VanZant was willing to ditch her management and take a risk on OnlyFans back when it was still extremely taboo … and the move paid off big for the former fighter.
Paige VanZant hasn’t fought since a July 2021 loss to Rachael Ostovich in Bare Knuckle FC, her second defeat under the brutal ruleset. But “12 Guage” doesn’t need to worry about her record, or rushing back into the ring, because she’s making more than enough money through her OnlyFans account.
VanZant rose to fame in the UFC and on various reality shows, with fans being drawn to her fresh faced girl next door vibe. So it’s not surprising that her management at the time had serious concerns about her shedding that image to join OnlyFans.
“I had prior managers that were like, ‘No, no, no, you have to stay away, you’ll lose all your sponsors and no one will ever want to work with you,’” she said in an interview with MMA Fighting. “I signed with First Round Management, Malki Kawa, and I brought it up to him, and he said ‘If you’re comfortable with it, hell yes! It’s on you, but if you’re OK with it, you’re going to kill it. He just saw a business mindset that not a lot of other people were able to see.”
“I launched it right before my first BKFC fight. I’m in the car on the way from the press conference back to my hotel, and I logged in, and it had only been live for an hour and I was seeing the subscribers going up, and I think I had 52,000 subscribers at one point. “I was showing my husband, and I was like, ‘Oh my word!’”
“That moment driving back, I was of course extremely excited to fight, but I was like our lives just changed forever,” she said. “I was like, ‘This is OK, this is going to work out. All the risks are worth it. If I never work with another sponsor again, we’re going to be fine.’ I don’t have sponsors – I don’t have to. I’m working on building my own company, promoting myself and not just building up other people.”
“I don’t wake up and have to push an agenda for somebody, or sell something for a company or help them grow. I’m just building me and myself, and sharing things that I’m passionate about, and sharing things that are absolutely true. No one’s paying me to say anything that I say. It all comes straight from the source.”
The move to OnlyFans might seem like an obviously lucrative move now, but it wasn’t when VanZant made the jump in early 2021. She got a lot of criticism for the move … but she made a lot more money. Way more than she ever did from fighting in the UFC. “PVZ” famously once said that she made more in 24 hours off of OnlyFans than she did off her entire nine-fight UFC career.
VanZant claims she still plans on returning to Bare Knuckle FC for another fight, and she’s said the PFL would be her home if she decided to compete in MMA again. But she’s getting paid extremely well without having to get punched in the face, so we’ll wait until a contract is signed before getting excited for any comeback.