Mary Carey (born June 15, 1980) is an American former adult film actress, Playboy model, radio host and film director known for her appearance on the VH1 reality TV series Celebrity Rehab and Sober House

Mary retired from performing in adult films in January 2007.^[4]

She was featured on VH1's reality series Celebrity Rehab and Sober House.

During the 2003 California recall election, Carey signed a contract with Kick Ass Pictures and, as a publicity stunt, they came up with the idea that Carey should run for governor. She was an independent candidate, placing tenth in a field of 135 candidates. She ran on an eleven-point platform that included somewhat tongue-in-cheek promises of taxing breast implants, making lap dances tax-deductible, and creating a "Porn for Pistols" exchange program.

In June 2005, Carey announced her bid for Lieutenant Governor of California as an independent in 2006. She dropped out of the race in October 2006 to take care of her mother who had jumped off a building while off her medications.^[5]

Cleveland native Mary Carey was born into a dysfunctional family. Both of her parents were mentally handicapped (her mother had been diagnosed as a schizophrenic) and she was taken away from her parents by her grandparents when she was three months old. After her parents divorced, her mother moved in with Mary and her grandparents. At seven years of age the family moved from Cleveland to Florida, and the next year Mary was legally adopted by her grandparents.

Mary continued in Florida with the dance lessons she had started taking in Cleveland, and was a straight-A student in school. Her stage debut occurred at 12 years of age when she performed "The Nutcracker" with the Miami City Ballet, and she was bitten hard by the performing bug. Her dancing skills were honed by attendance at a prestigious dance school, and she was being offered dance scholarships from many different institutions. Then, when she was 16, her grandfather developed lung cancer and died within a few months. Her grandmother's Parkinson's Disease worsened, and on top of that her body began to develop and she no longer had the thin body considered desirable for a ballerina. She was told to lose weight and get a breast reduction, but instead decided to leave ballet altogether and tried out for and won a place on the dance team at Florida State University, where she was enrolled. In the meantime her grandmother's health deteriorated even further, and soon their financial situation became precarious. In order to keep their head above water, Mary looked around for a job that could pay the kind of money they needed, and found a job as a model on an adult Internet site. From there she landed a job as a stripper. She saw that the strippers who featured heavily were successful, and an agent told her that the best way to become a featured stripper was to get a following doing porn. She traveled to Los Angeles and made the rounds of the adult-film producers and studios, eventually landing a job with Playboy TV.

Just prior to the recall campaign against California Governor Gray Davis, Mary signed a contract with Kick Ass Pictures, and as a publicity gag they came up with the idea that Mary should enter the field of a dozen or so candidates trying to replace Davis, so she soon publicly declared her intention to run for governor. The stunt worked out far better than they had hoped for, as Mary's bubbly personality and sense of humor about herself, her profession and the campaign itself - not to mention her beauty - endeared her to the California public. Although some political pundits wrote her off as a joke, her "campaign" received extensive coverage in the statewide media and she drew enthusiastic crowds at her appearances. Although she didn't win the election, she did manage to garner more than 11,000 votes. After the election Mary continues to be, besides Jenna Jameson, one of the adult stars most recognized by the general public.^[6]