Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Porn star who died in Las Vegas wanted to be next Amy Winehouse

Lexi Rose Forte aka. Olivia Nova

GoFundMe

Lexi Rose Forte aka. Olivia Nova

For Olivia Nova, it’s not likely that becoming an adult film actress was her preferred choice for becoming a star. In an interview over the summer, the 20-year-old from Minnesota spoke about her short career in porn, revealing that her true desire was to become a singer in the retro soul tradition of Amy Winehouse.

“I’d go straight to Amy Winehouse,” said the pretty brunette when asked in an Aug. 21 video interview whose music means the most to her. She also shared that she had begun working on an album with someone significant in the music industry, but she wouldn’t reveal who her collaborator was.

Tragically, Nova now shares her idol’s fate — dying much too young. Nova was found dead in her Las Vegas home Sunday, news reports say.

While a cause of death has not been released, Nova had taken to Twitter on Christmas Eve to express her sadness about being alone for the holidays. Two weeks earlier, she also had hit out at a fan who accused her of using heroin, revealing that she had a boyfriend who died from an overdose from the drug in April.

“I’ve never done heroin,” she tweeted. “My boyfriend killed himself two days before my birthday in April on [heroin], that’s not cool to poke at...not over him.”

Nova’s death sent another wave of shock and sadness through the adult film industry, as she became the fourth female porn star to die in the past two months.

The other actresses in this grim list are: Shyla Stylez, 35, who died suddenly in her sleep at her mother’s home in British Columbia in November; August Ames, 23, who died by suicide on Dec. 5 in her home in the San Fernando Valley; and Yuri Luv, 31, who succumbed to a suspected drug overdose in her Los Angeles home on Dec. 13.

Hustler magazine and others in the industry tweeted out condolences for all the recent losses:

In confirming Nova’s death, her agency, LA Direct Models, said in a statement: “Another one, way too young, we are beyond shocked and most certainly, it was completely out of the blue.” The agency told Newsweek they had only represented Nova for a short time. Still, the agency said, “We came to know Olivia as a beautiful girl with a very sweet and gentle personality.”

In her Christmas Eve tweet, Nova said she wanted to give a fan a call because it “would lift my spirits.” She was immediately inundated with messages from fans tweeting to cheer her up.

Nova, born Lexi Rose Forte, grew up in Minnesota, where her mother and two younger siblings live.

In the Aug. 21 interview with photographer Dave Naz, Nova looks like a younger, make-up free version of Megan Fox, another of her idols. She told Naz she got her start in the entertainment business as a child model for “mainstream” assignments, booking her first job at age 12.

She only began to consider adult modeling and films after she was approached by an agent in 2017. She said she had never watched adult films before then.

“I don’t exactly know what attracted me to [pornographic] modeling,” Nova said. “I was actually scouted one day. A woman just gave me her card, and then I was kinda just rushed into the industry.”

She admitted she was nervous, “shaking at first,” when she did her first nude photo shoot. But, she said, “within a couple seconds, I was like ‘Whatever, you got this.’ “

The actress soon had her own pornographic social media channel and blog, Newsweek said. At the time of her death, she had more than 21,000 followers on Twitter.

But Nova said her aspirations beyond adult films included finishing school and launching a “huge” but unspecified nonprofit project.

Then there was music. Nova said she sees her performing style as a mix of Winehouse and singer-songwriter Colbie Caillat, but she especially loved Winehouse. She said she had recently watched “Amy,” the acclaimed 2015 documentary about the life and career of Winehouse. The Grammy Award-winning singer died in 2011 at age 27 from alcohol poisoning.

Nova watched the Winehouse documentary while flying to Hawaii and said she was emotionally overwhelmed. “Everybody was looking at me crying while I was on the plane,” she said.

Nova is survived by her mother Leslie, her brother David, 17, and her sister Macie, 7. She will be laid to rest in Minnesota with her family starting a GoFundMe page to help pay for funeral costs and for her mother to travel to Las Vegas to retrieve her daughter’s body, as well as her belongings and her “beloved dog” Rocko.