OnlyFans may be known as a platform for 20-somethings, but the truth is there are women of all ages creating content and making millions of dollars – and Donna Mills is the latest bombshell to enter the fray. Best known for playing Abby Cunningham, the deliciously villainous character on the 1980’s soap Knots Landing, Mills announced recently that she’s launching an OnlyFans profile at 85 years young.
Mills built her career the old-fashioned way, long before OnlyFans was even a concept, starting on CBS’s “The Secret Storm” in 1966. But it was her role as Abby Cunningham that made her a household name for many. She also picked up a Daytime Emmy along the way for playing Madeline Reeeves on “General Hospital” and she’s kept working steadily, including recent film credits in “Joy,” “Nope,” and “Origin” and many appearances on television shows like “NCIS” and “Doctor Odyssey.”
In her announcement, Mills framed the OnlyFans move as continuity, not reinvention. “I’ve always appreciated the incredible support and encouragement I’ve received from my fans over the years,” she said. “Social media has been a wonderful way to stay connected, but I’m excited to join OnlyFans because it offers the opportunity for a more personal and direct connection.” Her plan is daily-life content, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and more direct engagement with the fans who have followed her since Ronald Reagan was in office. She described it as “another platform to spend quality time with the people who’ve supported me throughout my career while staying true to who I am.” Andy Bachman, CEO of talent agency Creators Inc, is helping Mills with her new venture and said her pitch was refreshingly uncomplicated: “YOLO — let’s do it.”
There are dozens of articles full of snark about her announcement, lamenting her age and her decision to join a platform like OnlyFans. But Mills is a woman who built an entire fanbase on playing unapologetic and calculating women who are completely unbothered by what anyone thought of her. Bachman says that’s how Mills is in real life, calling her “fearless and ahead of her time.” This isn’t some undignified late-career pivot. It’s the most on-brand move available to her.
And she’s not the only aging celebrity on the platform. Mills is the latest in a wave of established Hollywood names testing OnlyFans as a career channel. Shannon Elizabeth launched her profile this spring, pulling in more than $1.2 million in her first week. Elizabeth confessed that she made the decision because she was tired of letting other people control the narrative of her career. Jaime Pressly followed a few weeks later, calling it a matter of “evolving with the times” and connecting with her audience “on my own terms.” None of these women seem to need money in a desperate sense like some other actresses who have joined in the past. Instead, they all want the control they’ve been lacking for decades.
That’s what OnlyFans has come to represent for many celebrities. A place to reclaim ownership of their own narrative from an entertainment industry built to extract it from them. For a generation of soap stars, sitcom veterans, and former starlets whose careers were shaped by studios, network notes, and publicists, OnlyFans feels like a breath of fresh air. A place to post what you want, when you want, directly to the people who already love you.
Mills isn’t slowing down, and she’s certainly not asking anyone’s opinion. And good for her.