‘I’M not even naked,” says comedian Jenny Gorelick, who made £25,000 in one year from posting bikini pictures on OnlyFans.
“I’m not nude, which is so interesting because men will buy the same kind of photos that I post on my Instagram. It’s me in a bikini, so they could just go to a public pool and see something similar.”
As far as Gorelick is concerned, the money is better spent on her than, for example, sports betting, and she doesn’t waste much time wondering why they do it.
“I’m not posting this stuff wildly on my Instagram as much as I used to and maybe it’s more intimate because they’re purchasing the picture from me,” she says.
“But I don’t chat. They have to pay $5 to message me, so if they ask to see me naked I’m like, ‘nope’. And then they’re like, ‘Okay, sounds good’. That’s another $5. So that ultimately is a $10 conversation we’ve just had.”
Like many other female comedians, she has been subjected to comments about her anatomy on social media so has decided that monetising it is the best way to deal with it.
“My barometer is Kylie Jenner and if she can post pictures of herself in a bikini then so can I,” she says.
Her conversations on OnlyFans may be short, but Gorelick has plenty to say, especially about men, and audiences at the Edinburgh Fringe will be able to hear it in her new one-hour show.
A comedian, writer, actor and two-time Emmy-nominated producer based in New York, her writing has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love, Cosmopolitan and The New Yorker Shouts and Murmurs, while her dating and culture Substack Night Out has more than 10,000 subscribers.
She has appeared in sketches for Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, Late Night With Seth Meyers and Comedy Central, and performs regularly across New York City, including at Club Cumming and Bushwick Comedy Club.
Her show, Sorry, has been described as “vibrating with cultural voltage” as it is about dating apps, why men avoid apologising while women can’t stop – and why serial killers are better planners than most boyfriends.
“A lot of the issue that we have with men is that they’re not thinking ahead,” she says.
“I’ve seen so many TikToks where people say things like, ‘I let my husband pack for the beach and now everyone’s cranky because there’s one towel and no snacks’. That’s what happens if women don’t do the labour of planning things and being organised.
“Unfortunately, when a man is organised and competent, he’s using that for evil like serial killers, but that does make them kind of sexy, though, right? I think the men should take a look at serial killers and try to do a little bit better. Everything up till the killing part.”
What is her guide to being a better boyfriend, then?
“If you can be complimentary and compassionate, that’ll go a long way,” she says.
“Saying kind things out of the blue and buying someone flowers does mean a lot. It’s not difficult. You can get them for a few pounds at the grocery store.
“And then I feel like if you do make a mistake or mess up, just take accountability, apologise, be willing to learn and move forward.
“If you can do those things, you can be a good boyfriend, a good partner. It’s a very low bar but a lot of guys I know are not even willing to do even one of these.”
Apologising for messing up, she believes, is crucial.
“Women apologise for everything and men apologise for nothing,” says Gorelick.
“Women are conditioned to feel guilt when we haven’t even done anything wrong.”
Her opening story in the show is about a man she dated who had “sorry mom” tattooed on his behind.
“We went on a great first date, but he stood me up for the second date so I wrote an essay about it that was published in the New York Times,” Gorelick says.
The man then made her feel guilty about writing the article even though he had been the one to stand her up.
“It all really came from there because I think if it says sorry on your ass, you kind of have to work on apologising. You surely have to be good about taking accountability if it literally is tattooed on your butt.”
Many women in the US and UK are now deciding to stay single, and Gorelick believes this is because men are just not adapting to the 21st century.
“The statistic I read was that in five years, in the US, almost half of women between the ages of 22 to 44 will be single and I think it is because they’re not finding partners who can keep up with them or who are there for them,” she says.
“If women are in the workplace and are expected to also do all the labour at home, that’s just not going to work for them anymore.”
Having said that, Gorelick says she’s excited to meet the audiences in Scotland.
“And I guess if I leave with an international boyfriend, that would be fabulous.”
Sorry runs from August 3-30 (not 17 and 18) at the Monkey Barrel Studio
