Most people picture retirement as travel, naps, and visits with the grandkids. DD White, 72, a great-grandmother of eight, has a different idea. She has launched her own OnlyFans, and according to reports, she’s treating it as her OnlyFans retirement plan.
White met her Italian husband at a Ladies Night at a disco, where they first danced together, and they’ve been married about 40 years. The couple were involved in swinging early in their marriage, stepped away while raising a blended family, and returned to it once their children and grandchildren were adults. They began filming and posting content on swinger sites. But the couple didn’t stop there. After men kept asking to meet her, White says, the couple started their own adult site. The great-grandmother has even received four AVN Award nominations.
But she isn’t new to the entrepreneurial world. Before any of the adult content work, White co-founded a manufacturing company out of her garage with her husband. She handled the accounting herself, she explained in a recent interview, because she didn’t want to hire anyone, and she kept doing it until she was 65. “I can balance a checkbook,” she remembered thinking. “How hard could it be? Oh my. Did I find out!”
“Retirement plan” is her framing, and it could be more marketing than an actual retirement plan. Her earnings haven’t been disclosed, and IBTimes UK noted that neither her OnlyFans income nor her site’s revenue has been independently verified. There’s also no public evidence that she lacks a pension or started because of financial difficulty. In her case, it appears to be more about a hobby that found an audience.
It’s a different story for Pam Burch. Pam, 46, has her 25-year-old twin daughters, Julia and Lauren Burch, behind her. The daughters launched their OnlyFans accounts in July 2020 and now each has roughly 2 million Instagram followers and more than 400,000 subscribers. Pam raised the twins as a single mother in Ontario, Canada, where she still lives most of the year in a van, working multiple jobs to support their competitive dancing. She spent years waitressing before returning to school and working for the school board as a child and youth care practitioner.
Then she was diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a rare genetic neuromuscular disorder that causes extreme fatigue in the arms and legs. She had to leave her job and was separating from her fiancé, and her disability payments of about $2,000 a month didn’t cover her expenses. “OnlyFans seemed like the best next step,” she said. “It allows me to work when I can and give my body a rest.” She launched her page in 2023 with her daughters’ help. They help with photos, including holiday shots for social media. She now has roughly 15,000 subscribers and says she’s earned six figures in total. Commenters have attacked the family with insults, but Pam says “a lot of people, I’d say, are jealous,” and her daughters laugh it off.
White and Burch are far from the only older or midlife names turning to the platform. Donna Mills, 85, reportedly earned “many six figures” within weeks of joining, with a page that doesn’t charge a subscription. Actress Erika Eleniak joined at 56, saying it felt like coming full circle now that she’s able to run her career on her own terms. “Battlestar Galactica” star Tricia Helfer launched her account at 52. “Sure, the money’s nice!” she said. “But I’m just having fun with it.” And “The Sopranos” alum Drea de Matteo, 54, said she made $75,000 in 75 minutes after promoting her new account, enough to clear a lien on her home and avoid foreclosure.
Despite all ending up on the same platform, these women have very different reasons for joining. Some did it for purely financial reasons. Others wanted the chance to control their own image. And some? They just really like creating adult content.