Laurel Woods - Strip Club Heiress

Imagine trying to hide your father’s multi-million-dollar strip club empire from your Catholic school teachers and ballet carpool. For Laurel Woods, that was just the beginning.

In this gripping episode, host Terry Shepherd sits down with Laurel Woods to discuss her explosive new memoir, Strip Club Heiress. Laurel shares her incredible true story of growing up in the glittering, chaotic world of adult entertainment, which came crashing down when her father's business partner, Horace "Big Mac" McKenna Jr., was gunned down in 1989.

When her father was arrested for the murder over a decade later, Laurel was unexpectedly thrust into the role of managing his seedy, cash-heavy empire to fund his defense. From navigating private investigators and employees with criminal priors to ultimately forging a wildly successful career path outside the clubs (including stints at Playboy, MTV, and Lucasfilm), Laurel's story is one of resilience, survival, and reinvention.

In this episode, we cover:

• The Double Life: What it was like doing homework in a strip club back-office while attending Catholic school.
• The Murder & Arrest: The terrifying aftermath of Mac McKenna's assassination and the shock of her father's arrest 11 years later.
• Taking Charge: How a young woman stepped up to run a dangerous, underground cash business out of sheer necessity.
• Hollywood Highs: Wild behind-the-scenes stories from working at Playboy in the '90s, visual effects for Star Wars, and MTV.
• The Power of Forgiveness: Laurel’s profound journey to forgiving her narcissistic father and the unspoken trauma of having an incarcerated family member.

Whether you are fascinated by true crime, stories of family dysfunction, or tales of ultimate personal reinvention (Laurel recently pivoted to emergency nursing!), this is an interview you won't want to miss.

Connect with Laurel Woods:

• Read the book: Strip Club Heiress (Available everywhere)
• Website: laurel-woods.com

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:35

In conversation with Terry Shepard, award-winning broadcaster, narrator, and author, a deep dive into the writer's craft with the artists and support systems who create the stories we love.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Some memoirs begin with a childhood home, a family photograph, or a defining moment of loss. Laurel Woods begins beneath a disco ball inside her father's strip club. She was nine years old when she first stepped into that strange, glittering world. Her father, Michael Woods, had left the California Highway Patrol after an injury and reinvented himself in the adult entertainment business, building a lucrative strip club empire with his partner, Horace Big Mac McKenna, Jr. Then everything changed. Mac was found shot to death in his limousine outside his ranch. Michael became the prime suspect. The murder went unsolved for a decade until he was eventually arrested and convicted, leaving Laurel not only to confront the possibility that her father might spend the rest of his life behind bars, but to help manage the very empire that had shaped her childhood. The case has inspired documentaries, speculation, and countless theories. But Laurel Woods lived inside the story. And she's here with us now in conversation. Laurel, welcome aboard.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Thank you. Thank you so much, Terry, for having me on your show.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

What was your earliest memory about that place?

SPEAKER_00 2:13

So I remember the first time my dad took my sister and me to the jet strip. My mom was in nursing school and my dad would babysit us. And so he brought us to the jet strip on a Sunday morning. We got there at about 10. They opened up at 11. And my sister and I were, we were so excited. It was like going to Disneyland. We were just like, we're finally going to see where dad works. And we kind of knew what it was, but we weren't sure. There was a lot of whispering going on between my parents. So my dad brings us into the club, starts turning on the lights, turned on the disco ball, turned on the multicolored platform dance floor, and turned on some music behind the DJ booth, let us dance on the stage, and we were just having so much fun. And then one by one, the employees started coming in and like the dancers and the managers pointing at us and giggling, and we got so embarrassed that we came off the stage. And then we went over to the bar and met some of the dancers, and we got free Shirley Temples with umbrellas. We just thought it was like the bee's knees. It was for us, it was so cool.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

When did you realize that what he was doing was unique?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

I would say probably when I was like 12, because that's when your friends start asking you what your parents do for a living. And I would ask my dad, what should I say that you do? Because by that point, my dad was making a lot of money. He was driving Rolls-Royces, he had a limo. He was very flamboyant and flashy. And my dad was like, I don't care what you tell your friends. I'm proud of what I'm doing. But I chose not to. So my dad, so I and I didn't have a consistent story. I would tell friends that my dad was an investor or that he owned supper clubs. And some people, some friends' parents did find out that my dad w owned strip clubs. And so when that happened, I was like, I was dropped from my ballet carpool. The neighbors on the street would ignore us when we drove, when my mom would drive us down the street coming home from Catholic school. So the I just I hid everything. There's a lot of secrets. And that's when I knew that most of my friends, their dads were attorneys or pilots or insurance salesmen. So I really wish that my dad I could say that my dad had a normal job, but he didn't.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

How did you cope with that?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Um, I it was really hard. It was like a double life because especially like when I was in Catholic school, during the day, I'm literally like wearing a uniform and I have nuns as my teachers. And then at night I was going to the strip clubs and doing homework in the back office, hanging out with my dad. And but here's the thing. To me, it was a normal life because it was all I knew. So I felt comfortable in it, even though I knew I couldn't tell my friends. It I just I was very lucky to have a close circle of friends in high school. They were I was in AP classes, I was in National Honor Society. So I was able to normalize my life that way by just like running it, running around with a good crowd, even though I was the black sheep of the bunch. And I didn't start telling friends what my dad did for a living until I was in my 20s. And even then, my first job out of college, I worked at Playboy. And I thought I can finally tell people what my dad does. But even those people criticized what my dad did, saying it was demeaning to women, it was disgusting. And I was just like, take a look around, you guys. So it's I learned a lot about hypocrisy and people being very judgmental.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

How did the dancers feel about being in the business?

SPEAKER_00 5:57

The dancers, they all came from very different backgrounds, mostly broken backgrounds, either abusive fathers or an abusive boyfriend. Some of them were single mothers, a lot of lesbians, and they made a lot of money. First of all, I've I obviously have been to strip clubs my entire life. Those dancers are really talented. It is those, you know, working that pole is a lot of work. And some of them were like in gymnastics and stuff. One of the dancers I recognized when I was in high school, she actually was in my ballet class and she was dancing on the stage. I was like, oh my God. And but was a it was a real struggle for them because they made so much money, but they some of them were really embarrassed. Sometimes they would switch from being a stripper to being a bartender instead, but they made 25% of their normal stripper salaries, and then they would eventually go back to stripping. So it was a really hard decision for some of them.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

Laura Woods is our special guest. We're talking about her new memoir, Strip Club Heiress, available everywhere. Her web address is Laurel, L-A-U-R-E-L, Laurel-woods.com. When did you first sense that something was going wrong with the whole thing?

SPEAKER_00 7:14

That would be when my dad's partner was murdered. My dad's partner, Mac McKenna, was murdered March 9th, 1989, gunned down outside of his ranch in his limo. And we were all terrified because we thought that someone was going to come after the family. We thought someone, whoever killed Mac, was gonna come after us too. And my dad even told me you need to watch your back. He wanted me to have an escort at all times. I was still in college. He's like, don't go anywhere alone. Look underneath your car before you get in. So I was terrified because it was my dad's partner. And yeah, and for years I was terrified about is someone coming, will someone come after us? And that's when everything really changed for us was Max murder.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

And when did your dad become a suspect?

SPEAKER_00 8:03

So I think my dad was a suspect initially in '89, but then it was a case unsolved. It was a cold case. And then they reopened it in '97, and they targeted my dad as the prime suspect. And my dad would make fun of the investigation. He would say they don't have anything on him, they're wasting their time. He literally would joke about it. And we believed him. We believed that he wasn't involved. And because Mac was a a a seedy person, but he did have a lot of enemies. He had mafia ties in Vegas. And so it we were like, it could have been anyone. And yeah, and then my dad was arrested for murder uh November October 27th of 2000. So it was 11 years after Mac's arrest. Mac's murder. And that was just so shocking. I remember the day that I finally got a hold of my mom on the day of the arrest because I wasn't able to get a hold of anyone. And she said, Your father's been arrested. And I thought it was maybe for a speeding ticket or something. So when she told me it was Mac's murder, my jaw literally dropped.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Did it change your relationship with him?

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Yes, because once my dad was incarcerated and in jail, he incarceration just changes you so much, I think. He was like this caged animal, and he just became very demanding, always calling us up, telling us what to do. He was like a shell of himself, and it he was really hard to tolerate. It was very difficult. And also because my dad had no remorse about anything about what he about what the family was going through. And it was very difficult. And he, again, demanding about getting him better attorneys and getting him a blanket for in jail and getting him access to calling cards. We could call more. And he would just call and just rehash the case and rehash every trial hearing. But we were we all went to every hearing, and so we already knew, and then we wouldn't ask us anything about ourselves or how we were doing or how we were coping. So it was it was a very trying time.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

How did you end up running the place?

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Oh my gosh. So what happened was my dad and his current partner, David Amos, were arrested along with Johnny. And immediately the cash flow from the three clubs was diminished, was diminished. It was just like you could, it's a cash business. Everyone was taken from the till, and I knew that I needed to do something about it ASAP. So I came in as an operations manager. Each of the clubs had their own manager, but I just kind of oversaw everything. And again, if you had asked me a year prior, hey, you're just you're gonna be managing your dad's strip clubs, I'd be like, I don't think so. But you just do it. And so I would go around with two private investigators, and they were like my protection and my brawn, and I'd meet with the managers and I implemented some processes that I worked out with the accountant for making cash deposits more frequently. It was really difficult because all these guys and all the managers, they all have priors. You know what I mean? They all have for concealed weapon or for gam illegal gambling or drugs, and they're all afraid for themselves and they all wanted raises. And that one of them, one of the managers wanted a company car, and that manager had actually just stolen $200,000 from one of the clubs a month before my dad was arrested. And it was just infuriating because I was just like, my dad is the one in jail, not you guys. It's a lot, you just see such an ugly side. It's a lot of greed and selfishness. And but I just did it. I did it, and then when my dad was convicted, I just decided I was like, I cannot continue running these clubs because I just did it in the interim. So I so then we decided to sell two of the clubs, and we kept the jet strip that my dad and David still owned until David got out of prison. Then he bought my dad out. Hey, just another day in the life is just my normal life.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

I'm rarely at a loss for words in these interviews. What kind of courage did it take to do this?

SPEAKER_00 12:31

I tell you, man, I just when you're going through such a dark time in your life, and it's like fight or flight mode. Your sympathetic nervous system kicks in, you're full of adrenaline, you you your your adrenaline's just pumping, and you've got all this like nervous high energy, and then your anxiety kicks in, but just enough to keep you laser focused on the tasks that you needed to do. And that's how my body physically operated for two and a half years. Just I be I also became a shell of myself. I'm a very friendly, outgoing person, and I just became incredibly withdrawn. I was crying a lot. I would talk to my friends and but I wouldn't want to complain. And so I just we we didn't have that to have that much to talk about. And they didn't know what to say because they didn't, because I didn't know anyone else who had had a dad arrested for murder. But I just went through it because my end goal was to get my dad freed after the trial. That that was my end goal was like I want him to be found not guilty, and I just was gonna do whatever I needed to do. And then with the money, we were the attorneys. At one point, I had hired 18 attorneys, criminal defense attorneys, employment attorneys, and so I we needed the money from the strip clubs to fund all these guys.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Laurel Woods is our special guest. We're talking about strip club heiress, a fascinating story of her life managing and being the daughter of a strip club empire builder. Laurel Woods.com is her website. The case has been covered in documentaries, television programs, blogs, and true crime stories. What have those accounts gotten wrong about your family?

SPEAKER_00 14:18

You know, first of all, they got my age wrong. They I they shaved off 10 years, I'll take it. And I think that just they didn't know about our family. And they didn't, despite everything, my dad was a good father. When even before we had the strip clubs, my dad had the strip clubs. We had a very simple life living in Newberry Park, and he just adored my sister and me. And even though we would go to the strip clubs, he definitely sheltered us from a lot of things. And I don't think people understand what a good father he was and how he really just wanted the best for us. And again, my dad is he is a narcissist and he is very flamboyant. And so I think that's what most of these shows focus on that aspect of my dad. But behind the scenes and at home, he was a loving father. My dad also came from a very broken home. He was one of nine children, raised in the projects in Hoboken, New Jersey. Three of his siblings died from malnutrition. He would fend for himself on the streets. And so that was his childhood. So he really prided himself on being a good father.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

When did you realize this story needed to become a memoir rather than simply something you and your family lived with privately?

SPEAKER_00 15:43

I was living in New York and I was going to therapy. I had this great therapist, and I was trying to convince her that I had a normal childhood, which she laughed out loud. And she, so I started telling her my story, and she said, You really need to start writing this down. She's like, I think if you start writing this down, you'll see that it's anything but normal. And so in New York, I started taking memoir writing classes at Gotham's writing workshops and wrote a piece about my parrot. My dad used to know this guy named Big Wally that would come around the clubs and sell hot goods. He was a professional thief. And I wrote this, and my dad bought a parrot from him. So I wrote this short story about the parrot I had. And my instructor was an editor for The New Yorker, and she really believed in my story. And so we did a book proposal. This is yeah, in 2008. And I submitted it to five different agents, and no one was interested. And so then I just started a blog. I was working at MTV, and one of my coworkers was like, you should really start a blog. So I started a blog and then just started writing short stories about prison visits and strip clubs and the trial. And I just share it on my social media, and my friends were like fascinated. And and I just I think that's when I realized that my life was anything but normal.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Memoirs require revealing not only other people's secrets, but your own vulnerabilities. Was that the hardest part for you writing about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Yeah, absolutely. When I first started writing, I would graze on a subject, but I wouldn't really get in depth. And my editor was like, you need to be completely honest with your readers. And so and it was really hard to dig into some emotions and some events, but I felt that I wanted to be truthful. And if it can touch a reader in some way, something I've shared, then that makes me feel very happy. And I also a big hurdle for me was thinking about what if my family reads this. And I think in some sense, I was trying to shield them. And then I just decided that with my editor that I had to remove that that barrier because I had to write it for myself. It's my point of view, it's my story. And I think once I removed that barrier, it felt it was a lot easier to put everything everything down on paper.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

Has your family seen the book?

SPEAKER_00 18:23

They have seen the book. I did show it to them and I asked for their support, and they all just looked down. They really would like to sweep this under the rug. My mom and my sister, especially. My dad, when I first started writing the book, he thought I was writing his biography, and he was wondering why I wasn't interviewing him more. And I had to have about three conversations with him before he realized it was my story. Yeah, no one in my family is really supportive of the book. But I, and that's what's so crazy. We all went through this experience together, but we all handled it differently. And I chose to be open about it and tell people and tell friends. And everyone, and my mom and my sister chose not to talk about it, not to tell their friends. But I feel, but in the end, I feel like I came out ahead because I dealt with it. I dealt with all the rage and the emotions and coming back to accepting my father again and forgiveness. The the big part of the book is about forgiveness because I realized I had so much pent-up anger and it was like like physically eating me alive. And once I was able to just forgive my dad and know that he's not gonna, he's unincapable of taking a look at himself and what he put us through. And when I realized that, I actually felt sorry for him that he lacks that emotional intelligence that he is unable to see how this all affected us and hurt us. And now I just I forgave my dad and it made my life easier and it made my relationship with him a lot better.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

What are you doing now?

SPEAKER_00 20:12

I actually just graduated from nursing school and I just got my license. So I'm in the process of applying to nurse residency programs in Los Angeles. So it's a big change for me. But my mom's a nurse, and during the pandemic, I worked for Sean Penn's nonprofit. I managed one of the COVID vaccination and testing sites, and I just fell in love with emergency medicine. And I've had great jobs. Like I've worked at Playboy, I worked at Lucasfilm, I worked at MTV, but I wanted something that was more fulfilling. And so that is the journey I am on right now.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

That resume, as you read it to me, sounds like a dream ride that most people would love to have. What was it like in real life to work for those companies?

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Oh, it was fantastic. Working at Playboy was hilarious because it was just such an old school company. Like this was in the 90s. Christy Hefner was our CEO, and I will never forget this was hysterical. She, so I would I was a legal assistant. I was the coordinator of the legal department for the video and cable division. The attorneys had to watch all the adult films that went onto the channel, and they had to edit out anything with penetration or product placement. So you're I'm sitting at my desk, and all day long you're just hearing bow chicabao. You know what I mean? And then Christy implemented voicemail because we didn't have voicemail, a voicemail system. I literally had to get coverage when I went to the bathroom. I had to have someone cover the phones for me. So she implements a voicemail system, and then all of a sudden, no one starts answering their phones. So then she sends out a memo saying that she's going to threaten to take it away if we don't pick up our phones. I still have a lot of great friends from Playboy. And then I worked at Lucasfilm, which was a dream job for me because I am a huge Star Wars fan. My dad got me into Star Wars. We used to watch it in the back manager's office at the strip clubs because he had a pirated beta copy. And it was just amazing. The most creative people, uh you would see George Lucas in the hallway. I self-trained and became a visual effects artist. I worked on Phantom Menace. I was in meetings with George. It was that was just a dream job. So yeah. And then MTV, after my dad got convicted, I just wanted a change. I moved to New York, which I thought would be for a year. And I ended up staying over eight years. And again, working at MTV was amazing, amazing creative people. At the time, MTV wasn't really music videos anymore. It was reality shows. It was like The Hills and 16 and Pregnant. So, but it was still a really fun place to work.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

What do you want to be when you grow up?

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Uh, what do I want to be when I grow up? That is such a good question. I would like to be a number one best-selling author. How what do you think the chances are, Terry?

SPEAKER_02 23:16

I think they're very good. It's an amazing story, and you tell it well, and you're a very authentic person with an amazing career trajectory.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

Most people in that business can never get out of it because nobody else will hire them outside of that. And you obviously have done very well.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Yeah, yeah. So I'm still I'm hoping to land my first nursing job soon. So I'm super excited to start that path. And yeah, it's crazy. I never thought I would be a nurse. And a lot of my friends that are in the entertainment business, that's really flailing right now. And it's really hard for people to get jobs. So I feel like it was like a blessing in disguise that I decided six years ago that I wanted to pursue a career in healthcare.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

What do you hope people will take away from their encounter with strip club heiress?

SPEAKER_00 24:05

I hope that they'll I really hope this resonates with other families of incarcerated individuals. There's no Prison for Dummies book out there. I feel like that might be my next book. When one person is arrested and you see them on TV, that one arrest is affecting 50 people. It's affecting family members and co-workers and friends and and then just the whole process of going through it with someone that is arrested is going through trial. It and I spent 17 years visiting my dad in prison every Christmas, every Father's Day, every Thanksgiving. So I hope that people who also have incarcerated individuals in their family can resonate with this. And the book is also about forgiveness. I feel like we all know someone that is a narcissist, is unable to take a look at themselves, but you want them in your life. So how do you make that happen for yourself? And I really hope that people, yeah, can learn to forgive. And then also just the personal stories I share about my life and some trauma that I hope that connects with some people that might might be feeling alone.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

The book is strip club heiress, the website laurel-woods.com, written by our special guest, the author herself, a future best-selling author, Laurel Woods. Laurel, this has been great. Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Oh my God. Thank you so much, Terry. This has just been a slice of pie, man. You're so great.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

In conversation with Terry Shepard, it's a copyrighted presentation. All rights reserved. I'm Lisa Davis. Join Terry Shepard next time in Conversation.