Last week, 28-year-old Brianna Coppage was put on leave by the St. Clair High School, the rural Missouri school where she taught English Language Arts to ninth and tenth graders. The reason? Coppage had a side gig working on OnlyFans as BrooklinLovexxx, where she promises paid subscribers a glimpse at everything from “squirting” and “anal” to “cream pie” and "solo play.”
St. Clair is a town of about 4,700 an hour southwest of St. Louis. A school administrator there said that the district had been recently notified that Coppage "may have posted inappropriate media on one or more internet sites” and an investigation into the matter was being undertaken. In the meantime, Coppage is barred from the classroom.
The public outrage was swift — not against Coppage, but at the school for acting so aghast that an employee they paid $42,000 a year would work to supplement that income. Her story has made headlines all across Missouri and even across the Atlantic.
We caught up with Coppage, who markets herself on OnlyFans as “your favorite MILF,” to talk about how she got started on OnlyFans, society's changing attitudes toward sex work and what the last few days have been like.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
You'd been a teacher since 2018, and got into OnlyFans earlier this year. What made you want to give adult work a try?
I'd always heard the success stories about people who made money. It was like, “You can pay off your student loans and whatever else.” So it was those stories that made me think, “Wow, I want to try that and see if it would work for me.” That's how it started.
And you've enjoyed it, it sounds like?
Absolutely. I do enjoy it. I think it gives people the ability to express themselves and just do something that maybe even gives them a chance to be their authentic self.
I read that you're making $10,000 a month on the platform. Were you at all surprised by your success after just a few months on OnlyFans?
I definitely was. It definitely didn't happen immediately. It didn't blow up until I collaborated with some other creators who have a big following in St. Louis. And that's really when things started taking off for me. It's been a lot of trial and error. OnlyFans doesn't do any marketing for you. They don't have a "for you" page when you can go to discover people. So you have to do a lot of marketing in other, different spaces.
A subscription to your page is $10/month. How many followers do you have?
Well, it's really blown up recently. We're getting close to 1,500.
I don't want to say that what's happened has been good, but it sounds like there's a silver lining?
Absolutely. I mean, I really had two choices. One was to delete everything and hide from it, and my name was still going to be out there anyway. I knew that I wasn't going to go back into education. So it was either run and hide, or lean into it. And at the end of the day, I still have bills to pay and I still have like a family to provide for. So it was not really a difficult choice to just lean in.
What's the overall reaction been like?
The reaction has been very, very supportive. I'm honestly surprised. Many people are saying, “Leave her alone, this is her personal business.” A lot of people are pointing out this wouldn't happen if we paid teachers a livable wage. The support has honestly been overwhelmingly positive. There's always going to be those negative comments that are out there. But they've been few and far between.
Someone reached out to me and they said they were an administrator at a Catholic school. They said, “You do you. You're doing awesome. You deserve all the support.” That was surprising.
Has there been anyone where it's been especially tough for them to find out?
I'm not embarrassed for myself. I'm really not even worried about myself. But it is tough to have these conversations with your family. That's never easy.
What has their reaction been like thus far in general?
Shocked, at first. But then supportive.
What do you make of the way people in their 30s and younger think of work on platforms like OnlyFans versus an older-school mentality?
Everyone has their own moral compass, and what someone deems as acceptable is obviously going to vary from person to person. I do think that, after 2020, wen OnlyFans kind of exploded, there were suddenly a lot of younger creators coming out like every single day. So I don't know, it does seem like it's becoming more acceptable. That being said, I'm not saying I would want to promote it [as a line of work] to a younger generation. But people are becoming more accepting.
What's next for you?
I'm just going to lean into my online presence and try to make the most of it.
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