OnlyFans; John Phillips/Getty Images
- OnlyFans CEO Keily Blair doesn't want you to call the creator platform a porn site.
- Blair described the site as a place for 'adult content' that includes comedy, sports, and music.
- After all, the word 'porn' has negative connotations to it, she told the Financial Times.
Once again, executives at OnlyFans want to make it clear: the platform isn't a porn site.
Keily Blair, the former chief strategy and operations officer of OnlyFans who took the helm as CEO in January 2022, pushed back when asked whether the creator platform is solely meant for sexual content.
"No: We're a site that hosts adult content, but we also host a variety of other content," such as yoga instruction and videos of creators eating breakfast, Blair told the Financial Times in a recent interview.
Calling OnlyFans a place for "adult content" is a more accurate description of the platform than a porn site, Blair said. The site hosts a variety of content outside porn that caters to people aged 18 and older and adheres to its terms of service.
"Sites that are for adults should cater to all of grown-ups' interests," the CEO told FT. "Lots of people who are over 18 like sex, but they also like comedy and sports and music, so [it's about] being able to cater to our audience base and to be able to provide opportunities for creators."
Blair said the word "porn" has negative connotations to it.
"'Porn' can be treated as quite a pejorative term," she explained in the interview. "There's a lot of people who would hear that and think one thing or another thing."
"When we talk about this subject, it's really important to be as unemotive as possible," the CEO added, referring to X-rated content. "The word 'porn' has been wrapped up in some of the negative things that were the case for the adult-content industry, and we've done an awful lot to try and help adult-content creators to have a safe space on the internet and be treated with respect. That's the reason why I don't tend to use the P word."
OnlyFans didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment before publication.
Blair isn't the first OnlyFans exec who has tried to set the company's record straight. Amrapali Gan, the former CEO of OnlyFans who stepped down from the helm in July 2023, said in an interview that there have been plenty of misconceptions about the site being explicitly made for porn.
"It's up to the creator to decide what types of content they feel empowered sharing," Gan told Time in July 2022. "As long as they are over 18 and follow our terms of service, we are proud to be an inclusive home for a range of creators, which includes adult creators, glamor models, music artists, sports professionals — really across the board, which I think is so cool."
This vision for OnlyFans seems to bode well for the business. Blair told FT the company is "doing well financially." In 2023, the site grew 17%, in part, through its expansion into global markets, and generated $1 billion in revenue, according to the CEO.
Since its 2016 launch, OnlyFans has registered more than 3.1 million creators and 238.8 million fans, according to FT. The site takes a 20% cut of the payments made to creators, per the outlet.
The site appears to have evolved into more than just a place to post and consume content. Men are turning to OnlyFans to chat with creators on the daily to build connections and fulfill their emotional needs amid what some call a loneliness epidemic, Business Insider previously reported. Some are willing to pay hundreds just to talk.
"They can go to Pornhub and get naked people and sexual videos," Rae Richmond, an OnlyFans creator, previously told BI referring to some of the men on the platform. "They don't come to OnlyFans for that."