Singer Lily Allen has dropped a bombshell about her sources of income. The English singer-songwriter has said that OnlyFans, the porn-friendly website, helps her earn more money than her music does through the streaming service Spotify. Lily also fact-checked claims that she earns $1.4 million annually through Spotify. (Also read: Lily Allen wanted controversial comeback)
Lily Allens on her OnlyFans earnings
On Thursday, Lily posted a few pictures of her feet on X (formerly Twitter), along with a link to her OnlyFans account. This received a response from a Twitter user who criticised her. “Imagine being one of the biggest pop stars/musicians in Europe and then being reduced to this,” wrote the person.
Lily, in turn, shared that tweet and revealed, “Imagine being an artist and having nearly 8 million monthly listeners on Spotify but earning more money from having 1,000 people subscribe to pictures of your feet. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”
OnlyFans is a subscriber-based platform predominantly used by adult entertainers to share their content. Lily reportedly charges $10 per month on her OnlyFans account. Given her subscriber count, her earnings from the platform come out to over $10,000 monthly. Her earnings from Spotify are unclear. According to Variety, the singer has 7.5 million monthly listeners on the platform, which pays approximately $.003 and $.005 per stream to artists.
Lily Allen fact checks post about her earnings
On Friday, Lily fact-checked a post from Pop Crave, claiming that she earns over a million dollars yearly through Spotify. The post read, “Lily Allen makes around $4,077 daily from Spotify according to new Billboard article, which equates to 1.4 MILLION annually: “With $3,239 going to sound recording for the copyright owner; $336 of mechanical royalties going to the publisher, who pays the songwriter; and $503 in performance royalties going to performance rights organizations.” Lily shared the tweet and added, “This is incredibly misleading, but i’m not smart enough to explain how i make a tiny percentage of what is quoted here. you’ll just have to trust me that neoliberal capitalism doesn’t care about artists being paid for their work.”
Lily Allen, 39, is one of the most prominent English pop artists of her generation. Her 2006 debut single, Smile, was a chartbuster. She has since seen both commercial success and critical acclaim through successful albums like Alright, Still (2006), It’s Not Me, It’s You (2009), and Sheezus (2014). She also hosts her own talk show, Lily Allen and Friends.