Dayton introduced her to some other friends, and through those introductions she was able to get work with the porn producers at Metro Interactive. In late 2000 and early 2001 she made three movies for them, Wild Cherries, All Teens Love Cum 1 and All Fucked Up, but she was not happy with the quality of the movies or her working conditions. As a result, she almost quit the adult business altogether. Roberts met former pornstar Jill Kelly, who had just started her own movie studio and was looking for new talent, and Kelly hired her for a role in her new movie Immortal, starring alongside Devon (who had recently left Vivid as well) and long time industry veteran Asia Carrera. This was the first time Roberts met Devon and they formed a friendship that would eventually become a business partnership with Roberts’s own company.

After working for Jill Kelly, Roberts did some movies for other companies such as Odyssey, Evil Angel and Digital Sin. In 2002, she secured a two-year deal with VCA Pictures. The deal wasn’t successful financially, and, within a few months she wanted out. A friend of hers suggested she give Vivid another try. Roberts got out of her contract with VCA and signed a two-year contract with Vivid that included six movies a year. Her first three films for Vivid won her critical acclaim, all gaining the highest reviewer ratings, including Most Beautiful Girl in the World, Unlovable, and Dual Identity. Marey Carey told AVN in January 2008 that she planned to include Tawny in a movie with Krystal Steal and other friends of hers, tentatively titled The Adventures of Mary and Krystal. Roberts retired from the adult industry around that time and moved to New York with her husband David O’Conner.

Mary Carey once said that Roberts had her heart broken by “a guy named Rich”. Rick Patrick, a male pornstar, was Tawny’s boyfriend for many years and husband for an unspecified number of years, appearing on screen together numerous times before Rick apparently left Roberts for pornstar Jesse Jane, whom he married in 2005 and later divorced in 2012.

Tawny Roberts is married to David (DOC) O’Conner. She gave birth to her first child in mid-December 2006.