OnlyFans owner 'in talks' to sell racy website for whopping $8 BILLION
OnlyFans owner Leonid Radvinsky is set to sell the racy subscription-based platform for a whopping $8 billion.
According to Reuters and Variety, Radvinsky is in talks to sell the porn-centric website to Los Angeles-based investment firm Forest Road Company.
The Forest Road Company already boasts a variety of investments in the entertainment industry.
'The talks with the Forest Road-led group are not exclusive and there's no timeline for when a deal might be consummated,' Variety reports.
Ukrainian-American businessman Radvinsky made a fortune as the founder of adult webcamming website MyFreeCams, which launched in 2004.
In 2018, he bought a 75 percent stake in OnlyFans' parent company Fenix International Ltd. from its British founders Tim Stokely and his dad Guy Stokely.
The platform ended up exploding during the Covid-19 pandemic, and in 2022, Radvinsky made Forbes' list of Jewish billionaires.
While OnlyFans hosts all kinds of creators, it's largely known for its pornographic content.
Several years ago, the site started pushing PG-rated content on their safe-for-work streaming platform, OFTV.
OnlyFans has put in extra effort to promote everything from cooking videos to celebrity comedy specials and reality shows on OFTV, following growing criticism and a 'porn' stigma around the platform.
All the content on OFTV comes from OnlyFans creators, but unlike the actual OnlyFans platform, no nudity or pornography is allowed.
OFTV has brought over a number of celebrity creators to do less risqué content, most notably American comedian and podcaster Whitney Cummings.
Cummings joined the site in 2022 so she could post some of her edgier jokes behind a paywall without being 'taken out of context' on more mainstream social media apps.
'I know people like to make fun of [OnlyFans] because there are naked ladies on there. I just decided, if the audience is going here, as a comedian there's something worth checking out here,' she told Variety last year.
She added: 'I wouldn't have the self-esteem to charge people to see my naked body. Instead of dirty photos, you're gonna see dirty jokes.'
Other mainstream names on OFTV include fashion designer Elena Velez, comedian Brittany Schmitt, and reality star Heidi Montag, who released a music video on the platform.
Last year, the CEO of OnlyFans revealed that the company has paid out $20 billion to its creators since its inception in 2016.
CEO Keily Blair was speaking at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles when she revealed the incredible figure.
'Porn is free on the internet. I think the reason why people pay for OnlyFans is because they want to engage with those particular creators,' Blair said.
'It's because of the ability to customize as well as to ask for a specific content.'
She continued, 'Everyone assumes it's sexy content. Some of it sexy content and we're very happy with that, we're an inclusive platform, and we're that way for a reason.
'We believe it's very important for adult content creators to have a safe space, to be able to monetize and also to be able to do that alongside other content creators.
'We're all adults, we're all grownups, we can all choose what content we subscribe to.'
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