Kelly Osbourne’s brief romance with Doncaster tattoo artist Brad North ended the way plenty of modern celebrity relationships seem to end: with a lengthy Instagram tirade. The 41-year-old TV personality and singer reportedly cut things off after discovering North’s OnlyFans career, which allegedly includes a £10-a-month subscription tier and used underwear sales to fans.

Osbourne didn’t hold back on her Story. “Why are people so disgusting?” she asked her 4.3 million followers, thanking the “girlie girls” who’d tipped her off before turning the reflection inward: “I genuinely had no idea, and yes, I feel more than a little foolish because Google is free, and apparently I should’ve done my homework.” She went on to compare North to “vampires disguised as charm” who “come in thirsty, take what they can, and leave you wondering how you ended up drained,” before closing with a denial that they were ever officially dating at all. Which seems odd, because if you were never dating, why would you need to write such a long social media post? North, for his part, claims that “most of the allegations” were a case of mistaken identity.

So why are things so confusing between these two? Well, Osbourne ended her engagement to Slipknot DJ Sid Wilson earlier this year, following a rocky stretch and the death of her father, Ozzy Osbourne, last year. It’s a loss she’s spoken about publicly as still “too painful” to process through her family’s own documentary about it. Reports of her growing close to North emerged not long after, including sightings at a Manchester restaurant launch and a Bon Jovi concert together. Her representative initially said the two were “not dating,” describing their relationship as “entirely platonic.” Whatever the actual nature of the relationship, Osbourne’s public reaction to learning about his OnlyFans work seems more serious than just a platonic friendship. 

But there’s more to the story than just a celeb breakup. The reaction Osbourne received (and the reaction she gave) reflects a well-established double standard about which direction of celebrity-meets-OnlyFans-partner gets treated as scandalous. When a male celebrity dates a female OnlyFans creator, the reception tends to range from indifferent to openly admiring. Rapper Yung Gravy’s relationship with OnlyFans star Ari Kytsya has been covered almost entirely as a charming, mutually beneficial pairing. The two have been together since meeting at Coachella, and Yung Gravy has spoken publicly and warmly about how much he respects her earnings, explaining, “I see the numbers that she makes, and it is kind of crazy to see… it’s cool to see that we make similar amounts… no one can really say anything about us because we just support each other all the time.” Internet reaction to their relationship has skewed toward giddy approval rather than judgment, with fans calling the pairing “immaculate.”

But if you flip the genders, the reaction changes dramatically. A female celebrity linked to a male OnlyFans creator gets framed, as Osbourne’s own words illustrate, as a cautionary tale. The woman should have “done her homework”; she was fooled by “charm” that turned out to be predatory. The underlying assumption seems to be that a woman dating a male sex worker was deceived or exploited, while a man dating a female sex worker is just enjoying a modern, mutually respectful relationship. 

That asymmetry says less about OnlyFans itself than about how differently society still reads sex work depending on who’s doing it and who’s dating them. A woman’s adult content career gets treated as an acceptable, even admirable, income stream for the men who love her. A man’s gets treated as evidence he was hiding something shameful, a red flag the woman involved should have caught sooner. But at the end of the day, what is the difference really?