Best Local Girl Gone Bad (Gone Good)

Mary Carey (Mary Ellen Cook)

Yeah, she's made lots of porn movies. Yeah, she has several times made a mockery of the democratic process in California, running for governor of the golden state on her "Porn for Pistols" campaign. And yes, she showed up for the first day of her celebrity rehab reality show on VH1 so shitfaced she could barely talk to counselors. But now Fort Lauderdale's own Mary Carey — a product of Pine Crest School — has turned over a new leaf. Kind of. Since her mother attempted suicide, Carey (whose given name is Mary Ellen Cook) has aimed to set her life straight: No more porn. No more drugs. No more of the generally self-destructive behavior out of which she has made a career. And while she hasn't exactly reverted back to the pleasant ballerina princess she was as a child (rehab didn't take and she still dances at strip clubs), simply showing the American public some of the horrors of addiction from a young, white, wealthy woman's perspective may have saved innumerable lives.

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