Last modified on Mon 24 May 2021 14.09 EDT
The Essex family that founded the sex-worker social media platform OnlyFans extracted tens of millions of pounds from its parent company in the last year, as it profited from a lockdown-induced rush to use online pornography.
OnlyFans – run by Tim Stokely, his brother Tom and his father Guy, an ex-investment banker – handled £1.7bn of sales during the year to November 2020, up 615% on the previous 12 months.
Although the company likes to boast of the income it delivers to the “creators” who upload the videos, its newly filed accounts suggest the owners are the real winners. The company’s highest-paid director earned a £2m salary last year and it paid £20m in dividends to its backers. OnlyFans also paid £23m to acquire a separate business owned by two members of the Stokely family.