YOUNG women from small towns and rural villages are taking home more money than Premier League footballers, a Fabulous probe has found.
It’s all thanks to adult subscription platform OnlyFans, which allows them to post X-rated content of themselves and charge men a monthly subscription fee to access it.
It comes after influencer Sophie Rain, 20, claimed that she made an eye-watering £34.3 MILLION posting solo pictures and videos in the year to November 28, 2024.
Controversial platform OnlyFans has become synonymous with online adult content, helping amateur porn stars and models earn extra cash on the side.
It has also drawn in celebrities such as Bella Thorne and Katie Price.
But recent discourse around the platform has shifted from it being a side hustle to a lucrative full-time career for many.
OnlyFans posted revenue of over £1 billion in the year to 30 November 2023, an increase of 20% on the previous year, while its pre-tax profit rose by 25% to £516 million, according to accounts published by its parent company, Fenix International.
And the serious money making was thanks to creator accounts growing to more than four million and fan accounts growing to 305 million.
OnlyFans creators take home 80% of their subscription and with more and more fans joining, some are raking in millions of pounds.
A number of creators are even giving some of the Premier League’s biggest football players a run for their money…
Megan Barton-Hanson
Love Island alumni Megan Barton-Hanson was a stripper before shooting to fame on the fourth series of ITV’s biggest dating show in 2018.
The 30-year-old, from resort town Southend-on-Sea, now self-styles as a sex worker.
Megan is making an estimated £1.5 million per MONTH on OnlyFans and is regarded as one of the most popular stars on the adult platform.
This would put her annual salary at an impressive £18 million, more than what Jack Grealish is estimated to be earning at £15.6 million, according to football platform Capology.
Megan’s content spans lingerie-clad videos and pictures, as well as collaborations with other female creators and “uncensored” pay-per-view clips.
“You have to run it like a business if you want to make that sort of money,” she said on Paul Brunson’s We Need To Talk podcast.
What is OnlyFans?
OnlyFans is a subscription content service based in London.
As of 2023, it is thought to have more than 220million registered users and over three million content creators.
Sex workers charge monthly fees for access to pictures, videos and more.
While popular for porn, the site isn’t exclusively designed with that in mind – anyone who wants to build up a fan base and charge them for it can set one up.
Celebs like Katie Price and Kerry Katona are popular personalities on the platform.
“Whether you’re uploading tutorials, tips, behind-the-scenes footage or just endless selfies, a lot of your followers would be willing to pay for them,” the company states.
For every subscription that’s sold to a viewer, performers get 80 per cent of the cash while OnlyFans gets the rest.
It isn’t limited to adult content, as it has become popular with physical fitness experts and musicians.
Megan also addressed speculation surrounding her earnings on the episode, and shot down reports that claim she is making £4 million a month.
She did however say that she has made “way over £1 million” in one year on the platform.
Accounts for her company, MBH Production Ltd, shows that she has £388,873 cash in the bank.
What is her USP? Megan gets fans to pay the big bucks by creating alter egos they can chat to for an extra cost.
Right now, she has one dubbed ‘Your Office Wife’ and saucily penned alongside a series of devil and heart emojis in the persona’s Instagram bio: “Private for a reason.”
Bonnie Blue
The 25-year-old from a rural village in Derbyshire, claims that she makes upwards of £600,000 per month, making her annual pay check at least £7.2 MILLION.
This is more than England ace Cole Palmer will earn this year at £6.8 million, according to income stats by Capology.
Before this, she was working as a recruitment consultant earning what she describes as “average” money.
The average salary for a recruitment consultant is around £24,000 to £30,000, with senior consultants earning in the region of £28,000 to £35,000, according to career platform Prospects.
Bonnie started off as a cam girl, offering one-to-one video call sessions with clients. She eventually moved onto OnlyFans after seeing lots of hype around it on social media.
What is her USP? Bonnie’s way of making viewers pay the big bucks is controversial. She specifically puts calls out for young men, who she has sex with, including ‘barely legal’ students.
Bonnie insists her actions are legal as none of the men are under 18 but critics label her a ‘predator’ and cite concerns over the young men’s understanding of the consequences.
Chloe Khan
Chloe Khan is an OnlyFans veteran. The 33-year-old set up her account in October 2017 and is still going strong seven years later.
The X-Factor reject from Wakefield, West Yorkshire, is allegedly earning up to £1.2 million a month on the platform, as reported by Heat magazine earlier this year.
This puts her annual salary at a comfortable £14.4 million, which is nearly double that of West Ham forward and Dani Dyer’s boyfriend Jarrod Bowen, who earns £7,800,000, according to Capology.
In a blog post on her eponymous website in November 2020, the mum-of-one claimed that she is in the “0.0x%” of OnlyFans earners.
“Well, I am in the top 0.0x% creator on onlyfans in the world,” she penned. “So, come join me on there and I will show you what I’m really good at.”
What is her USP? Men pay the big bucks for Chloe because she is a former glamour model, giving her a stronger understanding of which poses and outfits make the most money.
She has appeared on five international Playboy covers, as well as the front of Manic magazine in April 2017.
Sophie Rain
OnlyFans superstar Sophie Rain grew up relying on food banks.
Now, she is one of the most lucrative content creators in the world. So much so, she made more money than England captain Harry Kane this year.
The 20-year-old came under fire last month for boasting about her £34.3 MILLION earnings in 2024.
She beamed that she’s “thankful” to have raked in a whopping £2.9 million a MONTH from posting sexual and explicit content on OnlyFans.
By comparison, Three Lions ace Harry Kane reportedly made around £20.8 million this year, according to Sky Germany – which is more than £10 million short of Sophie’s earnings.
What is her USP? Sophie plays on her “girl-next-door” look to rake in the cash.
She doesn’t wear much make-up, has natural hair and wears relatively simple clothes to create an aura of mystery around what she’s like on OnlyFans.
This then drives men to her profile, where she claims to show off her “naughty side”.