Martina Smeraldi didn’t spend years quietly working her way through obscure productions before somebody noticed her. She entered Italian porn at 19, attracted the attention of Max Felicitas and almost immediately ended up in the orbit of Rocco Siffredi. Within months, the young Sardinian performer was appearing on Italian television and being presented as one of the country’s most promising new adult actresses. What could easily have been a short burst of publicity instead developed into a genuine international career. Smeraldi went from the Rocco Siffredi Academy to Evil Angel productions, earned an AVN Best New Foreign Starlet nomination, won an AVN Award in 2023, received a 2025 XBIZ Europa Female Performer of the Year nomination and returned to the AVN international performer race in 2026. Then came another unusual crossover: appearing vocally on Shiva and Sfera Ebbasta’s Santana Money Gang. For an Italian performer, Martina has managed something particularly difficult — remaining recognizable at home while building a filmography that matters outside Italy too.
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Martina Smeraldi Entered Porn at 19
Martina comes from Cagliari, Sardinia, and entered professional adult entertainment when she was 19.
At the time, she was studying Legal Services Sciences at the University of Cagliari while also working to support herself. Her first adult production came through Italian performer and producer Max Felicitas, but it was the next step that dramatically accelerated the story: Smeraldi entered Rocco Siffredi’s Academy.
Rocco understood immediately that Martina had publicity potential.
In October 2019, when the Sardinian press was still describing her as an aspiring pornstar, Siffredi interviewed her for his official YouTube channel and publicly talked about her as a potential new star. Martina, meanwhile, was already speaking openly about wanting to build a real career rather than treating porn as a temporary experiment.
The pairing was important.
Siffredi didn’t technically discover Martina — that credit belongs more accurately to Max Felicitas — but he provided the international machinery capable of turning an Italian newcomer into someone the European industry would notice.
And he put her to work quickly.
Rocco Siffredi Became the Defining Connection of Her Early Career
If there is one name that repeatedly appears throughout the first major phase of Martina Smeraldi’s filmography, it is Rocco Siffredi.
She joined his Academy and appeared alongside established Italian performer Malena, giving the young newcomer immediate exposure within Italy’s adult-media conversation.
This was useful for more than publicity.
Rocco’s productions are internationally distributed, particularly through his long relationship with Evil Angel. A scene filmed in Europe can therefore reach an audience far beyond Italy.
For Martina, that bridge proved crucial.
She wasn’t being developed solely as “the new Italian girl” for an Italian audience. Her scenes were entering the same international marketplace as established European performers from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Spain, France and elsewhere.
That’s a much harder competitive environment.
And Martina survived it.
Italian Television Made Her Famous Outside Porn Almost Immediately
What happened next would be difficult to reproduce in most countries.
Only months into her adult career, Smeraldi was already becoming a mainstream Italian media curiosity.
On October 13, 2019, she appeared on Live – Non è la D’Urso, Barbara D’Urso’s highly watched Mediaset television program.
That’s an extraordinary level of mainstream exposure for somebody who had essentially just started shooting porn.
It also established a pattern that would follow Martina throughout her career.
She has never existed exclusively inside adult-industry media.
Italian newspapers write about her.
Television has featured her.
Her social-media activity brought another audience.
And because she’s Sardinian, regional newspapers have followed her career with the strange mixture of fascination and disbelief normally reserved for local athletes suddenly becoming internationally successful.
That domestic recognition gives Martina something many European porn actresses never develop:
a public identity outside the people already watching adult movies.
My Name Is Zaawaadi Put Her Inside an Award-Winning Rocco Production
The professional résumé began strengthening almost immediately.
Martina appeared in My Name Is Zaawaadi, a 2020 Rocco Siffredi production centered on Zaawaadi and featuring the kind of gonzo intensity associated with Rocco’s filmmaking.
The movie subsequently won Best Gonzo Movie of the Year at the XBIZ Awards.
Martina wasn’t personally receiving the award, but appearing in an internationally recognized production so early in her career was important.
It showed where her career was heading.
She wasn’t simply producing local Italian adult content.
Her work was entering the AVN/XBIZ/Evil Angel side of the business.
And by the following year, awards organizations were recognizing Martina individually.
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The 2021 AVN Nomination Confirmed She Had Crossed the Italian Border
At the 2021 AVN Awards, Martina Smeraldi was nominated for Best New Foreign Starlet.
She also received a fan nomination for Hottest Newcomer.
For a performer who had debuted only around two years earlier, this was a significant jump.
AVN’s foreign-performer categories are crowded with European talent. The competition isn’t “best newcomer from Italy”; it’s performers arriving from the major adult-production centers across Europe and beyond.
Martina was now being evaluated in that company.
And this is where describing her simply as an “Italian porn celebrity” starts becoming inaccurate.
Italy made her famous quickly.
International porn gave the career longevity.
Rocco’s Double Trouble 5 Gave Martina Her AVN Award
The major breakthrough arrived two years later.
Martina appeared in Rocco’s Double Trouble 5, produced by Rocco Siffredi Films and distributed through Evil Angel.
At the 2023 AVN Awards, the scene featuring Martina Smeraldi, Sara Bell, Yves Morgan, Oscar Batty and Mike Chapman won Best International Group Sex Scene.
That is the career milestone that should sit near the top of any serious profile of Martina.
She wasn’t merely nominated anymore.
Martina Smeraldi was an AVN winner.
The achievement also gave her Italian media a wonderfully easy headline. Newspapers in Sardinia described their local performer as having won the adult equivalent of an Oscar, bringing a Las Vegas industry award back into the mainstream Italian conversation.
More importantly, it validated the relationship that had defined her professional development.
Rocco had helped introduce Martina to international porn.
A Rocco production eventually delivered her first AVN trophy.
Her Scenes Became Known for Going Much Harder Than Her Mainstream Image Suggests
There’s a useful contrast in Martina’s public persona.
Outside porn, she can come across as unusually approachable: young, outspoken, often humorous and comfortable speaking in interviews without adopting an elaborate “pornstar character.”
Her professional material can be considerably more intense.
Rocco’s productions in particular positioned Smeraldi inside hard gonzo, group and anal-oriented performances, and later awards recognition continued to reflect that side of her work.
That’s part of what makes Martina effective as a performer.
Visually and socially, she can retain a fairly recognizable Italian girl-next-door quality.
Then the scenes go somewhere much harder.
The contrast gives her professional videos an identity beyond simply being “Italian porn.”
2025 Proved the AVN Win Wasn’t the End of the Story
By 2025, Martina was no longer being evaluated as a promising newcomer.
At the XBIZ Europa Awards, she received a nomination for Female Performer of the Year.
She also earned a nomination for Best Sex Scene – Feature for Crazy Italian Holidays alongside Joe Di Marco.
That combination is significant.
Female Performer of the Year rewards the broader body of work.
The scene nomination recognizes a specific performance.
Six years after her debut, Martina was therefore still occupying prominent positions in European industry awards rather than surviving primarily on the fame generated during the Rocco Academy period.
And 2026 pushed the international recognition further.
AVN Put Martina Among the International Female Performer of the Year Nominees
At the 2026 AVN Awards, Martina was nominated for International Female Performer of the Year.
The category placed her alongside performers including Amirah Adara, Little Caprice, Alexis Crystal, Anna de Ville, Shalina Devine, Eden Ivy, Jadilica, Catherine Knight, Lia Lin and Tiffany Tatum.
She also had work represented in additional international scene categories.
Rocco’s Gym Fit Ass Fuck received a Best International Group Sex Scene nomination, while her performance in Il Labirinto di Cnosso was represented in the Best International Anal Sex Scene race.
That’s arguably more revealing than the older newcomer nomination.
In 2021, AVN was effectively saying: watch this Italian newcomer.
By 2026, the category was saying: she belongs among Europe’s established female performers.
That’s a meaningful career progression.
Then Pornhub Gave Her Another Major Win in 2026
Martina’s 2026 awards story didn’t stop with AVN nominations.
In June, La Nuova Sardegna reported that Smeraldi had won at the 2026 Pornhub Awards, taking the award for Best Double Penetration.
The newspaper highlighted another interesting distinction: Martina was the only Italian among that year’s winners.
That victory arrived three years after her AVN win and strengthened the argument that Martina’s international relevance isn’t tied to one particularly successful Rocco scene.
She now had major recognition separated by several years.
That’s much more difficult to achieve than having one breakout season.
OnlyFans and Social Media Created a Second Martina Smeraldi Career
Studio porn remains fundamental to Martina’s identity, but she’s also part of the generation that understood early that performers no longer need to surrender their entire audience relationship to production companies.
Social media became especially important.
Her TikTok activity helped push Martina into a much younger Italian internet audience, generating viral videos and keeping her recognizable even among people who weren’t necessarily following professional adult releases.
Premium creator platforms provided the other half of that independence.
The difference is important.
A Rocco Siffredi or Evil Angel production gives Martina international studio prestige and places her alongside other professional performers.
Creator content gives her control.
That means the Martina Smeraldi archive now operates on two levels: professionally produced scenes that form the recognizable filmography, and direct premium content built around Martina herself.
Unlike some OnlyFans personalities, however, she doesn’t need the word “creator” to disguise the absence of a professional porn career.
Martina genuinely has both.
Sfera Ebbasta and Shiva Put Her Voice on Santana Money Gang
Then came perhaps the strangest mainstream crossover of her career.
In 2025, Italian rap stars Sfera Ebbasta and Shiva released their joint album Santana Money Gang.
Martina Smeraldi appeared on the project, providing the intro to “D&G.”
That is a wonderfully specific piece of Italian pop culture.
Sfera Ebbasta is one of the biggest figures in Italian trap.
Shiva belongs to the same hugely popular rap generation.
And sitting inside their collaborative album is the voice of one of Italy’s best-known contemporary porn actresses.
It demonstrates how far Martina’s name had traveled from the original 2019 Rocco Siffredi interview.
She had become recognizable enough that simply hearing her voice could function as a cultural reference.
Why Martina Smeraldi Works Internationally
Italian porn performers face an unusual problem.
Becoming famous in Italy doesn’t automatically translate abroad.
A performer can become a television curiosity at home without ever developing much international adult credibility.
Martina managed both.
The Rocco Siffredi connection provided the obvious bridge because his productions have international distribution and recognition.
But Rocco can open the door only so many times.
The performer still has to remain bookable.
Martina’s 2023 AVN win, 2025 XBIZ Europa Female Performer nomination, 2026 AVN International Female Performer nomination and 2026 Pornhub Award demonstrate that the career continued long after the novelty of “Rocco’s new Italian discovery” disappeared.
That’s why she is particularly useful editorially if the publication targets an international audience.
She’s unmistakably Italian.
But she isn’t only relevant in Italy.
The Martina Smeraldi Video Archive Documents a Very Fast Transformation
Go back to 2019 and Martina is the 19-year-old Sardinian newcomer being interviewed by Rocco Siffredi.
Italian newspapers are asking whether she might become the next major Italian pornstar.
Then the phases arrive remarkably quickly.
Max Felicitas provides the first professional opportunity.
Rocco Siffredi takes her into his Academy.
Italian television discovers her.
My Name Is Zaawaadi puts her inside an award-winning international production.
AVN nominates her for Best New Foreign Starlet.
Rocco’s Double Trouble 5 wins her an AVN Award.
Crazy Italian Holidays helps bring new XBIZ Europa nominations.
By 2026 she’s nominated for International Female Performer of the Year at AVN and wins another award from Pornhub.
Meanwhile, Italian mainstream culture keeps finding ways to pull her back outside the adult bubble — from television appearances to a cameo on one of the country’s biggest rap releases.
That’s a lot of movement for a career that began only in 2019.
Martina Smeraldi Became More Than “Rocco’s New Girl”
Rocco Siffredi will probably always be central to Martina Smeraldi’s story.
He helped transform an inexperienced Sardinian newcomer into an internationally distributed adult performer. Some of her most important scenes remain Rocco productions, and her 2023 AVN victory came directly through Rocco’s Double Trouble 5.
But that’s no longer enough to define her.
The better measure is what happened afterward.
Martina continued receiving international nominations.
She developed her own premium audience.
She remained a recognizable public figure in Italy.
She crossed into mainstream music.
And in 2026 — seven years after the press first introduced her as a 19-year-old aspiring pornstar — she was simultaneously an AVN International Female Performer of the Year nominee and a Pornhub Award winner.
That’s why Martina Smeraldi videos now span something much bigger than the curiosity surrounding an Italian newcomer.
The early scenes show Rocco testing a new discovery.
The later filmography shows what happened when that discovery became an established performer.
And for an international adult magazine, that’s the part of Martina’s story worth emphasizing:
Rocco Siffredi may have helped launch her beyond Italy. Martina Smeraldi proved she could stay there.
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