If you’ve been wondering why your irony stores are running low, it’s because Vanderpump Rules has been hoarding it all for themselves. A show that built its audience on cheating, hookups, scandal, and decisions that are more or less fueled by tequila has decided that OnlyFans is where they draw the line. Allegedly, Bravo execs have pressured cast members Chris Hahn and Jason Cohen to shut down their OnlyFans pages to save the scandal for their camera, while simultaneously turning their OnlyFans pages into a storyline for the show. Who would have thought that reality TV would finally find a boundary they don’t want to monetize?
If you aren’t like me and don’t watch trash TV to soothe your nervous system after a long day of being a person, here’s your primer on who’s who. Chris and Jason are both newer cast members on Vanderpump Rules. They’re SUR-adjacent, both fitness-model-coded, and both very much hot on purpose. Coincidentally, they were also both on OnlyFans prior to joining Vanderpump Rules, with a bank of paywalled content that paid their bills before their appearance on the show. Reportedly, Jason shut his down, but Chris is allegedly still posting under a pseudonym (“Axel Stone,” for any of you who are dying to take a peek). Important part of the story: Bravo firmly denies telling Chris and Jason to shut down their pages, but reports say otherwise.
How did OnlyFans become a plotline? I’m so glad you asked! So cast members were gossiping about videos, spicy links, and content descriptions on Chris and Jason’s OnlyFans pages. Jokes were made about incestuous cousin dynamics for shock value and the opportunity to capitalize on gross-out reactions. And in case there wasn’t enough there to titter about, a penis pump was found in Jason’s bathroom, so that became a whole moment. Execs weren’t happy, and from the outside looking in, it appears that they weren’t so much mad that the OnlyFans content exists as they were mad that it wasn’t within their control. OnlyFans is highly regulated to ensure the safety of the creators, so everything shared there is very much legal. Methinks the outrage here is purely social, not moral or legal.
The show behind the scenes vs on camera must have been something, because unless someone wants to make a powerpoint detailing every instance, the correlations here couldn’t be more clear. There was on-screen shaming, and then off-screen pressure to shut the pages down, while at the same time those same pages were used as storyline fuel, then treated like a network liability. Talk about hypocrisy! Bravo profits from sex appeal and mess, but then gets nervous when the cast also profits independently from their own messy sex appeal. So like… sexy is fine, but if said sexy is connected to a Stripe account, then it’s time to clutch the pearls.
It’s not like any aspect of this is a new concept. Reality tv stars have a way of finding OnlyFans and making a home for themselves there. Fans already want more access to their favorite stars, and OnlyFans allows them to monetize an audience that is showing up for them in the first place. It makes sense if you think about it. They’ve already got a built-in audience wanting more contact, and with parasocial engagement being the name of the game right now… can you really blame Chris and Jason for monetizing fan attention instead of waiting on their check from Bravo? Remember: OnlyFans is legal, content creation work is WORK, and subscriptions are completely voluntary.
If networks really don’t want their casts monetizing elsewhere, they need to make sure that’s a stipulation in their contracts moving forward, instead of shaming people retroactively for using their image to make a buck on legal platforms. You can’t sell sex appeal for ratings, and then fall to pieces when cast members sell it directly. If that’s really against the Vanderpump Rules, then the rules need rewriting.
