RIP Porn Legend Kagney Linn Karter

Ethan Miller. Getty Images.

TMZ: Kagney Linn Karter -- a famous porn star -- has died by suicide ... TMZ has learned.

The adult film actress -- who got her start in the industry way back in the mid-2000s -- passed away Thursday in Cuyahoga County ... this according to online records that confirm her body was received by the Medical Examiner's office that day from Parma, OH.

A rep for the Parma Police Department tells TMZ ... Kagney took her own life -- something confirmed by friends of hers who've now started a GoFundMe on behalf of her mom, Tina.

The organizers of the GFM say the cash raised will go toward costs Tina has incurred in properly laying KLK to rest, including memorial services. The GFM -- which has a goal of $8,000, and has raised just less than $6k at this point -- will use any leftover cash and donate it to a local animal rescue charity ... something her friends say she would've wanted.

The two women behind the GoFundMe say they're fitness studio owners -- ones that Kagney would apparently frequent in the Cleveland, OH area -- and they say she had started one of her own as well in Akron ... noting it was the first pole studio of its kind around there.

What a sad story out of the Cleveland area this morning. It feels like we get these incredibly tragic moments more and more frequently these days. We've written about Kagney a few times on this blog, most notably Feitelberg putting her firmly at number 8 in his "dirty dozen" counter ranking of a CNBC blog from 2014:

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I did some research for the sake of this blog and she has won numerous AVN awards and amassed hundreds of thousands of followers, so I'd assume most people know of her work in the industry. From the TMZ article and GoFundMe for her funeral expenses, it seems she left the industry a while ago and has since been focused on pole dancing and creating her own studio around the Cleveland area. From all accounts Kagney was a great person to work with and be around, and this is another example of someone who was suffering in silence and ends in a story we see all too often. RIP.