How OnlyFans's sex revolution failed: Adult site was hailed for 'empowering women' at its inception - but now stars resort to disturbing stunts to stay relevant amid fierce competition

At the height of its popularity, OnlyFans was hailed as an antidote to the largely unregulated porn industry where women are routinely pushed to the extreme for content. Indeed, when OnlyFans first shot onto the scene, Love Islander Meghan Barton-Hanson praised it for 'changing the power dynamic for sex workers' and 'empowering women' while adding she uses OnlyFans as a 'way...to express myself'.

She said: 'OnlyFans is a platform where a sex worker or model can take charge and say what they charge for a picture, what level they work to,' the Love Island bombshell told the Daily Star in December 2020. 'Before, when it was all in lads' mags, it was up to the photographer and editor dictating what level of nudity they should do.'.

But in recent months, Barton-Hanson's utopian ideal where women can take ownership over their content has come crashing down amid a slew of disturbing and outrageous stunts from stars including Bonnie Blue and Lily Phillips - as creators who flocked to the platform in its inception are now leaving in their droves.

Bonnie, 25, whose real name is Tia Billinger, recently claimed to have slept with more than 1,000 men in 12 hours - and appealed to the public to become her sex partners during the stunt - with the condition they would be filmed for her OnlyFans platform.

Although Bonnie has never provided evidence she really carried out the stunt, the shock factor alone made headlines as the extremity of the claim left many people horrified. Similarly, Bonnie's former friend, Lily Phillips, provoked serious concern after carrying out a stunt of a similar nature - sleeping with 100 men in a day - and appeared tearful when interviewed at the end of filming.

Such shocking and upsetting stunts reflect the nature of an extremely competitive market on a platform that is now flooded with creators - and it's a far cry from the feminist revolution touted by its supporters just a few short years ago. At the height of its popularity, OnlyFans was hailed as a revolution for the largely unregulated and exploitative porn industry. Pictured: OnlyFans model Lily Phillips who made headlines after she filmed herself sleeping with 100 men in 24 hours.

Controversial OnlyFans star Bonnie Blue recently claimed she slept with 1,057 men in 12 hours and promised to post the 'gang bang' clip on the site - until it was banned by the platform. Australia's 'most sexually active woman' and OnlyFans model Annie Knight claimed she slept with 600 men in one year.

OnlyFans was founded by Hertfordshire-based businessman Tim Stokely in 2016 who described it as Instagram 'with a payment button' - but it wasn't until the Covid-19 pandemic that the platform surged in popularity. In addition to Barton-Hanson's endorsement, celebrities including Bella Thorne, Cardi B, Iggy Azalea, Blac Chyna, Denise Richards and Carmen Electra all signed up to sell exclusive content to their fans for a monthly subscription fee - making OnlyFans the buzziest tech company at the time.

By 2021, the social media platform had 130 million registered users - up 550 per cent from 20 million - with two million creators selling everything from feet pictures, hairy chest videos, workout plans, healthy recipes, and cosplay content behind its paywall.

The number of sex workers, some of whom were among the platform's earliest adopters, also reportedly increased amid a complete shutdown on public life and the closure of brothels. Many saw the switch to online sex work - regulated by OnlyFans' protections - as a good thing; the app guarantees stringent age and identity verification checks, a zero-tolerance policy for Non-Consensual Intimate Images (NCII), cutting-edge content moderation, and strict controls against human trafficking.

To put it simply, OnlyFans gave women a chance at turning the table on sex work by eliminating the 'johns' or 'pimps' and taking ownership of their work, charging what they way, and setting clear boundaries - all from behind the safety of a screen. But five years after OnlyFans' Covid-fuelled boom, the once 'safe space' appears to have been compromised as creators exit the platform in their droves and remaining stars promote ever more extreme stunts to keep up with the competition.

Last April, one of Britain's top OnlyFans creators announced she was quitting the platform - despite her six-figure earnings. Swansea-based Lowri Rose, now 25, started selling nude photographs of herself on OnlyFans during the Covid-19 pandemic and quickly became one of the app's top earners.

By 2024, she told the Daily Star, her subscribers' degrading demands had left her so depressed, she couldn't get out of bed 'for a really long time'. 'It wasn't as extreme when I started but now you have to do the most obscene things to get views and that transfers to subscriptions,' she said.