Apparently, Elle Fanning was on OnlyFans. Yes, that Elle Fanning! But before you get excited and go hunting… it was for role research. Not only that, but she had a full writers’ room with her as the gang did the leg work necessary to figure out how to best tell the story of a pregnant mom down on her luck who turns to OnlyFans to support herself and her soon-to-be-babe.
If you’re a person with an Apple TV subscription, get excited, because Margo’s Got Money Troubles is coming your way on April 15th. Appropriate for those of us in the United States, because that’s Tax Day as well. Yippee. Anyhow, the show is based on Rufi Thorpe’s 2024 novel about Margo. She’s a pregnant woman who starts an OnlyFans to make sure she can make ends meet. Elle Fanning plays the role of Maro, hence the need for some extra spicy research.
So what exactly were Fanning and co researching during their moment on the adults-only website? Well, in order to do justice to the role, Elle wanted to understand how the platform actually works. That… actually seems like a pretty important factor to consider, and the show creators agreed, so despite the social stigma associated with doing so, Elle Fanning created an OnlyFans. The full writers’ room was involved. Oh yes, they turned scrolling OnlyFans into a team activity for science! Executive Producer, Eva Anderson, was on the ball, clarifying that everyone who participated in team spicy scroll time had to give consent prior to being a part of that particular research session. I’ve got to hand it to Anderson for remembering that consent isn’t just important when one is engaging in sexual activity themselves, but also when consuming adult entertainment content with others present. Consent matters, and Eva Anderson made sure her team knew that. I’m here for it.
Anyhow, Margo’s story may be fictitious, but for many women, it’s a reality they have to navigate. Pregnant OnlyFans creators actually make up a surprisingly large niche on the platform! There’s no shortage of expecting mothers who find themselves needing to make money to prepare for the arrival of a new baby, and OnlyFans offers women the opportunity to work on their own terms, schedule, and comfort level. Many of these women are just like Margo: a single mom-to-be who is using the tools available to her to create financial stability for her family. With a traditional job market that looks more closely for reasons not to hire than reasons someone is qualified for a job, OnlyFans gives pregnant women a means of earning a living when would-be employers would avoid hiring them solely because they’re going to be a mom soon. This is real life for many real women, and I for one am pretty stoked to see whether Fanning’s portrayal helps to normalize, rather than pathologize, moms who make money by sharing content on OnlyFans.
If you, like me, are counting down the days until the premiere, we’re not too far away! Margo’s Got Money Troubles drops on April 15th, and I guess we’ll all get to see whether or not a mainstream show on Apple TV+ shifts the stigma around OnlyFans creators. That would be a very welcome— and needed— change, not just for mothers and mothers to be, but for all content creators who are simply showing up to fulfill a demand. Either way, I’m rooting for Margo, and the whole writer’s room that did the legwork to try and make sure they tell her story properly.
