But it wasn’t without strings. 

At 22 years old, Lucy Blanc felt on top of the world. She was proud of herself as she clicked her heels across a New York newsroom floor, thinking that she was just beginning a long career in journalism. But less than two years later, she found herself back in London, skipping meals to afford train fare, maxing out credit cards, and drinking free pub liquor to cope with the anxiety she couldn’t afford to treat. It was a final warning from American Express that led her to a life-changing decision. 

She opened OnlyFans and created an account. 

Blanc’s story doesn’t fit the narrative attached to most OnlyFans creators. She wasn’t underprivileged or undereducated. In fact, she attended a private boarding school in Hertfordshire. She’d built a TikTok following of more than half a million followers before she was old enough to rent a car. She signed with a talent agency at 20 and turned her content skills into a full-time video producer role at a major newspaper. That’s how she ended up in New York City, and on a path that she thought was a sure shot to journalistic success. 

But a new boss led to a quick exit from her role. The costs of breaking her lease and moving back home (along with unexpected US taxes) led her with no safety net. Support from family wasn’t an option, and she hadn’t finished her journalism degree when she’d agreed to move to New York and take on her previous role. So she made a decision: “I was desperate,” she said. “I swallowed my shame and embarrassment, knowing that everyone in my life would see.”

What would they see? The Instagram story featuring Blanc in a low-cut top with a link to her brand new OnlyFans page. It quickly racked up 20,000 views and 500 shares, and she made $2,000 on her first day. Within 48 hours, the tuition to finish her journalism degree was paid off. 

But what was really paying off were her audience-building skills. Blanc’s trajectory is a case study in what the OnlyFans economy looks like for a creator who knows how to build and engage an audience. Her understanding of content strategy, brand building, and audience growth helped her go viral and build a strong base of OnlyFans subscribers. She hired a social media manager and personal assistant, and regularly posted on her social media accounts (including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and X). She even used rage-bait content about her earnings to drive algorithmic reach and attracted “whales” (high-spending subscribers). 

Within one year, she made £250,000, which she used to pay off her debts and start investing. 

The mechanics of how she got there are worth examining honestly, because they complicate the easy narrative in both directions. Blanc’s income increased as she lowered her boundaries. Pictures in underwear became topless pictures, which turned into nude video content. But each step brought a massive pay increase. Blanc revealed that her first masturbation video earned $10,000 in two hours and moved her to the top 0.5% of earners on the platform. She doesn’t describe this as exploitation but as a renegotiation of her principles. 

But what really impacted Blanc wasn’t the sexual aspect of the content. It was the loneliness. Hers, and that of the men who subscribed. She found that most weren’t primarily seeking sexual gratification. They just wanted someone to talk to. “Often the service I was providing wasn’t sexual gratification but comfort,” she said in a recent interview.  

Blanc didn’t stay on the platform long. For her, it wasn’t a career that she wanted to grow. Instead, it was a platform that offered her breathing room to work out how she wanted to move forward. It gave her the financial cushion she needed to get out of debt and get on stable footing. And even though she is open about being harassed online for her choice, she doesn’t regret it. 

The harassment is something that most OnlyFans creators have dealt with, and it’s something that even their CEO has faced. Keily Blair became the platform’s CEO in 2023 and since then has faced a version of derision herself. “It is a micro glimpse for me of what our creators face,” she said recently, “so I’m kind of glad that I face it sometimes, because it gives me a hell of a lot more empathy.”

OnlyFans, as Blair sees it, occupies a strange and unfair position in public opinion. It’s simultaneously the butt of the joke and public enemy number one. OnlyFans finds itself constantly facing outrage and criticism even though the platform simply offers a place for adults to consensually sell content to adult subscribers (and works very hard to enforce their rules). Meanwhile, Facebook reported 20 million cases of child sexual abuse material on its platform in 2020 and no one batted an eye. 

Blair believes that stigma is rooted in something specific and old. “The derision is incredibly gendered,” she said, “and rooted in our still puritanical conviction that women engaging in sexual activity is fundamentally shameful.” She makes the point with a precision that lands: “I’ve never had someone say: ‘Well, the Girth Master feels like he’s being exploited.’ People so very rarely write about our male creators.”

The platform’s pop culture moment (major plotlines in shows like Euphoria and Margo’s Got Money Troubles) has reinforced its position in the zeitgeist without necessarily clarifying it. But Blair appreciated the conversation that these shows generated about what it means to make choices involving your body, to share adult content, and to be a young woman in an era where that option exists. “And, of course,” she added, “the subsequent judgment you face.”

That judgment is what Blanc is navigating now. She wants to work in journalism. She was good at it. She also has a documented OnlyFans career that is easily searchable and permanently attached to her name in a way that will follow her into every hiring conversation in a field that still runs on reputation and relationships. 

This is the cruelty of the situation: OnlyFans gave her exactly what she needed when she needed it, and it may cost her exactly what she’s trying to rebuild. The platform is good at solving an immediate financial crisis and genuinely complicated about what it costs in the long term. Not morally, but practically. In industries that still treat a creator’s past as disqualifyin, the exit is harder than the entrance. 

“I wouldn’t say OnlyFans is inherently good or bad,” Blanc said. “It’s complicated. For me, it was a choice that saved my life.”

Blair would probably say the same thing from her vantage point. The platform did save Blanc’s financial life, and the judgment that followed is a separate problem. It’s one that OnlyFans cannot solve, because the problem is with our society, not the platform providing women the chance for financial freedom.