The days of Sarah Jayne Dunn’s life certainly changed when the actress refused to cave on her side hustle. The Hollyoaks actor was let go in 2021 from the role she’d been portraying since 1996, and has claimed that her mandated exit happened as a result of a producer taking issue with her presence on the adults only platform. Dunn refused to leave the platform when confronted, choosing instead to stay on OnlyFans. And you thought the drama in the show was the intense stuff!
As so many actors, musicians, and models have done, Dunn chose to make her own independence the priority in her career. OnlyFans gives full creative control to it’s content creators, meaning that they have the final say in the image of themselves that they’re putting out in the world. With soap operas, that is not so much the case. A team of writers is telling you what to say, a director is telling you how to say it, and an editor is the one who makes all the final decisions and ultimately decides what image of the work you do will be presented to the public. OnlyFans giving full creative freedom to it’s content creators has made it a mighty attractive platform to many women who are looking to take control of their careers.
Another similarity to other actors; Dunn says that her earnings on OnlyFans total higher than her salary during her time on Hollyoaks. OnlyFans does indeed take a small cut of each content creator’s earnings, but because the platform gives so much creative freedom to the people who are putting out the content that make it billions— yes, billions of dollars, celebrities who join the platform are more easily able to capitalize on their fame. Capitalizing on their fame directly results in paid monthly subscriptions, which is apparently way more lucrative than a salary that is generated via ad revenue. Whomst amongst us wouldn’t choose a paid subscription model over waiting from month to month to find out if DiGiorno signed a contract with an executive we’ve never even met?
Sarah Jayne Dunn’s OnlyFans channel does have something in common with her work on Hollyoaks. Explicit content? You won’t find it there. While OnlyFans is an adults only platform for a very NSFW reason, you won’t exclusively find X-rated material there. Dunn has some very strict personal boundaries that she adheres to, and no explicit material is one of them. We love to see women setting healthy boundaries around their own bodies, whether or not they choose to bare it all for a camera.
Dunn’s migration to OnlyFans is a part of a broader trend of women leaving restrictive industries, and reclaiming control over their income, their work, and their very image. Not everyone has to leave a soap opera in order to avoid drama, but many do make the decision to leave a variety of other careers due to drama, and lack of control and respect.
When Dunn inquired about whether or not current actors on her former soap were allowed to be active content creators on OnlyFans, she discovered that actors now have a clause in their contracts that prevents them from being able to utilize the platform as a side-hustle.
Here’s to freedom, whether it be financial or creative. Good on you, Sarah Jayne Dunn. Good on you.
