LONDON – The Financial Times has published an interview with Keily Blair, CEO of OnlyFans, in which she discusses the popular creator platform and her current vision for the company, explicitly stating that the company is “very proud” of its adult content creators.
In the interview, Blair told Cristina Criddle of the Financial Times says OnlyFans is “an incredible British tech success story”.
As XBIZ reported, Blair served as OnlyFans’ chief strategy and operations officer from early 2022 until July last year, when she was named CEO following the departure of former chief executive Ami Gan.
Blair says in the piece that her mission after Gan’s short tenure was to consolidate what the company had built and think about future opportunities.
“For us, we’re obviously very proud of our adult content creators, but it also opens us up to other creators, so we’re doing new verticals,” she says.
Blair was previously a cyber, privacy and data specialist at law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, and had OnlyFans as a client before joining the firm.
“We are so unusual because we are a British tech success story,” Blair told the Financial Times. “When I talk about the company, everyone automatically assumes we are based in the US. We’re pleased to say that we founded it in the UK but are still firmly based in the UK, where the majority of our management team lives. Since we started, we’ve paid out over $15 billion to creators, and that’s increasing year after year. We continue to grow. We have been ranked among the Financial Times’ fastest growing companies in Europe for two years in a row.”
Blair adds that while some worried that the rise of OnlyFans was just a pandemic bubble, the company’s continued success has proven that this is not the case.
“The company can also do so much for makers,” she says. “That’s what makes me so excited about this job. With my background in cyber and privacy and online security, there is also a nerdy part of me that really enjoys the challenging landscape that tech companies are currently facing. I think I can help reduce some of the risks inherent in running a technology company, especially if it is open and honest about allowing adult content.”
During the interview, Blair discusses how OnlyFans is tackling compliance with the UK’s new Online Safety Act, citing the “constantly changing landscape” of online safety.
“We are already regulated by Ofcom under the Video Sharing Platform Regulations (VSP). That means we’re honestly ahead of a lot of other people because we already have a 100 percent verified creator and user base and we’re already an over-18s platform – we already check ID, we already do all those things .”
Tackling the ‘P-word’
During the course of the interview, the Financial Times interviewer presses Blair on terminology.
“Would you call yourself a porn site?” asks Criddle.
Blair replies: “No: we are a site that hosts adult content, but we also host a variety of other content… Creators can create any content they want as long as it falls within our terms of service.”
“I’m just wondering why you use the term ‘adult’ instead of ‘porn,'” Criddle continues.
Blair then explains that “porn” can be a pejorative term.
“We’ve done a lot to help adult content creators have a safe place on the internet and be treated with respect,” she says. “That’s why I don’t tend to use the P-word.”