Late Wednesday afternoon, Defiance Films contract star Lauren Phoenix announced to AVN that she was once again a free agent as she and Defiance Films agreed to end their 6 month old contract.

Phoenix had been a contract performer/director for Defiance for 6 months and had appeared in the current releases Slick Chicks/Black Dicks, Penetration Nation and Pleasure 2 plus the 2006 upcoming releases House of Anal, Backdoor Desires and Kiss My Ass.

“We’re sad to see her go, Lauren is a big part of the reason for our success. She’s been with us since our 2nd title and she’s a part of this family. But she’s a performer and she’s all business, she has a plan, she has goals and she didn’t feel she could reach those goals here and unfortunately we couldn’t help but agree with her”, stated Head of Production Keith O’Connor.

“When she signed with us, Lauren had aspirations of balancing performing, directing, making appearances and running her newly formed agency. But working 10 to 15 times a month as an independent performer, compared to only 2 to 4 days as a contract star left Lauren with a lot of solid ideas that kept getting pushed back.”

O’Connor went on to explain “Lauren had incredible ideas for movies of her own that she wanted to direct and our plan for Lauren to direct one title a month was stifled because of our current director pool consisting of Vincent Voss, Taylor Rain, Aurora Snow, Cindy Crawford, Bentley, Missy Monroe, Kelly Marie plus Kelly Erikson and Tyler Durden will make their directing debuts in 2006 for Defiance and Torrid. It simply wasn’t fair to Lauren, because in a way we have been holding her back. We love Lauren and we owe it to her to allow her to take advantage of her talents and abilities.”

Since Taylor Rain announced her retirement in December she’s taken more of a role as a director for both Defiance and Torrid. And now former performer Kelly Erikson, who’s contract with Metro Interactive has ended, is getting ready to make the jump into directing. “The fact is that Lauren Phoenix should be the spotlight of any company she signs with or works for, she’s a star as both a performer and a director and she’s earned that. But here at Defiance and Torrid we have spread that spotlight around to several stars and directors. So to release Lauren from her contract allows her the ability take to her proper role in the spotlight as both a performer and director.”

“Knowing that Lauren has joined up with Derek Hay at LA Direct Models shows that she’s committed to regaining her position on top of the industry. Derek helped Lauren rise to the top and he will undoubtedly get her there again. As for our future relationship with Lauren, we intend on continuing to use her as both a Director and Performer, she’s a proven professional and fan favorite, plus she’s a friend to all of us.”

Anthony Simone, head of sales for both Defiance and Torrid added, “It’s a sad day for us, but a good one as well. Instead of holding her back and making her unhappy and uncomfortable, we’re letting her go so she can go out and reach all her goals for performing and her big aspirations for directing consistently. We’ll still maintain a relationship with Lauren in both performing and directing.”