Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks during a Faith and Family Presidential Forum at Bob Jones University, Friday, Feb. 12, 2016, in Greenville, S.C. AP Photo
WASHINGTON, United States—Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has pulled a campaign ad after it turned out the clip, which attacked rival Marco Rubio, featured a softcore porn actress.
The commercial for Cruz, a champion of the religious right who won the Iowa caucus last week, seemed rather innocuous as far as vicious campaign ads can sometimes go.
READ: Ted Cruz wins Iowa Republican caucus
It showed disappointed members of what was supposed to be a support group calmly discussing how they had been betrayed by conservative candidates who become moderate once elected.
In a dig at Cruz’s telegenic rival Rubio, one of the women in the circle advises another voter: “Maybe you should vote for more than just a pretty face next time.”
READ: Ted Cruz embraces supporters on fringe of Republican Party
The actress playing that woman is none other than Amy Lindsay, best known for her softcore porn roles in such films as “Beverly Hills Bordello” and “Private Sex Club.”
The Daily Caller news website was the first to point out the actress’s questionable resume, after the Cruz ad aired Thursday.
The campaign quickly removed the commercial featuring Lindsay, who says she is a Cruz supporter.
“The actress responded to an open casting call,” Cruz campaign spokeswoman Catherine Frazier told The Daily Caller.
“She passed her audition and got the job. Unfortunately, she was not vetted by the casting company. Had the campaign known of her full filmography, we obviously would not have let her appear in the ad.
“The campaign is taking the ad down and will replace it with a different commercial.”
An “extremely disappointed” Lindsay responded on Twitter, stressing that “#myvotecounts.”
“I think this is politics as usual. It was done in a snap moment. Someone has got to make a decision and sometimes it’s just better to take it down,” she later told CNN.
Although she had not known which Republican the ad was for when she auditioned, the self-described conservative said she “knew that it was something I could get behind and support.”
The actress, who said Cruz was still in the running for her vote despite pulling the ad, told several US media outlets that she had never been featured in hardcore pornography, but has appeared in a number of mainstream films.
“Even though I’m a softcore actress, I’m voting conservative and Republican… I couldn’t do a Hillary Clinton commercial for all the money in the world,” she told The Washington Post.