Damayo came across an ad looking for nude models and answered it, thus beginning her rise in the adult film industry. She took the name "Mimi" which was her childhood nickname, given her by her grandmother. "Miyagi" was derived from the character Mr. Miyagi from the film The Karate Kid. She cloaked her Philippine nationality in Asian mysticism. Even though she was always the least paid actress on the set, she continued knocking on studio producers doors. Damayo also underwent surgery several times to increase her natural "B" cup breasts to "DD" size. She then quit, got married, had a child, started publishing magazines and running Web sites — all sex oriented.

When "Mimi" first went online, she performed live nude chat daily and had scheduled events. Now, the business is served by a stable of 12 multi-ethnic women performing chat in rotating shifts, freeing her from filling shifts herself. The run for governor helped propel her web enterprise. Indeed, she says that after an appearance on an MSNBC talk show in the US to discuss her candidacy with conservative host Tucker Carlson, the response was so overwhelming that her Web server crashed for several hours. Now with access to a global public audience, she continued to expand the market for Asian adult films. In 1999, Damayo began doing movie production and talent scouting for Metro Home Video and produced the series she entitled FantAsiany, of which there are now three sequels.