Former OnlyFans model Emily Cutter used to make more than $20,000 a month with her OnlyFans account. She enjoyed fancy vacations and never bothered with a budget.
“I’d earnt a fortune, had bought a house but blew the rest on designer clothes, holidays and treating my kids,” Cutter said as she explained her decision to leave it all behind.
At 37 years old, Cutter now lives in Taunton, Somerset with her three children who are now 18, 14, and 7. But in 2020 while the Covid pandemic raged across the world, she turned to OnlyFans to make money while she homeschooled her kids.
“It was a great way to pay the bills while I was trapped in the house of homeschooling,” she says.
“It certainly wasn’t something I’d ever planned on doing but I know loads of mums who ended up doing the same.”
After all, Cutter wasn’t a stranger to modeling. After getting pregnant at the age of 18, she struggled to pay her bills while studying to become a nurse.
“I was juggling paying the bills and trying to study and then the following year his dad and I broke up. A friend of mine was doing modelling and suggested I give it a go to help pay the bills.”
So after compiling a portfolio, she rapidly found clients who wanted her to model for underwear, lingerie, and swimwear shoots. And Cutter was happy to have found the career, because it was perfect for a working mom.
“The jobs always fit around the school run,” she explained.
“I never missed a school play, I was involved with the school and there to cheer my kids on at sports days. Like most girls in the glamour industry I did topless shots and implied nude pictures and had a friend doing the same, we joked that we had double lives.”
But within a few years, Cutter had two more kids and was struggling to keep up with bills with just her modeling jobs. At the time, she says she never considered claiming any government benefits.
Instead, she began working for an adult TV channel based in Bristol and making more than $300 a night.
“I’d finish a shift, come home, get the kids to school, sleep for a few hours, do the afternoon school run, and then head off to work again.”
It was all going well until Covid happened, and Cutter’s lack of budgeting left her with not much to show for her years of modeling.
“I didn’t have any savings; I had credit card bills which needed paying and children to feed,” she says.
That’s when Cutter turned to OnlyFans.
“I loved the fact I could take my own photos, create my own videos, and just sit in my bedroom when the kids were sleeping messaging fans to make money,” she says.
While she didn’t do live videos, she made thousands just from sharing explicit photos and sexting.
“I was thrilled with my success but I’m the first to admit I was still awful at budgeting,” she says.
“We went on posh holidays and I paid off £20k in credit card debt but then I bought a Range Rover car on finance.”
Despite all the money flowing in (and out just as quickly), Cutter realized she couldn’t do it for much longer.
“The job was isolating and I felt really lonely,” she admits.
“Each day was the same and it could be really depressing and sometimes I would find myself grossed out by the men I was dealing with. I knew I had to stop for the sake of my mental health.”
And by the middle of 2023, she pulled the plug on her account and signed up for government assistance. She began receiving a Universal Credit payment of almost £1,500 and used it to get by as she decided what’s next for her.
It took nearly two years, but now Cutter is enjoying a new career as an independent travel consultant.
“I earn around £5k a month and projections show by 2028 my earnings could reach upwards of £15k a month due to my mentoring other travel consultants,” she explained.
“My mind is the best it’s ever been and I have proven I am more than just a pretty face, I have brains too.”