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CBN.com – "I never knew when I got older that I would be a prostitute. I wanted to be like the stars. I wanted to have happiness that I didn’t. What they presented in all the videos and all the movies is ... if you do this, you’ll be happy. I thought that the casinos looked so beautiful -- the glamour, the glitz, and all. The show girls, the shows, and the movie stars -- that was so alluring to me. I wanted to know what was in every casino. I wanted to go in and find out. It was so magnetic to my spirit. I was drawn to it," admits Annie Lobert of her former life.
The bright lights of 'Sin City' beckoned Annie Lobert the moment she stepped off the plane. The girl from the tree- lined streets of Minnesota became a high class call girl on the Vegas strip.
"I always hoped that I would be an artist. I like to draw, and I also like to sing. So I always had those dreams in the back of my heart," she says.
Annie’s childhood only held the illusion of innocence. She lived a promiscuous lifestyle as a teen.
"I was going out a lot and drinking a lot. I was meeting all kinds of guys, sleeping with all kinds of guys, and getting date raped at all different parties. I mean it was crazy, and I was in total denial of why I was doing what I was doing. But I was just really honestly searching for love. I had no self confidence, I had no self worth, and I didn’t think that I deserved to be loved."
To find acceptance, Annie turned to stripping.
"I met this one guy that was coming to my shows frequently and tipping me a lot of money. I would stand and dance in front of him only, and I fell in love with him," says Annie. "I didn’t know it at the time, but he was a pimp. I had no clue, and I trusted him. I noticed that he was dealing drugs, and I didn’t want him to go to jail."
"I just felt like you know what, I can bring him to Vegas. In the back of my mind, this is what I was thinking ... I can get enough money in six months and give him enough money, so he can not deal drugs anymore. Six months turned into 11 years. He was my pimp for five years. I was giving him all my money and letting him control everything," adds Annie.
"Eventually I left him because he started hitting me and started abusing me--my heart was so broken from what I had went through with him, and I couldn’t believe that he wouldn’t change for me and that us getting into this lifestyle and all the money, cars, and jewelry we had, wouldn’t make it better."
On the streets of Las Vegas, Annie not only sold her body…but almost lost her soul.
"When you leave a pimp, you leave with nothing. I mean, including your spirit. Your spirit is stolen, and your heart is stolen. It’s gone. You leave with no money, no clothes, no jewelry, nothing. I got on my own eventually, and I started building up cars again, and I wanted to get everything back that was stolen from me. I did not want to leave this business with nothing. Once you get a lot of money, it’s never enough. Money is addictive."
Soon that lifestyle began taking a toll on Annie.
"At this point I had left my pimp. I had no one to protect me. I was so hurt from all the pain that I faced in my life ... all the rapes that occurred -- going on calls itself, being slapped and being forced into different sex acts, and kidnapped and stalked. It was just like, I was so angry from all the abuse that I was experiencing," she remembers.
Annie turned to drugs to escape.
"I picked up drugs again after those four years and started doing coke again and got so addicted to it. I couldn’t wake up without it."
One night she tried to end her pain.
"I just remember sitting there--thinking this is all going to end. And I just got so high that night, and I took a hit of cocaine. I just remember falling back, and I couldn’t hold myself up, and I remember the blackness just hitting me. I just felt so alone and it’s like, I couldn’t see anything, and I couldn’t hear anything. It was like I was all by myself and all I could do is say, 'Jesus, Jesus please, please help me. I don’t want to die, help me. I don’t want to die, I’ll change ... I promise I’ll change.' And my friend called 9-1-1, and I heard the ambulance come in the back of head. And in the mean time, my heart was just coming out of my chest and the pain of the heart attack, it was just incredible. I couldn’t move."
After spending a few weeks in the hospital recovering, Annie got out and knew it was time to change. She began watching Christian television, and one day she heard three words that transformed her.
"God loves you. When I heard that, I got on my knees, and I just started praising God, and I was just in tears. I just couldn’t believe that God could love someone like me after what I had done. I thought it was impossible--and I opened my Bible, and I read those Scriptures and saw that it was true. It was like this complete joy, love, and happiness filled me that I cannot describe."
Now Annie is on a mission to help others find the same love she was so desperately seeking.
"He’s changed me. I’m 180 degree different person than I was before. I feel so loved and so complete. I feel whole," says Annie now.
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