Actress Shannon Elizabeth earned more than $1 million within nine days of launching her profile on OnlyFans, revealing her earnings have outpaced her film career.
The 52-year-old performer told Variety that her income from the platform has surpassed the money she made on her biggest feature films. Elizabeth previously starred in major box office hits including American Pie, Love Actually, Scary Movie, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
Before joining OnlyFans in April, Elizabeth had been living off her savings and had barely acted in recent years. She had not completed any television work since 2013, and her film appearances over the past decade were limited to a few low-budget streaming projects, alongside a rebooted Jay and Silent Bob movie in 2019.
Elizabeth rose to prominence in 1999 after playing Czech exchange student Nadia in the teen comedy film American Pie. In recent years, she relocated from Hollywood to South Africa, where she has focused her time on animal welfare and non-profit wildlife conservation work.
"For the last ten years I've been living off of my savings for the most part because I haven't been as focused on work," Elizabeth explained. "To be able to get myself back to the point where I'm not struggling and am able to choose projects because I like them and not because I need the money, it's definitely giving me more freedom to do that."
Although Elizabeth does not currently post nude or sexually explicit content on her profile, she acknowledged that her boundaries may change in the future. "I do all kinds of content, but I don't even know what my boundaries will be," she said. "I'm still exploring it and as I become more comfortable with it, I'm going to push those boundaries."
High Earners on the Subscription Platform
OnlyFans is a London-based internet subscription service founded in 2016 that allows content creators to monetize content directly from their subscribers. While the service hosts personal trainers, chefs, and fitness personalities, it is widely recognized for creator-hosted adult content.
Elizabeth's substantial revenue makes her one of the highest-earning actresses currently on the platform. Shortly after she signed up, her friend and American Pie co-star Jaime Pressly joined the site just weeks before her 49th birthday, though Pressly has not yet revealed her financial earnings.
Pressly is best known for starring as Joy Turner on the NBC television comedy series My Name Is Earl, a role that earned her a Primetime Emmy Award in 2007. Her other screen credits include feature comedy films such as Not Another Teen Movie and Joe Dirt.
Top Actresses Generating Millions
Wild Things star Denise Richards signed up for OnlyFans in 2022 and reportedly earned several million dollars during her first few months on the platform. Recent court filings reveal that Richards continues to pull in almost $300,000 a month from her profile, making her what is believed to be the highest-earning actress on the site to date.
Richards, who played Bond girl Dr. Christmas Jones in the 1999 film The World Is Not Enough, has generated enough income from her monthly subscribers that she never has to accept another acting role if she chooses not to work.
Another prominent Hollywood figure on the site is 54-year-old Drea de Matteo, best known for playing Adriana La Cerva on the HBO mob drama series The Sopranos. De Matteo, who also works as a designer for clothing label Ultrafree, created an OnlyFans account in 2023 after struggling to find acting work during the Covid pandemic.
De Matteo had only $10 remaining in her bank account when she joined the service. She earned $75,000 within her first 75 minutes on the site, using the proceeds to pay off debts and prevent the foreclosure of her family home. While she originally posted less explicit material, she recently told People magazine that she has started posing fully nude, stating: "I'd never even taken my clothes off for television, but I actually went for it, and it was fine."
Veteran Hollywood Stars Joining OnlyFans
A growing list of actresses have established accounts on the subscription platform, including Carmen Electra, Amanda Bynes, Whitney Cummings, and 85-year-old Knots Landing star Donna Mills. Mills, who played villainous matriarch Abby Fairgate on the long-running CBS prime-time drama Knots Landing from 1979 to 1989, announced her OnlyFans venture last month, explaining she was "excited" to cultivate "a more personal and direct connection" with her fans.
While the soap opera veteran is not producing nude or sexually explicit material, she has shared suggestive posts with her profile subscribers. In one photograph, Mills poses inside a gym wearing skintight black activewear while looking seductively at the camera, adding the cheeky caption: "In case you needed to test your stamina."
