride, and they have a terrific business model for themselves, and I was fortunate to make some amazing and wonderfully selling movies in my time with them.’
But Alexis continued to see success even after she parted ways with Digital Playhouse, going on to star in a string of high-profile projects like Exile Pictures’ The Graduate XXX: A Paul Thomas Parody, Third Degree Films’ The Official Revenge of the Nerds Parody and Axel Braun’s This Ain’t Ghostbusters XXX3D for Hustler Video.
In 2011, she was nominated for an award in the Best New Starlet category at the AVN Awards and won a pair of trophies for her scene in the Digital Playhouse film Body Heat with Riley Steele, Jesse Jane, Katsuni and Kayden Kross — the Best All-Girl Group Sex Scene and the Fan Award for Wildest Sex Scene.
She was famously seen at the awards show in a red leather dress with crutches, after she said she climbed onto a shelf to grab something high up in her house and injured her hip.
That same year, Alexis also appeared on the Adult Swim show Children’s Hospital as the ‘porno latin Nurse.’
But soon Alexis became embroiled in controversy, after telling Jon Lieberman on Sirius XM’s The Howard Stern Show that she had been diagnosed with stage four liver cancer.
She said in the September 2011 episode that the cancer had spread to her brain and claimed, ‘Chemo is hard … not eating is really hard.’
Shortly after the episode aired, though, her boyfriend at the time contradicted her claims she had cancedied alone in her apartment after doing ketamine and was ‘unrecognizable’ when police found her four days later.
Her mother Stephanie told DailyMail.com that she reported her missing on March 15 after not hearing from her for several days.
She is believed to have died on the 11th — the last time anyone heard from her.
Stephanie Montalbano said that while an official cause of death has not yet been provided, her daughter had been doing ketamine the night she died and that she believes she died from a ‘bad batch’ of the drug.
She was alone and her apartment was locked when police found her body next to drug paraphernalia.
Angelina dabbled in ‘party drugs’ like cocaine and ketamine, her mother explained, adding that while she did not approve of her drug use, she wanted to know about it.
The family has now raised more than $20,000 on GoFundMe to bring Francesca’s body back to Chicago, where she grew up, for burial.