OnlyFans, the internet’s kingdom of smut, may be changing hands soon. Reuters reports that the porn platform’s parent company, Fenix International, Ltd., is in talks to sell the business for some $8 billion to a U.S. investor group.
The New York Post previously reported that Leonid Radvinsky, the billionaire owner of the site, was looking to “cash out,” but had not yet found a buyer. Reuters now identifies at least one potential buyer as the Forest Road Company, an investment firm based in Los Angeles that is reportedly leading an investor group that wants to buy the porn platform. On its website, Forest Road describes itself as “not your average investment firm” and says it embraces “complexity and creativity to extract value where others see limitations.” The site also expresses an interest in “media & entertainment” and “digital assets.”
Not much else is known about the talks. Citing sources familiar with the potential deal, Reuters writes that Fenix is also talking to other interested parties. Gizmodo reached out to OnlyFans for more information.
OnlyFans was founded in 2016 and rose to prominence during the pandemic by helping horny web users satisfy their libidos whilst otherwise avoiding human contact. Since then, the business has only continued to grow. Other than a weird brief moment in 2021 (when the company bizarrely claimed it would ban “sexually explicit content”), it has served as a premier destination for dirty content, and has helped re-shaped the porn industry through its gig-worker model. Last year, the company reported that payments made through the platform had surged by 19 percent since 2023, topping some $6.6 billion.
Radvinsky purchased the company in 2019 and it has made an absolute killing since then. Bloomberg reported last year that the mogul had made $1 billion in three years through corporate dividends from the business.
The company has also been the subject of considerable criticism, as well as numerous legal complaints. Critics accuse the platform of being frequented by sex traffickers, and claim that the site has also become a portal for child sexual abuse material. The company was also recently sued by two customers who were outraged to discover that they may have not been messaging with real models (creators often outsource their customer communications to third-party firms).