A teenager 'shut down' her bully after he shared her mum's OnlyFans profile around the 'entire school' to embarrass her. Mum Ari Taylor had her daughter Kay Bacca when she was only 15, and while her day job is as a quality assurance specialist, she does OnlyFans as a side hustle.
The 30-year-old said she decided to sit her 14-year-old down last year to tell her about her unconventional line of work. Ari wanted it to come from the horse's mouth, create an open space for discussion with her and also remove the 'mysticism' around OnlyFans and the people who do it.
The mum-of-one said that last year a bully began tormenting Kay about her mum's work and circulating her OnlyFans link around her entire school. But given her 'smart and sassy' daughter was already aware of her profession, she was able to 'shrug off' his cruel comments and approach her mother so they could resolve the issue together.
Despite being nervous to disclose her line of work at the time, the content creator is now pleased that she did as Kay was emotionally prepared to deal with the malicious behaviour.
Although she's received backlash for being both a mum and on OnlyFans, Ari believes there's plenty of positives to wearing both hats.
These include being able to provide for her daughter, Kay becoming aware of the importance of internet safety and inheriting an open-minded worldview where she views all 'people as people'.
With the rise of content creation sites like OnlyFans, Ari's now keen to share how others can appropriately approach the topic with their kids and make them aware that regardless of the outcome, 'they'll love you, no matter what'.
Ari, of Salt Lake City, Utah, US, said: "I was mum-shamed for being on OnlyFans.
"It's happened ever since I've been open about it. I don't think I started announcing I was [one] until maybe the most recent five years but it's always come with a huge backlash, and I kind of expected it.
"Last year, this kid in Kay's school was bullying her and was sending her all these photos because I'd been advertising on Twitter at the time.
"Through my Twitter he went to my OnlyFans and tried to share it around the entire school.
"He kept on saying he was going to be sharing more content, showing all his friends 'how gross her mum is' and talking about how she 'couldn't be this awesome person if her mum was willing to sell her body'.
"And he was going to show that to everyone around the whole school, or basically just continue to do so.
"She knew she wanted to talk to me and ended up speaking to my sister because she was nervous that I was going to feel embarrassed that it was going around.
"After she spoke to her she was like 'your mum knew this was a possibility, it's ok to be able to confront her' so my daughter reached out to me and told me what happened.
"Her reaction [to the bully] was very calm and collected. She was like 'ok, whatever. My mum has talked to me about this before, I really don't care'.
"She's always been able to just shrug stuff off like this and said 'honestly it's only really bothersome because he's trying to use it as a form of bullying and obviously the things he's saying about you'."
Ari said that they approached the school and police department about what happened, and that it's no longer an issue.
Ari said: "I'm pleased that I told her about it before. I was super nervous about doing it at such a young age and being a young mum I didn't really feel like I had a lot of direction and didn't know a lot of people doing what I did at the time.
"But I do feel like it was so worth it because it better prepared her and her emotional state about the way to handle it.
"I'm proud that my daughter handled it the best way that anybody possibly could and then we were able to get it taken care of properly."
Ari posts explicit content on OnlyFans and currently makes around $200 per month from it but has raked in $10,500 during her highest-earning month.
Ari said: "Her actually finding out full blown what I had done for work came at around the age of 13, we had 'the sex talk' when she was younger [than that].
"I felt I would have rather been the one to approach her about it than her finding out in some awkward way. The awkward way came about later but she was kind of already prepped.
"[It was about] her knowing that there are people out there that have these types of jobs and it's ok.
"We just wanted to open up that conversation super early to I guess remove the mysticism around it and the people that do it."
Ari has posted on TikTok about discussing OnlyFans with her daughter before and amassed more than 55,000 views from doing so.
Ari said: "I think there are positives being a mum and the work I do in the sense that I was able to provide for my kid in a way that I don't think I would have been able to, especially at the age and situation that I was in.
"Being able to have her see people as people, even with the work that they're doing, I feel like it's had a positive impact on her view on life, whether that's people's line or work, across the lines of their sexuality, or any of those things.
"I feel like having that knowledge behind the internet, it's so much easier to have those conversations with her, to tell her what to be looking out for, where we shouldn't be consuming content and why we need to be careful.
"The advice I would give [to others wanting to tell their children about their work] is to approach them with appropriate and soft language because children understand more than we think.
"And really just letting them know that it's another form of work, it's ok to respect what people chose for a job, and regardless of the outcome you'll still love and care for them.
"And you just want to inform them of these things so they can be safe and feel like they can have an open and honest conversation with you if and when anything does come up.
"Your kids will love you no matter what."
Do you have a story to share? Email paige.freshwater@reachplc.com.
