In the first episode of Hot Haus, the super-steamy adult entertainer competition series from the makers of For the Love of DILFs, the future seemed very rocky for Alicia Goku. While the judges praised her performance — an erotic spoken word mixed with plenty of whipped cream — she found herself dropped into the bottom two, due to, wait for it, a wrinkled robe.
Saved by a literal roll of the dice, Goku was determined that would be the last, ahem, wrinkle she’d be facing in the competition — and she was right. She started from the literal bottom and made it all the way to the top, claiming the title of the Next Queer Sex Symbol and that $25,000 cash prize from Jerkmate.
Courtesy of OUTtv
“Oh, my God, no, seriously being at the bottom that first week,” Goku recalls to PRIDE with a sigh. “I came to win, I’m very competitive. And so I said, if I’m still in this game, I’m gonna win after that first night. I was like, I’m gonna win. But it was so shaky, it was so shaky honey!”
Throughout the season, Goku — who, in addition to being a spicy content creator, is a poet, artist, and musician — had to put all her talents to the test. And getting to show those sides to the audience and her fellow competitors was deeply meaningful. ”It meant a lot, honestly, because I knew with the poetry slam I got to really dive into it. My first little poem was nice, but I feel like the second one I really got to showcase like, I got skills okay? I’m competition okay! And then I got to do my music at the end,” she recalls. “It was incredible. I’m so hype, it’s giving me more of a push to continue with my music and just make the dreams happen, you know?”
Courtesy of OUTtv
And it paid off: Not only did she earn the respect of the original judges, but her fellow competitors who also voted for her to take home the prize. “When I won, I was just so thankful. I felt — ooh I’m going to get emotional, Oh, my God. I felt really seen just because I guess I felt like I could be my most authentic self. And when I won it felt like I was getting all that reassurance that I truly, truly felt like I needed as an artist and as an individual,” she recalls.
That’s not to say it wasn’t challenging, and that there weren’t moments when she questioned her strategy in the game. “I think [the most challenging part] for me was, I didn’t necessarily want to be fully nude on the show. I could get sexy but I saved my coochie for my OnlyFans,” she shares.
When her fellow contestants began to immediately disrobe in the first episode, Goku had to do a gut check and ask herself if she was ready to compromise that boundary or not. “No diss to anybody else. But I didn’t want to get naked. So for me to see everybody just getting butt ass naked and I was thinking, would I have to do that to win? Am I gonna have to compromise how I wanted to perceive myself on the show, just to try to get the win?” she says. “And my mom and my girlfriend just basically reassured me that the only way you’re gonna win is that you be yourself and be true to what you want to do.”
Courtesy of OUTtv
And clearly, she made the right choice, as staying true to herself was the key to taking the crown — that and having stiff (pun intended) and inspiring competition. “I don’t feel like I would have won if it was a different cast,” she reveals. “They each brought something out of me that just really pushed me to the point where I felt like I had to try harder and do more to get the win…they brought out something I didn’t know that I honestly had.”
As for what’s next for Goku, the sky’s the limit. “I have new songs dropping with some major artists. With the prize money, I’m able to fund a lot of things I want to do. So a lot of music videos are coming a lot, a lot, a lot a lot. I’m still working with DaddyTV so you’ll catch me on some of their shows and the future. The future’s bright,” she reports.
Check out PRIDE’s full interview with Goku below, where she opens up even more about the role Laganja Estranja had in her signing up for the show, how the series is helping to change the conversation around sex work, the role of the pandemic in destigmatizing sex work — oh, and shopping for pasties and watching the show with her mom each week.