Actress Donna Mills has launched an account on the subscription platform OnlyFans at the age of 85, promising fans intimate and non-nude glimpses into her daily life.
The veteran soap opera star, best known for playing calculating businesswoman Abby Cunningham on Knots Landing for nearly a decade during the 1980s, confirmed that she has no intention of stripping down for the camera.
"I'm not going to compete with girls that are 20 years old," Mills said in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail from her Los Angeles study, which doubles as a podcast studio. "That's silly. I don't think I am going to get to a point where I'm going to throw off my clothes. But I want to engage with my fans in ways that are warm and friendly."
Embracing the mantra "I want to make it spicy!", Mills has spent her first week on OnlyFans leaning into what she describes as intimate takes on daily life that combine the mundane with the fetishistic. Her early video uploads feature clips of her wearing pajamas, painting her toenails, brushing her hair, brushing her teeth, applying make-up, and ironing a man's shirt.
"They want to see you brushing your hair... brushing your teeth... putting on your make-up... there's one of me ironing a man's shirt," Mills explained. "They just want it to be personal... so they can feel like they're your boyfriend."
Knots Landing was a popular American prime-time television soap opera that broadcast on CBS for 14 seasons from 1979 to 1993, following the lives of several families in a coastal California suburb. OnlyFans is an internet subscription service based in London where creators host exclusive video and photo content for paying subscribers.
Fan requests and foot fetishism
Despite being new to the platform, Mills is already fielding unusual custom demands from her followers. The oddest request so far has come from a subscriber asking her to film content of her bare feet stomping grapes in her backyard vineyard.
"The grape thing is the funniest," Mills said regarding the fan requests. However, she noted that fan fascination with her feet is not entirely new. "Don't ask me why... [but] there are people who get turned on by and really like feet," she recalled. "Once when I was shooting a movie in New Orleans, somebody came in and stole all of my shoes!"
Mills plans to fulfill the foot request by recording a video of herself stomping grapes barefoot in her vineyard, though she clarified that she will not use her own harvest. "We're not going to use our own grapes, we just don't grow enough grapes that we can waste them like that," Mills made clear. "After all, we're not going to sell wine that, you know, I put my feet into."
Decision to join the platform
A Chicago native who began her acting career appearing in television soap operas in the mid-1960s, Mills admitted that she had not even heard of OnlyFans until a few weeks before signing up. More than two decades after Knots Landing ended, her schedule primarily revolved around playing tennis, co-hosting her Knots Landing tribute podcast We're Knot Done Yet with fellow series alum Michelle Lee, and spending time with her family, including her young grandson.
"I'd never heard of [OnlyFans]," she admitted, noting that initial reports of creators posting explicit content online did not sound appealing to her.
Her interest was sparked in April after 52-year-old American Pie actress Shannon Elizabeth, who shares a business manager with Mills, joined the platform and reportedly earned $1 million in her first nine days on the site.
"[My business manager] called me up and said, 'Shannon just joined this thing and she's making a load of money; you should do it,'" Mills recalled. Learning that Elizabeth was earning significant income while avoiding full-fledged nudity convinced Mills to explore the opportunity.
Mills traveled to the OnlyFans corporate offices near Los Angeles to meet with company executives, who confirmed that she would not be required to appear naked. Less than a month later, after checking that her daughter Chloe and her long-term boyfriend were supportive, she officially registered as a content creator.
"Do you think this is awful," Mills recalled asking her daughter Chloe during the decision-making process. "She said 'go for it mom,' she knew I wasn't going to embarrass her."
Learning social media and sharing Playboy archives
Mills conceded that her unlikely adventure into online content creation has "happened really fast." Her main hurdles so far include handling cringy fan requests, selecting outfits that are sexy yet respectable, and figuring out how to take selfies. "I've never been a selfie girl," she said, "but I am learning."
By focusing on selfies that showcase her face rather than her body, Mills ensures she adheres to her strict golden rule: she will not reveal anything on OnlyFans that she has not already shown during her career, specifically excluding "boobs or bum."
That boundary stems from 1987, when Mills agreed to pose for Playboy magazine after being promised a cover photo. "I did [Playboy] because they promised me a cover," she explained. "For an actress a cover is everything."
With her publicist and hairdresser present on set to ensure the photographer did not overstep, Mills aimed to keep the Playboy images "very sexy, but nothing [excessive] should be showing." Although she described the resulting photographs as "wonderful," the decision to omit full nudity meant she did not receive the cover. "Without the boobs and bum... my layout was on the inside, but I wasn't on the cover and I was really pissed," Mills recalled.
Nearly four decades later, Mills plans to rewrite that frustrating chapter by offering unused photos from the 1987 Playboy shoot to OnlyFans followers who pay extra for premium content.
Reflecting on her interaction with subscribers, Mills observed: "A lot of people that come to [OnlyFans] and try to engage, they're lonely and maybe just horny. Back in my day fans were not allowed into your personal life, now it's a whole new world."
As a former dancer who exercises daily with tennis, workouts, and stretching, Mills views joining OnlyFans as a natural extension of her core philosophy "that you can get older without being old!"
