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This programme contains very strong language

and scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

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FILTERED: You don't know what's going on.

If you want to fuck off, fuck off, then. Fucking beat it.

OnlyFans is a British website....

..best known for hosting pornography.

The website's made millions from selling photos and videos.

OnlyFans... OnlyFans... Onlyfans.com.

OnlyFans - the British company

that's transformed how explicit content is made and sold.

We don't try to be everyone's cup of tea.

We're happy to be someone's glass of champagne.

They champion empowerment and independence,

especially for women.

But beneath the surface,

the website's rapid growth has attracted a new entrepreneur.

So, you're thinking about starting an OnlyFans management agency.

I know that there is a market for this.

I've just effectively made a few hundred grand sat there.

Honestly, there's never been a better time to jump in

than right now.

They called themselves OnlyFans managers.

Behind the industry's promise of freedom and fast money,

a different story was unfolding.

I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong

with women doing OnlyFans,

as long as I had influence and control over it.

What do you mean?

They've told me to do the explicit content.

They just made me feel so disgusting,

so degraded.

What if this wasn't just a new business model?

What if it was something far more troubling?

They threw me up the stairs and back down,

and they were on top of me, strangling me.

I thought, "This is it."

Paid out 25 billion to creators.

There's not very many tech companies that can talk about creating wealth.

OnlyFans is the UK's greatest social media success,

but are they betraying the creators who made them billions?

And on a platform built on autonomy,

who's really in control?

This is one of Manchester's wealthiest neighbourhoods.

I'm talking footballers, millionaires.

I've been sent to look into Britain's booming OnlyFans industry.

I knew the platform had exploded in recent years,

but what was happening behind the scenes wasn't clear.

I think it's around here somewhere.

I was on my way to an OnlyFans content shoot day.

A group of creators had been brought together by their manager

to make videos and photos for their OnlyFans profile.

I want action in three.

What is going on here?

Can I just move you a sec?

Oh, yeah. Sorry. Don't let me get in the way of the content!

It's just like content is just happening everywhere

and I'm getting in people's shots.

Hello. How are you?Hi!

How are you? I'm Amber. I'm so sorry my top's off.

No. It's fine. My hands are freezing.

Tell me about today. No, you tell me about today.

I've been to one of these before.

I'm just slowly taking it in, my friend. It's a bit...

When I went to my first one, it was a bit like...

..wow.

Before OnlyFans, I was a barber, so I used to cut hair,

so I didn't think it was going to be a massive thing.

How much are you making?

Is it... Like, what's, what's a healthy month for you?

If I make over ten, I'm happy.

10K? Yeah, $10,000.

So about £7,500.

That is a lot of money, though.

But is it?£7,500?

It is a lot of money for a normal person

who works a normal job 9 till 5, but at the end of the day,

this world's going to...

How would I say it in a nice way? ..shit.

So everything's going up. House prices are going up.

But I'll tell you, I'm not earning that much

compared to half of these people around here.

I'll do the girls with the ice cream van.

You do the boys in the car.

The day had been organised

by Manchester-based Rebel Management Agency,

owned by OnlyFans manager Jordan Smith.

Obviously a girl's got straight guy audience.

Yeah. Guys have got gay guys.

So...Wait, wait one second.

So those guys over there,

they predominantly have a gay audience buying their material?

Oh, yeah! 99.9%.

No women buy it.

Very small proportion.

Jordan represented both men and women from across the UK.

But the platform's dominated by women.

Can you take me on a tour, please, of this content hub?

Yeah. Of course. Well, straight off you've obviously got the supercars.

People are already making content in there.

We've got different rooms that we use for different purposes.

So this is the games room.

Lots of lingerie around.

Yeah. Lingerie.

So, the advantage of this

is we want to create as much social media content as possible.

Each room is different and creates a different vibe.

It also makes it look like it's a different place,

so it doesn't look like it's been all done in one day.

Three, two, one.

Many of these creators had started working with Jordan.

His job was to then grow their profiles and maximise their earnings.

OnlyFans took a standard 20% commission from everything they sold.

Jordan's agency would then take an additional 30%.

Hello?

Hiya!

How's the day going?

It's actually going so well. Yeah, really good.

I've actually got so much done.

How long have you been in the OnlyFans game?

Me, I've done OnlyFans for about four years.

Started in lockdown.

I had a, I did have a very normal job before this.

Did you? What did you do?

I worked in palliative care. Yeah.

Didn't know that. Yeah.

Do you miss doing your palliative care side?

I do, yeah. I do miss it.

I could just never go back into it now,

obviously, doing this, but, yeah.

Do you think...?

I'm getting a sense that there's a lot of people

who've had quite normal jobs now.

I think that's what a lot of people hear the word "OnlyFans"

and just...assume... Slut.

Yeah, pretty much.

I mean, I didn't ever think it would be something

that I'd be able to do full-time,

because, one, there's not many lads that look like how I do

and dress like how I do that do OnlyFans.

I kept it discreet for a while and then I signed with this management.

It's interesting learning about the management side of things,

because that is, you know, that's a third party coming in

to be involved in your work. Yeah.

Do you feel like you have to have management, though?

Because you guys are obviously very strong, independent people.

You've got good ideas - like, do you need them?

If you asked me a few months ago,

I'd have said I'd never have a management again.

It were, "We're going to book this for you. We're going to do this.

"Right. Come down and we'll take photos of you,

"do this, do this." And it were like...

It just never happened. And then there were always an excuse.

So I felt so stuck,

because obviously I'd signed a 12-month contract.

You signed it? So you signed up to them for a year?

And what cut were they taking from you, Liam?

So, they initially were taking 50% of my earnings.

They were taking 50% of your earnings? Yeah.

I kind of thought, because I wasn't earning a lot of money,

at first, I kind of thought, well, I'm not used to the money anyway,

so any money is better than no money.

But you're the one who's, like, putting yourself out there.

Yeah.It's your body. It's quite exposing stuff.

Yeah. When I'd actually put it into perspective,

I'm putting, like, my full naked body

all over the internet for pittance.

I felt trapped. This is why I'm saying,

know what you're getting yourself in for

and do your research when it comes to management.

And speak to people first before joining the management

and don't sign any contracts.

Many of the creators I met were positive about the industry,

and I could see how having a manager could boost your earnings.

But Liam's story about being trapped in high-commission contracts

with the previous agency made me wonder

if there was more to these self-styled managers.

My hometown, Manchester,

had become one of the UK's main hubs for the OnlyFans community.

In some of the high-rise skyscrapers,

entire floors had been adapted into dedicated content rooms.

I wanted to sit down with Jordan,

as I was curious to understand more about how the business worked.

Welcome to the Rebel Devils podcast.

My name is Jordan Smith and I'm your host.

I'm here today with two of the UK's biggest slags.

Is that you? Yes, that is me.

You describing sort of setting up the UK version of the Playboy Mansion.

Yeah. So, when that was made, that was my goal.

I wanted to recreate the Playboy Mansion for the 21st century.

What is this thing about managers?

How did they then start becoming a thing?

The thing is, once you start getting to a certain level of subscribers,

it is physically impossible to manage it all on your own.

Why? Because more people means more marketing.

You know, it's like as your business gets bigger,

just like any other business,

you need a team to support you to execute it.

Right? So if you do it on your own, you're limiting your own growth.

How have you seen this OnlyFans manager industry change then?

It sounds like a lot of people are being drawn to it.

When I first started there was a few.

Now there's a lot. You know, and they're all over the world.

I think OnlyFans became like a $1 billion industry

around the time I started.

So obviously kachings were going everywhere.

You know, because it's just like, you know, it's the gold rush.

What do you think about this sort of like entrepreneurial thing

that's being kind of sold a lot to younger men?

So, it's kind of, it's almost like the new dropshipping,

like, a lot of people are selling it like,

"This is the easiest way to make money."

But it's real women and it's sexual content instead of items.

Yeah.

Like, do you have to sign up to any pledges?

Do you have to do any kind of training

to get into this side of a profession, I suppose?

Not, not that I'm aware of. No.

Because there's no regulation stuff in the industry,

any Tom, Dick or Harry could make an agency.

Anybody who is new here...

OnlyFans managers were everywhere online.

They were known across social media as OFM.

A quick search revealed hundreds of agencies.

Some offered services that helped models manage their accounts

and boost their income.

They looked legitimate.

Many promoted a message of quick profits.

And you can now move on to getting your next model

and you just rinse and repeat that cycle...

They sold a version of success -

luxury living, expensive things.

The creator economy is the fastest-growing market

on the planet.

It seemed that the aim was to pull in as many models as possible.

They taught each other how to scale up accounts and get rich quickly.

I tried to speak to them,

but despite being so vocal online,

none except Jordan Smith wanted to meet me on camera.

I wasn't sure why.

So I turned to the creators.

I got in contact with one of the biggest

OnlyFans models in Manchester.

She'd been working on the platform since it launched.

She worked independently,

but I heard she was getting hundreds of messages

from these managers every week.

I wanted to understand how they tried to pull people in.

Oh, my God. I know, very high, isn't it?

It's not one for... If you're scared of heights.

There's loads... My God, it's literally nonstop!

It's literally nonstop all the time.

It's really annoying.

I just find it dead interesting that you are getting

actually more messages from managers than even fans.

God, yeah, 100%. I've stopped even checking

my message requests now

because the fan-to-manager ratio is ridiculous.

A lot of these managers literally started as soon as they turned 18,

which is scary, because I think the same kind of thing

is happening with the models as well.

Now, like, they're just turning 18 and straight on OnlyFans.

It's really sad. Scary.

So, this guy messaged,

"Hey, Gia, 50 new paid subs daily.

"I won't lie to you. We help our clients reach this goal

"within 60 days."

So I just asked him if he was free for a call.

BUZZING

Oh, he's ringing me on here.

I'm good. How are you?

OK.

OK.

Um, the page is not doing that great.

It's doing about 5K a month.

OK. What kind of, like, percentage do you take for that?

OK.

All right. Well, I'll have a think about it,

and I'll have to get back to you about it, if that's all right.

No worries. Thank you. Speak to you soon. Bye.

"I can grow you three times your income."

Yeah.So you said you're on 5K. Yeah.

He can grow that to at least 15? Yeah.

Is that believable?

I mean, yeah, because it's not like that kind of money's not realistic.

Say if I was making, I don't know, maybe 3K a month.

Realistically, all they need to earn me is

an extra 4,000 for me to still be making more

than what I was making without them.

So that would be how I would justify it to giving them that much.

But...nine times out of ten,

they just take their half cut

and then just run your page into the ground, so...

You strike me as though you're a bit savvy to this stuff now.

Oh, yeah, 100%.

When I first started, it was a lot more low-maintenance,

but it's very, very different now.

I think that's why it's got so oversaturated,

because there's so many in messaging all the time

with all these crazy results, it's so easy to just click on

the first one and be like, "Right, that one looks good."

And that's where these managements can be very predatory.

The more I was hearing about managers, the more questions I had.

So we put a team together

and started looking into this growing hidden economy.

We put a call out to speak to as many creators as possible

who'd had experience of working with managers.

"If she makes less than 10,000,

"you should take 50 to 65%

"of her earnings, because at the same time,

"you have potential to make her triple her money."

We found some How To guides online.

"Send her a contract to sign based on what you have agreed.

"You have your first model. Congratulations."

The promise was clear - this was an opportunity.

The chance to make some serious money.

OnlyFans models had started getting in touch following our callout.

Most were too nervous to talk on camera.

Some, however, agreed to meet me.

I saw it as, I didn't do anything explicit.

I put lingerie photos

on OnlyFans and get paid for it.

You know? So that, and that's how I started.

I did exactly what I was comfortable with.

So when you made the first jump into it,

was money the main driver, would you say?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Having four kids, like, you want to earn as much as you can.

So, you're on OnlyFans.

Can you remember when you started to hear about

the OnlyFans managers side of stuff?

Yeah. I mean, you get so many messages for different managers.

Like, "Oh, I can help you gain this much income,"

but it was more, the way they worded it, and it was more,

you know, "I can make you ten grand in a week," or whatever it was.

Did they make you sign any kind of contracts?

Did they have agreements or anything like that?

So, I was sent this contract when I first signed up with them.

Yeah. I'm really intrigued to know the types of things

that they say they're going to offer you.

"The model will not discuss their commission rates

"and or payment terms with anyone excluding the agency."

How much were they taking?

They do take 50% of your money.

So not only have you got OnlyFans taking 20%,

you've then got to split that other half with your management.

You have regular check-ins with them about account growth.

They'll advise you on the types of content to be posting

and be responding constantly to customers

to give them whatever they want. Yeah.

It's talking about being in constant communication with each other.

You have to get back within 24 hours.

And it also says about...

..if a customer wants custom content -

so they're asking specifically for something from you -

you have to fulfil that request within 24 hours.

And that's when they've told me to do the explicit content.

I told him, like, you know,

"Would you be all right taking me

"if I didn't do any sort of explicit?"

And they were like, "That's fine, that's fine, Leanne.

"Like, we're happy to do that. Whatever you're comfortable with."

Then I'd get like a message, then I'd get another message.

I just kept saying, no, no.

And then they sent me a message and I just went,

"Right, I tell you what,

"I'm going to do a video and I want an agreement

"that this does not get sold for any less than $250."

And they were like, "Yeah, that's fine, that's fine."

Do you mind me asking what you did?

Like, a full explicit video.

Like, like masturbation type thing? Mm. Mm-hm.

So I did a video, I felt physically sick.

I just threw it to him. I said... I hadn't even watched it.

I'm like, "Just sell that and do not sell it for any less than $250."

And it were just kind of to like... To shut them up.

And I remember waking up, I think it was two days after,

and seeing two pings on my phone and I thought, "$36?"

So I went on

and the two people had bought it for $36.

And I honestly, I just, I cried. I messaged them and said, like,

"You've sold it for $36. The agreement was 250."

And, um, they just went,

"We don't think it's going to be suitable working with you.

"Like, we don't think we're really going to benefit off you."

What did that do to you?

You know, what does that do to your thoughts when you've...

..pushed yourself in a way you haven't wanted to?

Done something with your body you didn't feel comfortable to do,

and then it sold for just like 30 quid?

Honestly, it just made me feel so disgusting,

so degraded and...

Leanne later shared her UK agency contract with me.

Her agency demanded a significant amount of control.

And for every piece of visual content Leanne produced,

the agency took a 50% cut.

We found high commission rates were almost standard

across OFM operations.

It was part of their playbook.

If your model makes $2,000 a month,

that's 1,000 for her and 1,000 for you.

Other models shared their contracts with us

and they showed even higher cuts, sometimes up to 70%.

Some agencies even use the OnlyFans logo to advertise their services.

This raised a simple question -

did OnlyFans know about these managers at all?

Because on their website, it stated...

"The fan acknowledges that third parties may assist creators

"in operating their accounts and in creator interactions."

Despite not wanting to appear on camera,

some creators sent us voice notes

describing their experiences with third-party managers.

One creator sent me a voice note

describing her experience after she challenged her manager.

We consulted lawyers and human-rights experts

to examine the creator-management practices we'd uncovered.

I've sent you over some of these contracts

that creators have shown me.

What's your thoughts on some of them?

This isn't really a fair contract situation at all.

It's...it's more like deception.

When the creators don't even know what their true earnings are,

being locked out of their accounts so that they didn't have control,

being required to create scenes within 24 hours,

it creates an awful lot of pressure.

They're taking advantage of the content creators,

which is almost placing these content creators

in servitude to the agents and agencies,

trapped in a contract, which is...which is unfair.

The contracts are concerning,

and they seem to be the first step in the road to exploiting creators.

Behind closed doors,

a further set of tactics by OnlyFans managers started to emerge.

Working with the team, we embedded ourselves

in one of the largest private Telegram group chats, OFM Empire.

With more than 24,000 members,

it was here, when they thought no-one was watching,

that they revealed their tips on how to control creators.

The pattern seems to be unfair payment,

unfair commission splits, or coercion, control,

locking models out of their accounts,

locking them out of their banking apps.

So, the total number of messages in this group chat

is somewhere around 300,000.

This query that I ran was to see

if I could find messages about

managers changing passwords to models' accounts.

In a lot of cases they're doing that

because they don't want the models to see

how much money the account is making

so that they can take an unfair cut of the profits.

Did they kind of, like, egg each other on?

Seems like the majority of people, um...

..are pretty in favour of using those methods.

One creator we spoke to revealed another side to the story.

She agreed to share her experience with me for the first time.

Rebecca had started working on OnlyFans last year.

I was introduced to one agency...

..who another friend of mine was with.

They were lovely at the beginning.

"Oh, you're so beautiful. We've never seen a girl like you before."

"You've got potential to make so much money."

They'd first offered me 30/70 percent of the cut,

so they were getting 30%. I'd get 70.

And then they changed their mind that it was 50-50.

And then within a few weeks,

whatever I was sending in,

they would start saying that I looked like shit.

In those exact words.

And then, yeah, they just start being quite abusive,

quite controlling.

If I wanted to go for a night out with the girls,

I wasn't allowed to go for a night out with the girls

because if I'd been drinking,

I wouldn't be able to put in the work the next day.

If I wanted to go away for a weekend,

I couldn't do that, because they didn't like me doing that.

Literally controlling your life

and telling you where and what you can and can't do? Yeah.

They'd even try talking me into escorting and...

As in, they tried to get you to do in-real-life sex work?

Yes. And I'd said no.

And then they tried telling me

how much good money I would make from it,

and then they had blocked one of the other girls out of their account

and she'd phoned me up crying. She was in hysterics.

She was like, "I don't know what to do.

"I've got so much money in there. And they blocked me out."

So I'd gone straight on to my accounts,

changed my passwords, blocked them out.

How did that go down with them?

From me doing that, it just escalated massively.

There was a lot of verbal abuse, phone calls.

I've actually got messages here.

Sending me my own address,

telling me how he's going to swing me and my daughter

around by our hair,

telling me that they're going to have me and my daughter.

He's messaging you,

"will have you and your daughter wrote off."

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, after all these messages, it had gone quiet for a couple of days.

And then I heard a massive smash

and I was like, "What the hell was that?"

And I'd seen that my window had been smashed in.

And so I contacted the police straight away.

Police came out, they took the brick for forensics.

They went around and asked for CCTV, but there was no CCTV here.

And did you tell the police that you thought it was these OnlyFans guys?

No. I was too scared to say anything, to say any names.

And within two weeks,

I then had two masked men come to my house and attack me.

I heard somebody come through the door and they just strangled me.

I didn't know what was happening

and they were on top of me, strangling me,

and I just, I just tried getting my phone to ring somebody,

because I thought, "This is it."

And then they just stopped - after they just proved their point,

they just stopped and left.

Yeah. So that was my neck.

And then there was just all my bruises

all over.Oh, my God, look at the amount of, like...

This is, you're literally covered in bruises all over your legs.

I think that was from throwing me up and down the stairs.

The strangling was probably the worst.

Because your little girl must have been going through your mind as well.

Yeah.

That's another reason why I think it was the agency,

because they knew when my daughter wasn't here

and when she was here.

And on both times, when my windows got put in

and when they attacked me,

she wasn't here, because it was on the nights I don't have her.

So it was like they kind of planned it.

Do you know what these guys are doing now, then? Are they still operating?

I think so, yeah. From what I know, they are managing,

um, another girl's account still.

Did you reach out to OnlyFans?

To be honest, I didn't think I could.

I thought because I had taken the agency on off my own back,

I did everything myself,

I didn't know that something like that

could have been an option with OnlyFans.

We know that the majority of adults look at adult content online.

Wouldn't it be nice if that content was consensual,

ethical, directly monetised, monitored,

and was made in a safe way

and so that then as a fan, you can be like,

"I'm making an ethical choice

"in choosing to engage with adult content in this way"?

Rebecca joined OnlyFans believing it would protect

creator independence and safety.

Instead, hers became the most horrifying story I'd heard.

The Telegram messages we'd seen in OFM Empire weren't just talk -

creators were facing violence and intimidation.

Extreme advice was being carried out in real life.

When I listen to creators,

it feels like they're almost trapped in this web.

That everything from harassment to serious offences of violence,

particularly when creators attempt to leave.

How serious do you think that is?

What struck me the most is how systematic it is.

This isn't isolated bad behaviour by just a few managers.

There's coercion, deception and potentially human trafficking.

Managers are conducting potentially criminal behaviour

on a wide scale.

When it comes to modern slavery and exploitation,

one of the indicators of risk is third-party control.

When there's third-party control,

we don't actually know who is controlling the account.

We don't know what pressure is going on offline,

what they're being forced to do.

We've seen physical violence against people. We've seen harassment.

There were threats. There was coercion.

Taking an individual, turning them into a commodity

for the sole purpose of making money.

Take that as a whole

and we would say that is a pattern of trafficking, of modern slavery.

Modern slavery rarely presents as a single act.

It's often revealed through a pattern of abuse -

deception, coercion,

threats, financial control,

and exploitation.

When these factors are seen together,

they may indicate forced labour,

servitude or human trafficking,

and might constitute serious criminal offences under English law.

We operate on the basis of a very lean business model

and we do it deliberately.

Every hire is very important and very carefully considered.

But the thing that I'm probably...

To many observers, OnlyFans appeared to be

a British tech success story.

..for us is actually that we've paid out 25 billion

to creators since 2016. Mm.

So there's not very many tech companies

that can talk about creating wealth

for others, um, rather than just profiteering.

It had become a highly profitable phenomenon.

The platform was now making around £1 billion annually.

But while the top creators can make thousands a month,

on average, most people reportedly earn nearer to £1,300 a year.

I was back in Manchester to meet Gia,

along with another top OnlyFans creator, Lily Phillips.

My name is Jordan Smith and I'm your host,

and, today, with the very famous Lily Phillips.

"The very famous," I like that.

How did you start Corn? I wanted to hear from those

at the very top of the platform to understand

how they protect themselves against rogue managers.

Hello. Come in!How are you? You all right? Nice to see.

Nice to see you.How have you been? It's been a while.

I know, it has. How are you? I'm good.

The weather looks good.Hi. Pleased to meet you.

How are you? Nice to meet you. I'm Amber.

Oh, thanks so much for coming. I've been very, very interested

to meet you.

So much of OnlyFans is about independence. Yeah.

It's about autonomy, it's about you having control

over your own life and your income.

But I just feel like, from so much of what I've heard,

there are these kind of...sharks

and like predators who want a bit of that.

I have obviously heard the horror stories of girls signing up

with agencies and feeling like they have to kind of, um,

always push out more and more and more content,

and they're being pressurised to do more extreme stuff

or really just lose that independence.

People realise how much money you can make from OnlyFans.

So, you know, everyone wants a piece of the pie.

Especially men, like, not to blame the men...!

But, you know, I do believe that they can be

a little bit jealous of how we have gained independence

and can earn so much money on sex work,

and they want their little piece.

And I feel like the explosion of OnlyFans has kind of invited this.

Like, do you think it's created this sort of ecosystem around it

in some ways? I think in the adult industry,

there was always exploitation, like you mentioned earlier,

in terms of like pimps, or whatever you want to call them,

the middleman. So I don't think it's a new concept.

I just think it's a newer platform. You know,

you've been on the platform for five or six years...?

About ten years. What?!

Since 2016, when it first came out. Wow. I know.

And I do still love OnlyFans.

It's definitely a lot more demanding now,

but when the platform first started,

like, the agencies were never a thing.

I don't think even OnlyFans expected it

to blow up the way it has.

But there's no kind of regulations to it.

And I think that is the dangerous space

where vulnerable people can be taken advantage of.

Yeah. And I do think, like,

if there was some more regulations or, like, control around agencies...

Like, the concept is actually really good.

It's just that there's too many unqualified people

who are just thinking, like, "Oh, OK, I'm going to do this,"

and it's hard. Because there's no regulations,

like, the models don't know who to trust.

It's become this huge marketplace now.

It is translating into real-world problems happening,

like people being threatened when they try to leave,

whether that's, "I'm going to take you to court,"

and, you know, frightening people from leaving,

to physically threatening people...

Yeah. Oh, yeah...um, which is,

yeah, it's not just an online platform thing.

It kind of has translated into the real world in a lot of ways.

I think it's definitely something I've always thought about is like,

how can we help girls in the industry get more guidance

and more regulations on it?

But it's like, I don't really know where to then go with that idea.

That's the awkward part. It's like, you know,

especially as sex workers,

like, people don't really take what we say seriously.

And, you know,

they don't really acknowledge us as real humans sometimes.

And so it's hard to get that trust of, like,

you know, we need help and we need regulations in our industry,

but people don't really care because they don't see us as human.

OnlyFans have always said

that safety was at the centre of their mission,

something that was essential

to how their business operated.

In their policy, it stated,

"We are committed to building the safest digital media platform

"in the world. We're dedicated

"to delivering robust safeguards that prioritise the safety,

"privacy and wellbeing of the whole OnlyFans community."

"Our subscription model makes it difficult

"for people to engage in modern slavery and human trafficking."

But over time, something else appeared to have taken shape

beneath that original vision.

What we had uncovered suggested that management practices

had fundamentally changed the amount

of control some creators had over their content.

You've come from being a partner of a law firm,

joining, then rising the ranks very quickly to become CEO.

How has that cyber mindset,

how has that safeguard mindset

infiltrated the very underlying technology of the business?

Um, I mean, ultimately, without the safety technology

that we have in place, OnlyFans can't exist, right? Yeah.

Um, so as part of the content creator onboarding process,

individuals have to go through

a facial recognition piece, whereby we match their age

and identity to their face and a live likeness of themselves.

We also check their social media accounts.

We check that the bank account information is in their legal name.

We spoke to multiple creators

who said managers had gained access to their earnings.

We also found messages in the OFM Empire Telegram group...

..where tactics were shared

about how to get control of these payments.

While OnlyFans has two-factor authentication

around account changes, including bank details,

we wanted to test their payment system.

So I opened my own OnlyFans account

because I wanted to check how strict OnlyFans' verification systems are.

So I opened my account.

I uploaded a photo and I registered

a male colleague's banking details into it alongside my own name.

So you were able to use his account details on your OnlyFans platform?

Yeah, exactly. And then I asked two colleagues

to subscribe and, after they paid,

the money went straight to his account.

So OnlyFans paid out to him instead of you? Yeah.

You would expect when they're dealing with such intimate content,

that their security measures around money

and identifying who you are would be watertight.

Because I think what we've just seen there,

that the money can be redirected to somebody else,

is really quite shocking and raises some serious questions.

People go to OnlyFans because they feel

like it's a safe platform. They feel like it empowers them.

And OnlyFans does a great job in verifying the account holder,

so it's quite strange

that they aren't also verifying where the money goes.

OnlyFans as a platform spanned the world.

My investigation had started with creators in the UK,

but there were problems in other countries.

And it turned out we weren't the only ones asking questions.

Two data researchers in the Netherlands had

been following the space since OFM emerged.

They'd been watching OFM across multiple social media platforms,

tracking the evolution

of this private digital ecosystem.

I went to meet them to see what they'd found.

Good to meet you. Lovely to meet you. Have a seat.Thank you.

We are an investigation agency. We try to help organisations,

um, specifically if it's about fighting crime.

So you guys here investigate crime in the online space?

I'm just interested in why,

from the early stage, OnlyFans hit your radar?

We've worked in the human trafficking field before,

and the second we dove into these chats,

we saw evidence of threats,

we saw evidence of hacking and of trafficking.

So talk me through the patterns that you've started to see

in some of these groups across these past few years,

when you've been looking into OnlyFans.

We've found lots and lots of data, lots of conversation

where things were being discussed even more than the dark web

or anything like that.

We've seen examples that they actually trade

their models to one another.

Yeah, we saw some models

that were being sold for like $2,000, for example.

And when you buy a model, you get a model purchase sheet.

So they are trading real women like this in a casual Telegram chat?

Yeah, they're selling them to each other.

So when you buy the model, you basically buy a contract

with the model and you buy pictures and content of that model.

Uh, so you basically buy a lot of material.

And one of the things mentioned in that is

that you're not supposed to tell the model that she's been sold

or that you bought her.

Could just literally sound like you were buying a TV.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It is like that.

It's a product. Yeah.

So that's, that's really, uh, human trafficking.

Yeah.

I was wondering about the kinds of men that you're seeing

in some of these groups. So I'm from Manchester in the UK,

it's kind of being called a bit of a hot spot for OnlyFans now.

Are there are a lot of British guys in these groups?

Some people were saying that they were based in the UK,

some people were saying that they're based in London.

Uh, for example, we saw some cities being mentioned,

so Liverpool, Manchester, these were mentioned as well.

And, as for other countries,

the most commonly used ones were the US,

and then there were some in Brazil and then, yeah, Europe.

It is easy to look at these men, these young boys,

and think, um, they are just ridiculous.

It's important that we don't underestimate them.

Are OnlyFans aware of these things that you found about managers

in these groups?

It's hard to imagine that they're not aware of it,

just considering the number of models

who spoke out about it and the number of reports

that have been published about it as well.

However, we've seen no attempt so far to actually ban management

or to ban these contracts or to regulate it in a different way.

I needed to know if there were any other reports about OFM.

What did OnlyFans know about this exploitative web

and how had this half-hidden system been allowed

to spread across the world?

The first report of exploitative practices

by management agencies surfaced in Los Angeles in 2021.

Six creators told the publication BuzzFeed News

that they had struggled to get out of contracts with LA-based agencies.

Rolling Stone ran a piece in 2022

that reported managers

were taking 60% to 70% of a creator's income

and re-routed payments to the agency's bank account.

OnlyFans had responded to this report, saying,

"The platform has no involvement

"in any agreement made between creators

"and third-party managers off the platform."

In May 2022, the New York Times

ran a story on managers controlling creators' accounts,

to which OnlyFans responded with, "A creator might employ

"an agent, agency, management company or other third party

"to help run her account.

"Nothing in the rules explicitly requires

"that a creator disclose such an arrangement."

In July 2024, another article in Le Monde investigated OFM

and argued that they operated like a digital pimping network.

OnlyFans declined to comment.

In 2023,

Romanian prosecutors investigating Andrew Tate

alleged women were pressured into creating OnlyFans content,

under threats such as "break your teeth"

and "you'll end up in the morgue". They denied the charges.

Reuters investigated

OnlyFans managers in the US,

publishing their findings in November 2024,

citing cases where they claimed trafficking,

coercion and exploitation had taken place.

OnlyFans did not comment.

All of this showed that OnlyFans, as a company,

knew about the potential risk of harm to creators

for at least four years,

but it wasn't clear what specific steps had been taken

to address it.

Where does the responsibility of a platform end?

And if your business model is about,

"I'm aware of this wider ecosystem,

"but I'm saying I only have responsibility

"for the technology and for the platform,

"but my profits are driven by this ecosystem,"

then I think it's one for the lawyers to say,

"Actually, is it one single ecosystem?"

And then you have to say, "OK, so what is the defence?"

I think, given the evidence I've seen

and the law which is developing in this area,

it's only a matter of time before OnlyFans faces claims

of negligence from creators who have suffered harm

because of the systems and the ecosystems

which OnlyFans has created.

I'm hearing that you think OnlyFans should have

checks in place when it comes to creators using management.

Why aren't they doing it, then? Look, these are businesses,

and first and foremost they're about making money.

And so they will design things

that will maximise the profit on that. And this is

where you need regulation and this is where you need laws.

That defence of, "Well, we're only a platform.

"We didn't really know that this was being used for this,"

is becoming a sort of legally untenable position to hold.

OnlyFans is estimated to be worth around £2.3 billion.

They say they pay more in UK tax

than the entire British fishing industry.

The more I learned, the more I found myself wondering

how exploitation could flourish alongside one of

Britain's most lucrative tech companies.

OnlyFans is a social media platform,

just like those you use already.

OnlyFans launched quietly in 2016,

before taking off during the pandemic in 2020.

It's a British website that's boomed during the pandemic.

This was the same year legitimate management agencies

began to appear, growing alongside the platform itself.

I actually have my own agency that I've never even spoken...

What struck me was how some of these businesses,

even legitimate ones, overlapped a subculture

that was reshaping masculinity. One built around clicks,

cash, and the commodification of women.

But if agencies increased creators' earnings,

OnlyFans benefited, too,

as they took a 20% cut of every payment made by fans.

Were managers actually good for business?

A private threat between a content creator and OnlyFans

had been forwarded to us.

I went to meet up with one of the producers

to go through them in more detail.

So we just got an email through,

and it's from an OnlyFans creator called Riley.

And in this email in 2024,

she said to them that there are people running agencies

that are, "Now buying and selling women to control on OnlyFans.

"The tactics of these groups consistently

"grow more and more exploitative. Some of these women

"are being sex trafficked physically and not just online."

So OnlyFans did actually reply.

They said a kind of standard response.

"Thank you for contacting OnlyFans.

"We're currently reviewing your case and we'll get back to you."

And then they sent another email to say,

"We need additional details to investigate this case."

So Riley's got back to OnlyFans.

They sent them a link to OFM Empire.

Yeah.

Riley says, "There's hundreds of these poor girls,

"with some being sold with contracts

"giving the creator as little as 20% of their income."

I mean, she's been pretty courageous here.

You know, some pretty good evidence there.

We were really shocked, actually,

that they sent a pretty generic response,

saying, "Thank you for your concern and cooperation.

"However, unfortunately, at this time,

"the provided evidence is not enough to influence the activity

"of these agencies outside our platform."

Um, so essentially what they're saying is,

is that this is out of our scope, it's off our platform,

and unless you tell us who has been affected by it,

there's nothing that we can do.

So is... That's all they said back to her after that?

There's been no follow-up at all.

Um, they've kind of just let the situation lie as it is.

So, while we can't say what they did internally,

we do know that the outcome is nothing.

Modern slavery and human trafficking is illegal.

It can end up with a lifetime sentence in prison.

So I am alarmed that someone has reported to OnlyFans

that there's sex trafficking going on on these sites,

signposted to evidence that that's happening,

and OnlyFans has responded, saying,

"There's nothing we can do about it."

To me, it would say that they're not taking this matter

sufficiently seriously or, at worst, turning a blind eye.

Why would they be turning a blind eye to it?

Acting, uh, on these types of complaints

and taking action against these agents and agencies

is going to cut into their bottom line.

So why would they tolerate this for any other reason,

other than to preserve their bottom line and income stream?

Technological change has reshaped our world,

but it has also created new opportunities

for sexual exploitation

to proliferate on a scale we have never seen before.

Because our legislation

has not kept pace and is not capable of keeping pace.

We gave our findings to Tonia Antoniazzi.

She's the chair of an All-Party Parliamentary Group

on commercial sexual exploitation,

and one of Parliament's most outspoken voices on this issue.

Do you think OnlyFans have broken any laws?

I think those laws that are being broken

are hiding behind a paywall,

and they choose not to see it

because they have got a lot of money,

they are very powerful

and they are showing that they are

this fun, empowering social media platform, and they think it's OK,

but it isn't. And your evidence has shown that it isn't.

This is like the biggest pimping website that exists.

We've seen online platforms just move at great speed.

They are exploiting that. They need to be held to account.

OnlyFans are a British company, aren't they? So that means

that they are answerable to you, as a government.

Do you think off the back of this stuff that we've found,

we need to be asking them new and different questions?

We need to be looking at this in government.

I would like to see a select committee look at OnlyFans as it is,

as it stands now, and create legislation around this area,

because it's a whole new world.

Definitely no sign there.

Just says, "Private offices."

I've come to this address, which is listed online

as their headquarters here in London.

All these people walking past would have no clue

that they were based here. No sign, no nothing.

And this is how they've operated for so long.

It's all this content behind paywalls, it's all hidden.

And that's how these managers have kind of come in and filled that gap.

And when I think about all these people I've met around this country

who have been abused and harassed,

this company has real questions to answer.