Cape Town, 13 March 2023: Twenty six year old Safia Samuels, from the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town, sat down to discuss her journey to becoming an OnlyFans model. Safia started her OnlyFans page during South Africa’s Covid-19 lockdown in 2020. The lockdown forced many South Africas to diversify their incomes by turning to online forms of income creation.

OnlyFans is a content sales portal that allows creators of different sorts of online media to sell their work via a subscription service model. While OnlyFans can be used to sell any types of content including music, it is now largely become known as a platform to sell nudity and or pornography,

While Samuels wouldn’t divulge how much she earns selling nude images of herself, she admitted that she now earns more from her day job in a call centre. A look through her OnlyFans page displays dozens of extremely explicit videos and photos of herself. In her most recent video she appears with her fiancé.

Samuels like many other young women and men in South Africa now use OnlyFans as a way to earn extra incomes through the sale of nude images of themselves. When asked what impact she thinks it will have on her future, she indicated she’s not too concerned at the moment as there as been no immediate impact thus far.

As of August 2022, OnlyFans had more than 150 million subscribers, with more than 500 000 new registrations per day. Many celebrities such as Cardi B, Denise Richards, Tyga and Bella Thorne joining the platform have contributed to its growth. According to Quickread Magazine the average earning of an OnlyFans content creator in South Africa earns between $180 – $250 per month, which is which is roughly R2 600 – R3 700 per month. However, higher-earning South Africans, like Xoli Mfeka, can earn upwards of $6 000, or R90 000, a month.