OnlyFans Emerges as a New Career Path for Aging Hollywood Stars

Jaime Pressly, an Emmy-winning and Golden Globe-nominated actress best known for her role in My Name Is Earl, is the latest Gen X celebrity to promote an OnlyFans account. Her move follows that of her former co-star and longtime friend Shannon Elizabeth, famed for American Pie, who revealed her own entry onto the X-rated platform last month.

While OnlyFans adds new creators daily, the mass migration of Hollywood's former middle class—actors once fixtures of cable TV and box sets—to a site synonymous with adult content tells a deeper story. These recognizable stars, having lost work, missed paychecks, and slipped from the cultural spotlight, are now turning to the subscription-based service as an alternative.

The entertainment industry's shift from prioritizing weekly sitcoms and magazine deals to streaming, swiping, and subscribing has left actors who built careers on television networks with fewer options. For Pressly and Elizabeth, OnlyFans offers more than just money and continued attention; it provides control in an industry rocked by high-profile lawsuits and exploitation allegations. Pressly, now 48, could likely still build an Instagram following or secure brand deals, even if less known to Gen Z, but that would mean adhering to brand rules about when to be on set and what to do.

Content on OnlyFans varies—some creators produce adult material, others offer behind-the-scenes footage or fan interactions—but all share the decision to own the transaction, including when and how much to work. These terms are especially appealing as Hollywood's sensibilities around who owns the female image evolve.

"For decades, Hollywood operated in a way where actors relied heavily on gatekeepers," Estelle Keeber, a visibility expert and PR strategist, told Newsweek. "Studios, networks, magazines, casting directors, and production companies controlled visibility, income, and opportunity. If you were no longer being cast or the media decided you were no longer 'current,' your earning potential often disappeared."

Keeber challenged a persistent misconception about the platform, stating, "It is fundamentally a creator platform. It gives users direct access to audience without needing permission from an industry middleman."

Notable Names on the Platform

OnlyFans has also attracted Denise Richards, a fixture of early-2000s pop culture; Drea de Matteo, whose breakthrough predated the 2000s but whose visibility ran deep through that decade; and Carmen Electra, who found fame on Baywatch and became a major U.S. name in the late '90s and early 2000s. Bella Thorne, though younger, became one of the most high-profile arrivals on the platform. Newsweek reached out to Pressly, Elizabeth, Electra, Richards, De Matteo, and Thorne for comment via email.

Hillary Herskowitz, founder of H2 Marketing Group, told Newsweek that OnlyFans' appeal is inseparable from Hollywood's history of commodifying female performers and then discarding them.

"OnlyFans has created a new lane for women who were once heavily commodified by Hollywood but later pushed out of the spotlight," she said. "For decades, actresses were packaged, marketed, and celebrated largely for youth, beauty, and fantasy appeal. Once that 'glory era' faded, the industry often moved on."

Herskowitz argued the difference now is permission—or rather, the absence of any need for it. "OnlyFans lets stars control the narrative, the audience, the image, and the revenue stream themselves," she said, calling this a meaningful inversion for celebrities like Pressly. "These women no longer need Hollywood’s permission to remain visible, desirable, or financially relevant."

By this logic, the same culture that spent years telling Pressly and her peers what they were worth, and for how long, no longer gets a vote.

A Shrinking Middle Class in Entertainment

For some celebrities, especially those from the late '90s and early 2000s, this is also about survival in a media landscape that no longer protects the middle class. The streaming era created enormous wealth at the top, with influencers and internet stars gaining fame, but hollowed out stable income for many TV actors.

"Residuals are smaller, magazine culture has declined, and audiences are fragmented across social platforms," Keeber said. In that environment, OnlyFans mirrors what Substack has been for journalists or Patreon for musicians—a mechanism for removing the intermediary and monetizing an audience relationship.

For someone with Pressly's name recognition—no longer a household name to Zoomers but retaining status among older people—the calculus isn't primarily about replacing lost income. Brand endorsements, personal appearances, and social media partnerships remain viable. What OnlyFans offers instead is control over working conditions, scheduling, content, and pay.

"I also think there needs to be empathy in this conversation," Keeber said. "Some of these stars entered the entertainment industry young, during a period where appearance and public perception were heavily commodified... Audiences today are far less concerned with the polished, untouchable celebrity image that dominated the early 2000s and prefer authenticity. Many were celebrated for being 'sex symbols' by the same culture that now judges how they continue monetizing that image. The reality is, if someone has spent years building public recognition, why should they not benefit directly from that audience on their own terms?"