Following a surge in subscribers during the epidemic, adult material subscription service OnlyFans awarded its reclusive owner an eye-watering £433million ($500m) payout over 18 months.
According to records kept by Companies House, Leonid Radvinsky, a 40-year-old Ukrainian-American businessman domiciled in Florida, earned £246 million last year and an additional £201 million since November.
The London-based company had pre-tax revenues of £374 million last year, up from £53 million in 2020, and the two million content “creators” on the platform earned close to $3.47 billion in 2021.
OnlyFans was started in 2016 by banker’s son Timothy Stokely. Its business strategy involves “creators” sharing material in exchange for a membership fee, with a 20% commission going to the corporation.
Many of its users now find great financial success with OnlyFans, especially its highest-paid producers, who include Blac Chyna, Bella Thorne, and Mia Khalifa.
The website has been hailed for revolutionising the adult market, but some performers have complained that the service makes them feel pimped.
It has also come under fire for failing to take enough measures to stop minors from selling obscene material.
The company replied to the BBC by stating that it was always enhancing its approach to safety and content regulation.
OnlyFans is proving to be quite profitable, with pre-tax earnings of almost £1.7 million per employee, compared to less than £1.5 million for Google.
More than £93 million in UK taxes were paid by it.
Porn actors and sex workers have historically sold explicit footage to paying consumers through OnlyFans.
However, it also gives artists, personal trainers, and influencers a platform to market their work.
The website stated last year that it was barring sexual content to please its financial supporters, only to back down in the face of user anger.
Blac Chyna (£16.5m), Bella Thorne (£9.1m), and Cardi B (£7.7m) are the highest-paid OnlyFans creators.
A increasing number of NHS and social care employees were leaving their employment and joining the site due to the problem in the cost of living, charities warned last month.
Instead of working long hours for little pay in front-line health and care positions, many are switching to pornographic websites, where some may earn up to £50,000 each month.
Staff are departing in droves for “higher paid, less stressful positions,” according to unions, who also warned that this year’s 4% pay increase is really a “huge pay reduction” due to record inflation.
The large proportion of women working in these fields, according to activists, makes it “unsurprising” that they are drawn to adult jobs online.
Having made around £1,600 per month as a caretaker for children and adults with autism, Yorkshire native Belle Grace, 26, quit her position last year.
She currently earns between £7,000 and £51,000 every month as an OnlyFans star.
James Cowe, a 23-year-old former healthcare assistant from Bournemouth, changed careers last year after feeling “insulted” by the Government’s planned salary increase.
And Hollie Munroe, a 25-year-old caregiver from Hertfordshire, was able to relocate to Marbella because to the money she earned after leaving her job to pursue a career with OnlyFans.
Beyond The Street, an organisation that supports adult workers, expressed its “great worry” about the increase in care workers using the platform.
‘Financial vulnerability may be a motivator towards the selling of sex and online sexual material,’ a spokeswoman told MailOnline.
We are a nonprofit organisation that assists numerous women who have been preyed upon while in precarious circumstances, and we are extremely concerned about any rise in involvement brought on by the effects of the cost-of-living crisis.
At least one former healthcare professional who has made a similar move is receiving help from the organisation.
Women, particularly mothers, have been worst hurt by the cost of living problem, according to The English Collective of Prostitutes, a campaign organisation that promotes women in adult employment.
It isn’t surprising that an increasing number of NHS employees are turning to sex work to supplement wages that don’t cover the cost of living because nearly 80% of NHS employees are women and wages are now lower than they were in 2010.