Ireland was born on May 26, 1970, in Longmont, Colorado, a small community outside Denver. She grew up a good student until her parents divorced when she was 13. At 15 she became rebellious and started taking recreational drugs, until her father sent her to live with her mother, who had remarried, in San Diego, California. In San Diego, Ireland returned to getting good grades, graduated high school, and started college, majoring in broadcast journalism. While going to high school and college, Ireland worked part-time ordering videos for a chain of video stores, which she credits for learning a lot about pornographic films.
She entered the pornographic film industry in 1994, through an acquaintance with glamour Photographer Warren Tang. Her first films were L'il Ms. Behaved, where she performed with Randy West, and Up & Cummers 10, with Jenna Jameson; she started at the same time as Jameson. Ireland moved to Los Angeles after her first five films, and performed in a total of 80 films her first year, before returning to Colorado intending to slow down her film work.
In January 1995 Ireland was awarded AVN Best New Starlet by Adult Video News Magazine. This would be the first of many adult film awards. Fans of X-Rated Entertainment awarded her the 'Vixen' award in 1995 and the 'Fan Favorite' in 1996. She was named by Playboy Magazine as one of their Top 10 Porn Stars for 1997. In 2001, AVN listed her among the Top 50 Porn Stars of All Time and in 2005 inducted her into the AVN Hall of Fame.
Ireland started her personal website, http://www.kylieireland.com, in 1996, becoming one of the first pornographic actresses on the Web; she describes it as "my obsession." On her website, she would perform live sex shows that would receive 10,000 hit a day at $5 a hit during the late 1990s. She does Web consulting and public relations for other adult actresses.
Ireland says that she "dabbled" in recreational drugs, even before entering the adult industry; she tried most drugs, and used crystal meth for a time to stay thin, but her main drug of choice was alcohol. In 2001, she realized her drinking was becoming a Problem.
From October 2003 to February 2006, Ireland hosted a weekly Internet radio show, Kylie Live on ksexradio.com, about the pornography industry. She won the KSEX Radio Listener's Choice Award for "Best Radio Voice" in 2004, and the "Best Insight into the Adult Business" award for 2005. In February 2006, Ireland became the host of sex talk show Private Calls, on Friday evenings for Playboy Radio on Sirius Radio.
When her contract with VCA expired, Ireland directed her first movie, The Whore Next Door. Ireland continued to direct, first for Jewel De'Nyle at Platinum X Pictures, then other companies. In April 2006, she founded her own adult film company, SlutWerkz, which features women Directors and Cross as head of production, producing and starring in hardcore gonzo pornography. SlutWerkz launch was delayed from its planned fall 2007 to sometime in 2008 after replacing the original intended distributors. The company originally planned to release one film per month.
In April 2013, Ireland launched her own weekly podcast channel along with her husband Andy Appleton called "Apples & Pairs" on Soundcloud.com.
