OF star Andy Lee on gay fans, ‘poisonous’ creators and ‘harmful’ stunts
Straight OnlyFans creator Andy Lee has heaped praise on his gay audience, saying homophobic adult stars are “poisonous” to the industry.
Speaking to PinkNews, upon the release of his new OUTflix series The Porn Academy, the gay-for-pay star explains he got started on OnlyFans after feeling low at the start of lockdown.
“I was in such a low place,” he says. “I had no job. I had torn my bicep, so I couldn’t get a job. All I’d known was plumbing and the building industry, so I didn’t really have any other choice.”
Lee says a friend suggested he should give OnlyFans a try after having worked in the adult industry years before. All he had to do was make the content, and his friend would run the page.
“I fell in love with it,” he tells us. “The ball just kept rolling and rolling, and here we are today.”
Lee charges $9.99-a-month for his X-rated page, which features more than 600 videos. But much of his following is on Instagram and TikTok too, with him having more than 684,000 followers on the video platform.
He regularly posts saucy teasers to attract sign-ups, as well as safe-for-work updates showing him travelling the world with his friends and fellow content creators.
“When I first started OnlyFans, it was just a way of making money – but then it literally changed my life,” he tells us. “I stopped worrying about money. It’s given me so many opportunities to help other people.
“I’ve met so many amazing people. I’ve met people who have come out of prison with no futures, and now they’re thriving, doing so well. They’ve turned their life around, and it just makes me so happy.”
Much of Lee’s success is down to his gay fanbase – he appeared on Channel 4 show My Massive C***, which explains it all.
“I never really went down the straight audience route because I’d never done full sex scenes,” he explains. “It was always just me doing solos or with my friends.”
He adds: “When things went really bad for me – I didn’t believe in depression or anything like that. But when lockdown happened and I lost my job, I sat there and I was in a hole. I woke up every day and I was just unhappy, just sad.
“Then I had these people on the internet, strangers, primarily gay men, lifting me up every single day.”
He says he owes the gay community a lot, adding: “It’s not for the monetary value of buying my content, it’s for being there for me when no one else was.”
‘They’re taking advantage of people, and it’s not fair’
Recently, adult creator Jake Andrich, better known as Jakipz, came under fire for allegedly sharing anti-LGBTQ+ views, which he has denied.
“Those performers are poisonous for the industry,” Lee tells us. “They know exactly what they’re doing, and they’re using and taking advantage of people, and it’s not fair.
“Back when I was in a dark place, the people who helped me out were strangers who didn’t owe me anything, and they were there for me. I look at my following as friends, as family, people I speak to every day.”
Lee added: “It’s not every day you meet a straight guy who looks like me and my friends who do stuff with men and be so open about it. I think it’s very important for people to see and know we’re not all like that guy Jake on the internet, who’s attacking the gay community and using people. We’re not like that.
“We make content, and if you want to watch it, enjoy it, great. We don’t judge anybody. Anyone that comes through my door, no matter what they are, they’re treated with respect and love and kindness.”
He also thinks stunts from the likes of Bonnie Blue, Lily Phillips or even Drake Von’s “1000 bottoms” challenge, are giving him and other creators a bad name.
“They are not good for the industry,” he says, while accepting that he understands why they do them.
“Sex workers are being attacked every single day by social media, by banks. We don’t do anything illegal, but banks shut us down, social media shuts us down. Same with OnlyFans, you can get banned on these websites so easy by AI bots or whatever.
“So I understand why these guys are doing these crazy stunts to market themselves, because they know if people are getting rage-baited then it will get shared and people sign up to their page, but these people do go too far.
“You have these creators in the industry who are ‘ethical’ – they do everything the right way and the safe way, and they get painted with the same brush.”
Lee opened up his academy to help other people get started in the industry. Nowadays, you can’t scroll Instagram or TikTok for too long before you see someone promoting their “spicy” content.
But Lee reckons there’s space for everyone to be successful – if done right.
“People come to me and think, ‘I need to go to the gym, I need to have a six pack, I need to look a certain way,’ but you don’t,” he says. “I think there’s something for everybody out there.
“If you let your personality shine and you build a rapport with your audience and give them the type of content they want, it ill always be successful.
“But a lot of people come into the industry trying to get rich quick, selling feet pics, and that’s not the reality of it. It’s a really difficult job, and not everybody is successful.”
He adds: “That’s why when people come here [to his academy], I really drill into them to think about this stuff, because not only will your friends, family and future employers see this stuff, but you have to deal with the criticism online. You could save the Pope and people will still find something to talk about.”
‘I’m just a little fella from Dublin’
As well as his OUTflix series and appearance on Channel 4, he’s fronted his own Prime Video documentary. And it’s there that he sees his future.
“I’m just a little fella from Dublin who has grown up and grown into this world, but I’m loving it,” he tells us.
“I found a new passion for the future. When I retire from porn, I want to go into making documentaries. I love telling the story, because I’d love the general public to look at sex workers in a different light, understand where they come from and why people turn to sex work.”
He adds: “I much prefer the mentor role because it’s what I’m good at. I’ve done the porn. I’ve been the character in the scenes. Now, what my goal would be in the porn industry is to step behind the camera and hopefully just guide these guys in the right way.
“But, at the moment, I’m the stunt d***, so sort of have to be in front of the camera.”
The Porn Academy is now available on OUTflix.
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