A mother has abandoned a lucrative OnlyFans career which brought in £20,000 per month to claim Universal Credit instead.
Emily Cutter, 37, from Taunton, now receives £1,500 in benefits - and does not have to pay rent.
"People thought I was bonkers to give up that kind of cash," Cutter said. "Fans begged me to stay, but I was burnt-out and mentally shattered."
She added: "My only option was to sign on to Universal Credit and get my life back in order.
"I'd earned a fortune, had bought a house but blew the rest on designer clothes, holidays and treating my kids."
Emily Cutter abandoned her lucrative OnlyFans career to claim Universal Credit
Cutter used her OnlyFans cash to purchase her council house for £101,000 after securing a £59,000 discount on the property's £160,000 valuation.
She invested an additional £50,000 in an extension, transforming it into a four-bedroom home.
"It was a great way to pay the bills while I was trapped in the house homeschooling," she said. "It certainly wasn't something I'd ever planned on doing, but I know loads of mums who ended up doing the same."
Cutter added: "The job was isolating and I felt really lonely.
"Each day was the same and it could be really depressing and sometimes I would find myself grossed out by the men I was dealing with. I knew I had to stop for the sake of my mental health."
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Cutter used her OnlyFans cash to purchase her council house for £101,000
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Her Universal Credit application took six weeks to process.
Her first payment arrived in September 2023.
During this period, she retained her Range Rover and accessed various entitlements including free prescriptions, dental treatment, leisure centre access and other benefits.
After six months claiming DWP support, Cutter found new employment as an independent travel consultant.
"I didn't have any savings; I had credit card bills which needed paying and children to feed," she told The Sun.
Cutter added: "I was thrilled with my success but I’m the first to admit I was still awful at budgeting. We went on posh holidays and I paid off £20,000 in credit card debt but then I bought a Range Rover car on finance. You can earn a million quid and still live in a council home."
In 2020, OnlyFans gained as many as 650,000 "creators" in the first Covid lockdowns, jumping from 350,000 globally to one million.
The number of British OnlyFans creators jumped by 42 per cent between March and July that year, reaching around 95,000.