OnlyFans Creators Rage Against Sydney Sweeney Over Sex Work ‘Stigma’

OnlyFans creators are big mad at “Euphoria” for making sex work look seedy and gross. 

Several prominent “content creators,” including former “Boy Meets World” actress Maitland Ward and popular OnlyFans personality Sydney Leathers have publicly slammed Sydney Sweeney for her character Cassie’s storyline on the HBO series. 

In this season, Cassie creates an OnlyFans to help fund her upcoming wedding. She acts out strange fetishes, including dressing as a dog on a leash and a baby in a diaper, plus sends one fan her underwear. These antics have the real OnlyFans creators seeing red.

“There’s just a lot that’s ridiculous and cartoonish about it,” Leathers told Variety in an interview published Sunday. “There’s so much that they have her doing that is not even allowed on OnlyFans, and that alone is infuriating: the age-play stuff where she’s dressed as a baby in a diaper, for example. Credit card processors have very strict rules that you have to abide by, and the rules are getting stricter all the time.”

Ward also expressed her frustration over OnlyFans creators being portrayed in a negative way. 

“In the climate we’re in, that they dressed her up as a baby to make pornographic OnlyFans content was beyond troubling and again serves to perpetuate stereotypes that sex workers have no moral compass and that they will do anything for money,” she told the outlet. “And there’s always this untrue stigma that somehow sex work is synonymous with sex trafficking and abuse. And they just said, let’s make a joke of it. That is so funny. I’m not laughing.”

Showrunner Sam Levinson told The Hollywood Reporter back in April that the story arc was never meant to be flattering. 

“[Cassie] has got her dog house and her little dog ears and the nose, and that has its own humor, but what makes the scene is the fact that her housekeeper is the one filming it,” he said at the time. “What we wanted to always find is the other layer of absurdity that we’re able to tie into it so that we’re not too inside of her fantasy or illusion — the gag is to jump out, to break the wall.”

“Some of these scenes we only lit with these ring lights that she would use. When you’re inside, it’s a beautiful, glowing front light, but then you jump out of it and it’s just a pool of light and everything surrounding it is dark. It’s just gnarly and jarring,” Levinson continued. “We wanted to capture what she’s trying to show the audience and be inside of it, but then also pull back wider and see how depressing it is.”

In the latest episode, which aired on Sunday, Sweeney’s character weighs in on politics and appears to lean Right. During a fictional press tour, Cassie tells an online talk show host, “If a man today were to say that he wants a girlfriend who can cook or clean, he might as well be screaming the N-word.”

Someone off camera replies, “You sound like a Democrat,” which makes Cassie laugh and say, “I’m not retarded.”

At another point, Cassie says, “I just feel like American men have been treated like second-class citizens … In the past, men used to be hunters, gatherers, and protectors. Now, they’re being forced to walk around on their tippy toes. It’s not natural.” 

Her manager, Maddy, offers her take on the situation. “You know what’s funny?” she asks Cassie. “The angrier these idiots get, the more money you make.”

Many commenters pointed out how Cassie’s storyline mimics what people really think about Sweeney’s personal politics, which she refuses to confirm. They believe she’s secretly conservative, especially following the viral American Eagle jeans ad controversy.