Why GI Joey Belongs in FYC 27
We chose GI Joey for our FYC 27: For Your Consideration series because his story is a powerful example of how reinvention, resilience and professionalism can shape an extraordinary second act. After surviving childhood abuse and building a career rooted in military discipline and corporate logistics, Justice lost that career to downsizing and faced divorce, foreclosure and financial ruin. He rebuilt himself through fitness, modeling and performance before finding an unexpected home in adult entertainment. With close to five hundred scenes, more than a billion views, AVN Award nominations and a place in the regular casting rotations of major studios, he has turned the discipline that once helped him survive into the foundation of a remarkably successful career. Equally important is the philosophy behind that success: reliability, respect for his co-stars, attention to the craft of filmmaking and a determination to become the father, partner and professional he once needed in his own life. His journey from instability and foreclosure to high-end productions in Beverly Hills makes GI Joey a compelling addition to the FYC 27 conversation.
Interview/Feature: Sherman Wayez
The Discipline Behind a Billion Views
CHICAGO, ILL. — The corporate ledger tells one story of America; the skin of GI Joey tells another. To watch the forty-seven-year-old performer command a high-end adult film set in a twenty-million-dollar Beverly Hills mansion is to watch a seasoned professional execute a carefully planned mission. He follows a military standard of time management, arriving precisely fifteen minutes before his call time. His focused, structured discipline distinguishes him from a younger generation of performers he sees as increasingly entitled by technology. With close to five hundred scenes, over a billion total views and two AVN Award nominations for Best Newcomer and Fan Favorite, Joey has secured a place in the regular casting rotations of industry leaders like Vixen and Milfify. Yet the physique and discipline of this sculpted giant were not born of vanity. They developed as psychological armor against a terrifying childhood, alongside a multigenerational military legacy and, later, a corporate betrayal that nearly left him homeless.
A Childhood Shaped by Military Legacy and Survival
Long before he was GI Joey, he was a hyperactive kid with ADHD bouncing between households in El Cerrito, California, drawing endless pictures of dog-tag-wearing soldiers in camo pants. Without knowing it, he was sketching his own future, shaped by a family military lineage that stretched from his stepfather in the Navy and his grandfather in the Air Force to his great-uncle Jeff in Korea and Vietnam. “It’s funny because now it’s like it’s actually me. It’s really crazy,” Joey reflects on looking at those childhood drawings. His family history reaches further back to the Revolutionary War and the historic Prescott family—to Colonel William Prescott commanding his men to wait until they saw the white of their eyes, and Samuel Prescott finishing Paul Revere’s legendary midnight ride. Yet while his ancestors fought for American liberty, Justice endured severe physical abuse at home beginning at age six. The beatings by his stepfather were severe enough to trigger a formal Navy investigation. By age eleven, Justice had been kicked out of his home and was moving between households in a 3M mining town. He survived by spending months at a time with local families, including the Cells, the Netherlands, the Wittens, and the Montoyas, finding warmth amid an otherwise fractured childhood.
Building Strength, Finding Family and Serving in the Army
At age eleven, behind the Cells’ home, Joey found an old, dusty set of plastic-coated sand weights. The discovery would change the course of his life. He picked up the weights and made a solemn vow that no man would ever physically overpower or hurt him again. “I swore that I would no man would ever be able to lay their hands on me ever again,” Justice states. “I figured if I could become like them, then nobody could ever hurt me again.” He modeled his goals after hyper-masculine Hollywood icons like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Jean-Claude Van Damme. By his junior year of high school, a six-inch growth spurt and years of lifting had transformed him into an imposing presence. He did not start fights, but he fiercely protected his younger siblings from neighborhood bullies. Seeking an escape from his fractured home life, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he finally found a sense of belonging among fellow servicemembers. “The servicemen and women to my left and right… they would die for me,” Joey recalls. “And that was something that I never experienced. A family should be that way.” After his military contract ended, he entered the demanding world of commercial logistics. Over a decade, he rose from driver to dual Terminal Manager overseeing Fort Myers and Pompano Beach, Florida, often working eighty-hour weeks.
Corporate Collapse and a One-Way Ticket to Reinvention
The breaking point came when XPO Logistics acquired Conway Freight and Justice was abruptly downsized out of his job. A devastating chain reaction followed: his marriage ended in a bitter divorce, his home went into foreclosure and, amid depression, his weight climbed to 302 pounds. At his lowest point, at age thirty-seven, he chose reinvention over surrender, using strict nutritional macros and competitive bodybuilding to reverse his health issues naturally. His rebuilt physique attracted the attention of BMG Models scout Michael Lyons, who offered him a fitness modeling opportunity in Manhattan. But Justice was broke. Facing financial ruin, he gambled on the opportunity. He pawned his seventy-five-inch living room television for $365 to buy a one-way ticket to New York City, arriving with a negative bank balance and just fifteen dollars in his pocket. He paid a stranger named Greg fifty dollars a night to sleep on a spare floor. That first evening, he was ushered into a local gay nightclub to go-go dance atop the bar. In three hours, he earned $800 cash—an immediate lifeline.
From Times Square Breakthrough to Hollywood Roadblocks
His work on the bar soon gave way to a Times Square breakthrough. Justice became the commercial face of the 2019 Muscle & Fitness Rock Hard Challenge, completing a complex twelve-hour production shoot in half the allotted time. He booked national Christmas campaigns for Bloomingdale’s, spending hours in makeup chairs while artists covered his extensive sleeve tattoos to suit the retailer’s high-end aesthetic. Meanwhile, he kept up a punishing round-the-clock Manhattan schedule. He trained private clients at Temple Gym, headlined Hunkomania female revue shows until eleven, and go-go danced until four in the morning to pull his Florida home out of foreclosure. Mainstream acting followed. Justice appeared on John Walsh’s true-crime feature In Pursuit as a killer ex-Marine bodybuilder, building Hollywood momentum until the COVID-19 lockdowns abruptly halted media production. To survive the shutdown, he established a presence on OnlyFans, earning $800 from live broadcasts. But that adult exposure ultimately cost him a mainstream television opportunity when network executives blacklisted him at the eleventh hour of a background check for The Real Magic Mike show.
Finding His Place in Adult Entertainment
Moving beyond traditional casting roadblocks, Justice joined Dan’s Exotica live entertainment circuit, earning $700 a weekend plus tips and finding a warm, supportive community among adult industry peers. Initially hesitant because of his modesty and memories of basic-training showers, he was recruited in person in late 2022 by Riley of Hussie Models and adult icon Val Steele. With the full support of his girlfriend of eight years, Justice shot his debut scene for Scream Fuck and signed a three-year exclusive contract on set. Drawing on his experience as a personal trainer, he applies strict nutritional principles to his career longevity. He rejects popular weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, tracks macros through MyFitnessPal and favors an old-school approach: cutting out soda pop, he says, immediately took ten pounds off his weight. He balances that discipline with a twenty-four-hour Saturday cheat window, returning to clean macros on Sunday morning. In training, he uses a “fireplace metaphor” for heavy push-pull supersets designed to keep his heart rate within a seventy-to-eighty-percent fat-burning threshold.
Health, Professionalism and Respect for the Craft
Justice speaks openly about his health, managing a diagnosis of Empty Sella Syndrome with physician-monitored TRT as part of his effort to remain healthy and consistent for his family. He approaches adult cinema as high-end visual art and rejects the violent, aggressive performance trends he associates with younger actors. “I come from abuse as a child. So to me, I don’t want anything to do with anything,” Justice states bluntly. “You treat your co-star like a goddess and you’ll have a great scene every single time.” He also brings corporate-style reliability to the business, once driving eight hours through Hurricane Ian’s hazardous winds to make a scheduled Florida shoot. His personal OnlyFans material remains strictly amateur: unedited POV clips filmed by his girlfriend. He also maintains a firm boundary against performing anal content. He pays close attention to the visual geometry of framing his female co-stars for the camera, navigating demanding twenty-one-person studio sets where one male performer’s failure can put a twenty-thousand-dollar production budget at risk. “I get to be kind of the picture frame for all these beautiful women because my job is to make sure that she’s open to the camera, that she’s feeling good,” he says of his craft.
Fatherhood, Industry Success and the Meaning of Making It
As he approaches his forty-eighth birthday, Justice earns more than eighty-eight percent of SAG actors, approaching each job as a mission while connecting with co-stars over shared ties to his military postings or California roots. “I turn 48 next month. But I mean, I can run the best of them. There’s no doubt,” Justice smiles. In private, he prioritizes his partner’s satisfaction and strives to be the loving father he once wished he had, for his son Joey III and his award-winning daughter. “I became the father that I wish I had,” he notes softly. A pivotal mentoring lunch in Los Angeles with Vixen pioneer Mike Moz helped guide Justice through his early “boot camp” phase. He has since entered the elite casting rotations of top networks. On the balcony of a multimillion-dollar Beverly Hills mansion, looking back on a journey from abuse and foreclosure to a billion views, he saw how his past had prepared him for that moment. “I was sitting in this like $20 million house up in, you know, Beverly Hills,” Justice recalls. “And I’m sitting there like, ‘Yo, Joey, I think you made it. Like, everything that you’ve been through… has led you to this moment.'” Within adult film circles, he has found a sense of family that, for him, surpasses the corporate structures he once knew, as he builds a lasting legacy alongside industry legends.
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