WHEN she got laid off from her secretarial job aged 55, she knew that she had to find something way of making money.
But Michelle Hardenbrook wasn’t going to take on a job that only paid £8 an hour, as she says that wasn’t even enough to cover her electricity bills.
Then someone suggested she should consider offering “full body sensuous massages”, she told Soft White Underbelly with Mark Laita.
Michelle was very naive to all things adult industry, having not had sex in 12 years, but looked into it and decided to go ahead.
She ordered a massage table from Amazon, put an ad on Craigslist and ended up taking on 25 appointments in just four days.
After realising there was a market for women her age, she went away and made a business plan – working out how many clients to see per month.
After dipping her toe, Michelle soon realised she wanted to end her “dry spell” in the sexual department, and has since vowed to never go celibate again.
Michelle ended up with 100 regular full service clients, many of whom she got to know well – and even chucked in a freebie on their birthday.
But it was just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit that doctors found an abdominal mass on Michelle, and told her she would have to have surgery.
So she was then forced to re-think again.
“People had mentioned lots of other places online you can make money but I went to OnlyFans and I stuck with that because they don’t dictate how much content you have to put up,” Michelle explained.
They also only take 20% commission – a lot less than some other places.
Michelle then started her own page – put up “a bunch of pictures” and made a “couple of videos”.
By February 2020, she had 3,115 fans on her OnlyFans page – each of whom was paying $12.99 a month – meaning she made a whopping £24,509 in just that one month.
The following month, she underwent the surgery, during which they found a “brick sized growth” on her left ovary – the removal of which led to Michelle going through menopause for the SECOND time.
In September 2023, Michelle was contacted by a company asking to manage her, and by November that year, she’d started a second OnlyFans page.
What is OnlyFans?
OnlyFans is a subscription content service based in London.
As of 2023, it is thought to have more than 220million registered users and over three million content creators.
Sex workers charge monthly fees for access to pictures, videos and more.
While popular for porn, the site isn’t exclusively designed with that in mind – anyone who wants to build up a fan base and charge them for it can set one up.
Celebs like Katie Price and Kerry Katona are popular personalities on the platform.
“Whether you’re uploading tutorials, tips, behind-the-scenes footage or just endless selfies, a lot of your followers would be willing to pay for them,” the company states.
For every subscription that’s sold to a viewer, performers get 80 per cent of the cash while OnlyFans gets the rest.
It isn’t limited to adult content, as it has become popular with physical fitness experts and musicians.
She quickly built up a following on the new page – with 4,100 fans on there, and 219 on the original page.
And her huge success – which has seen her in the top 1% of OF creators on the site – meant that in the six months following November 2023, she had made £142,000.
She now estimates that she’s making around £38,750 a month.
But there are also downsides to being an OF creator.
As well as Michelle’s family disowning her – apart from her disabled son – she doesn’t have many friends, as they wouldn’t “understand” what she’s doing.
My family all disowned me – apart from my son
Michelle Hardenbrook
She’s also been married four times, admitting it’s “like I never learned”, and estimates she’s slept with around 10,000 men in her life so far.
Michelle has also had to deal with several bizarre and disgusting requests from people on OF – such as the man who asked her to do an intimate video with her son, something she refused.
And despite the fact she’s now 72, Michelle doesn’t see herself hanging up her skimpy lingerie any time soon.
“As long as the men are paying to see me, I will continue to pose, and dance, and do all the things that I do,” she concluded.
