MANCHESTER, England – Following the revelation he had been caught trying to teach chemistry to porn performers, veteran British porn star Alfred Godfrey, better known to his fans as “Aging Al,” announced his retirement from adult entertainment yesterday. The development has done nothing to quell the ongoing controversy rocking the industry.

In a tearful press conference outside his home in Didsbury, Godfrey also apologized to the victims of his “wanton pedagogy,” while explaining the source of his strange on-set behavior.

“In the wake of a painful loss of a particularly beloved goldfish several years ago, I turned to the teaching of chemistry as solace for my grief,” Godfrey said. “While I personally believe there’s nothing wrong with teaching chemistry, I never intended to impose my own hobbies and habits upon my coworkers and pornographic peers. For this, I’m truly and deeply sorry.”

Reaction to Godfrey’s announcement from within the porn industry has been mixed, with many passionately arguing Godfrey had no reason to apologize, let alone retire. Another camp within the industry, however, is pleased to see Godfrey acquiesce to calls for him to step away from porn, which have been echoing since the chemistry teaching incident came to light two weeks ago.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” said Oxy Gin, who worked with Godfrey in the 2014 release Aging Al’s Butt-Banged Bisexual Birds Vol. 7. “It’s not like Al was trying to get anybody to convert to a chemistry cult or anything. Honestly, more than anything, I think he just liked showing off his in-depth knowledge of fluid mechanics.”

Other performers who have worked with Godfey generally echoed Gin’s sentiments, but director Drules Djordian claims he’s personally witnessed on-set incidents that “went well beyond casual discussions of the Navier-Stokes equations.”

“Look I don’t mind a little chit-chat on the set, and I don’t have a problem with performers talking about their hobbies on their own time,” Djordian said. “But when a guy is lugging along an overhead projector and stacks of colored transparencies to what’s supposed to be a quick blowjob scene, I have an issue with that.”

At his retirement announcement press conference, Godfrey partially denied Djordian’s allegation, but said he understood the director’s outrage.

“Although I never brought a projector on set — Why would I, when all my lecture notes are saved on my tablet? — if you look at this from Drules’ perspective, I can see why he’s upset,” Godfrey said. “I mean, he’s there trying to shoot a serious pornographic film, and I’m going around distracting his performing talent with whimsical thoughts about static isotropic stress states. He’s right. It was selfish and unprofessional on my part.”

Teen porn sensation Hanna Barbados said she “wasn’t even aware” Al was trying to teach her anything when he’d speak at length about the composition of the various tinctures and creams the makeup artist was applying while readying both performers for a recent shoot.

“I just thought he was one of those weird old English dudes who knows a lot of different stuff about, like, myths and languages and chemistries and stuff,” Barbados said. “You see guys like that a lot in the movies — like the one with the big white beard and long wooden stick who’s always yelling at midgets and people with pointy ears about a magic ring, or something. I’m pretty sure he’s British, too, but I don’t know if he knows anything about chemotheticals, because I’ve never worked with him.”

Richard Wallace, Godfrey’s neighbor and long-time friend, said he fully supports the learned porn star, calling it “shamefully hypocritical” that his detractors were able to run Aging Al out of a job.

“Every one of these people, every last one, literally is made of chemicals,” Wallace said. “I happen to know quite a few of them aren’t exactly averse to ingesting all manner of other chemicals, too, if you catch my drift. How on earth can they be against learning about chemistry? They’re not just hypocrites. They’re utterly mental hypocrites.”