FOR eight years, Yudy Pineda lived in a convent as she trained to become a nun.

But these days, she’s decided on a very different career — in porn.

Ms Pineda, from deeply Catholic Colombia, lived in the convent between the ages of 10 and 18 after nuns visited her school.

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Ms Pineda was convinced she was destined for a life in the church — until she fell in love with a teacher and realised the vocation wasn’t for her.

She then left the convent, settled in Medellin and began working for Nestle until she met a man who was recruiting for webcam girls.

Ms Pineda attended a casting session and got the job on the spot, and has remained in porn ever since.

In a recent interview with South America media, Ms Pineda said there was “nothing bad” about her new job, which she described as “decent and artistic”, according to The Mirror.

“At first I was feeling bad, but now I am fine with it,” Ms Pineda told reporters about her new career. “I also feel good when I go to church. I never miss Friday prayers, Saturday meetings or Sunday mass.”

She said she now enjoyed “masturbation and pornography”, even though she “felt very happy” as a child living in the convent as a trainee nun.

However, Ms Pineda is not the only porn worker to have had a surprising career change.

While she swapped the church for porn, in September former porn star Brittni De La Mora made headlines after revealing she had found her new calling — as an evangelical preacher.

Ms De La Mora, who was one of the world’s most successful porn stars and pocketed nearly $500,000 a year under the stage name Jenna Presley, left the industry in 2012 after making hundreds of adult films.

She struggled with drug addiction and suicidal thoughts before finding God and falling for her pastor Richard De La Mora, who she married in 2016.

The couple now both preach at the Cornerstone Church in San Diego.

“I used to be named one of the world’s hottest porn stars,” she told Barcroft Media.

“I tried to quit the porn industry without the help of God, and the reality is I couldn’t do it because God and porn don’t mix.

“I was making about $US30,000 ($AU41,000) a month, I had a brand new Mercedes and every new Louis Vuitton purse and Christian Louboutin heels … I was earning a lot of money and I was struggling to pay my rent because I had a really, really bad drug addiction.

“I would spend thousands and thousands of dollars on drugs a week.”

Now Ms De La Mora earns a healthy wage as a real estate agent, leads her church’s young adult ministry with her pastor husband and attends porn conventions to speak with performers where she sets up a huge booth that says “Jesus Loves Porn Stars”.

alexis.carey@news.com.au