OnlyFans is on a mission to redefine porn. With $1.3 billion in revenue and over 300 million users, the fast-growing company has fused sex work with the online creator economy so successfully that it has branched out into comedy, music and motor-racing.
But for all its ambition and influence, the inner workings of OnlyFans remain opaque. It has just a few dozen employees even as its user base has almost quadrupled in recent years. Its billionaire owner is rarely seen in public or even mentioned in talks by its CEO.
There’s no company sign outside its registered London address, and a significant but secretive part of its operations — including content moderation — is based in Ukraine, a country at war. Reuters traced OnlyFans’ journey from an obscure, porn-free site created by a British family to an adults-only social media phenomenon turbocharged by erotic performers and celebrity influencers, worth billions of dollars. As it’s grown, OnlyFans has sought to use explicit content — its seemingly bottomless source of revenue — as a springboard to greater scale, positioning itself as a tech pioneer with a place among social media giants such as Instagram and X.
Key to that effort is making porn more socially acceptable and distancing the company from the abuses often associated with the industry. The public face of OnlyFans is CEO Keily Blair, an Irish lawyer and self-described feminist and “safety nerd” promoted to the top job in 2023. In public appearances, Bl.
