A single mother of two daughters, with a glittering career as a CEO, Kayleigh Blair could be the ultimate inspiration for women. The 42-year-old lawyer who became its managing director OnlyFanshas seen her career take off, advocating for women’s “choice” over their money, jobs and bodies since taking on the role in July 2023.

But while the porn-friendly site is designed as a feminist platform for women to get rich and have sex, OnlyFans also hosts “dangerous stunts” sex that put vulnerable women at risk.

The star of OnlyFans, Lily Phillipsrecently shocked the world after revealing that he had sex with more than 100 men in one night – and that her next goal was to sleep with 1,000 men in 24 hours.

Lily, who posted footage on her OnlyFans page, appeared teary-eyed after the ordeal and admitted she was more “intense” than she had hoped. The controversial sight drew backlash from her colleagues at OnlyFans, who called it a form of “self-harm” and argued it “sends a message” to other creators that “pushing yourself to dangerous extremes is normal.”

Supporting women’s ‘choice’

Blair has spoken publicly about women having “choice” in their lives, arguing in a recent interview: “I think people should be able to make choices about what they do.” “I think as a society, and especially as women, we’ve had a lot of people telling us what we can do, with our bodies, with our jobs, with our money, with our lives. I’m not interested in that.”

Born and raised in Dublin, Blair moved to Britain to study Law and Politics at Brookes University, Oxford, before becoming a barrister in 2007. Specializing in cybersecurity and privacy, her early career included time at PwC and law firms Forsters and Allen & Overy.

Blair was even the first winner of the awards Inspirational Women in Law in 2016, and later opened up about the struggles of balancing motherhood and a successful career. “There are unique things that have happened to me, probably because I’m a woman,” he said.

“I remember coming back from maternity leave and they were talking about a job that would involve international travel. There was an automatic assumption that I wouldn’t want to go.” And he added: “I remember walking into the managing partner’s office and sitting down and saying, ‘This may come from politeness, but you understand that you’ve just turned me off a really interesting job because I’ve just come back from maternity leave, why do you think I’m not going to want to spend time away from my baby.”

In January 2020, Blair joined Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe, a London law firm. At Orrick, he led the firm’s cyber, privacy and data innovation practice. Among her clients was OnlyFans.

He became the company’s head of strategy and operations, before being promoted to CEO in July last year. He succeeds Amrapali ‘Ami’ Gan, who stepped down to pursue new endeavors, OnlyFans said at the time.

On securing the position, Blair reiterated the importance of “choice” for the site’s creators, saying: “OnlyFans only succeeds when creators succeed. Our mission is to make OnlyFans the platform of choice for a wide range of creators and fans around the world.”

An inclusive platform

“I will continue to put our creators at the center of every business decision and provide them with an inclusive, secure and innovative platform to connect with their fans and monetize their content.”

Speaking to Fortune about her decision to drop one “professional background”said she was ready for a possibly “negative reaction”but describes the site as “a UK tech success story”.

In October this year, he claimed that the company’s top priority was to provide safety to OnlyFans users.

“Everyone assumes it’s a platform with sexy content. There’s sexy content out there and we’re very happy with it, we’re just an inclusive platform and we’re that way for a reason“, he said.

“We think it’s really important for adult content creators to have a safe space, be able to monetize, and also be able to do it with other content creators.”

The threats

But some OnlyFans stars have fallen victim terrifying threats and death threats.

OR Bonnie Bluefamous for bragging about sleeping with 18-year-olds, revealed she receives up to 300 death threats a day from women and has been told she would “ended up in a box” after her sex marathons.

The 25-year-old said she makes up to £750,000 a month from her OnlyFans account.

Last month, he planned to fly to Australia for a free sex marathon with school dropouts. In return, they had to consent to publishing the content online.

But Bonnie – who has been slammed by parents – was forced to contact the police after savage threats to her life on social media left her fearing for her life.

“I must receive 200 to 300 death threats a day”he told the Sun. This morning I received the following message: “When you get to Surfers Paradise, Australia, you’re going to leave in a box. You must kill yourself before we kill you.”

OnlyFans’ success and controversy

From December 2021 to June 2023, the UK-based company saw its global user base grow to more than 220 million fans and above 3 million creators.

Based in the UK, OnlyFans is entirely subscription-based, pay-per-view events or tips for its online creators, with a large portion creating adult content.

The company has paid out $20 billion to its creators since it was founded in 2016, it was revealed earlier this year.

Despite her success, Blair has faced backlash since becoming CEO, one example being when a bank turned her down as a client for a personal account because of her association with OnlyFans.

“I was a partner in a law firm, one of the few women who was a partner, and I had a team of people working for me”he told the FT. “This bank would have been incredibly keen to have my business in the past. Nothing about me has changed, nothing about my profile has changed.”

Financial institutions, fearing the facilitation of financial transactions for illegal sex work or crimes such as sex traffickingoften reject those connected to such platforms.