The Sopranos actress Drea de Matteo slammed Hollywood after being blacklisted by studios for refusing to take the Covid vaccine, and revealed she would have a hard time coming out of retirement.
In September, the 52-year-old star claimed she was forced to turn to subscription service Onlyfans to make money after her stance on vaccination caused her acting work to dry up and her agent to drop her, quickly leading to her to be in a dangerous financial situation and at risk of losing their home.
Although Drea has since stated that she was able to make enough money in five minutes after opening her profile to pay off the foreclosure, she has now hinted that she herself is cutting ties with Hollywood.
Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, Drea criticized the “saturated” industry, saying: “I mean, that place (Hollywood) is a fucking cesspool.” I am not going to lie. Television sucks.
Drea de Matteo has branded Hollywood a ‘cesspool’ six months after being forced to join Onlyfans following her acting blacklist.
The actress played Adriana La Cerva on The Sopranos between 1999 and 2006.
‘There is nothing great. The Sopranos opened the door for me 100 percent.’
Drea played Adriana La Cerva on The Sopranos for seven years between 1999 and 2006.
Referring to a recent meeting with the HBO drama’s showrunner David Chase and executive producers Terence Winter and Matthew Wiener, he continued: “They were doing a panel and basically said, ‘We don’t even trust the audience anymore because that’s it.’ of these things that societies shove down people’s throats.
‘It’s like I don’t even know what the audience is. I think it’s more the industry.
‘The industry just… everything that our generation has pushed for, whether it’s better television, whether it’s human rights, bodily sovereignty, all those things, they took it and turned it into an aberration.
‘And the same thing happened with television. Television is very saturated. “Streaming doesn’t help anyone except big corporations.”
While weighing whether she would ever return to acting, Drea said, “It would have to be something really meaningful to me.”
‘I don’t need to jump just to get a paycheck even though I literally had $10 left in my bank account when all this was happening, which is why I started the Onlyfans page.
“I’d rather bet on myself than the man right now.”
Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, Drea said she would only return to acting if the right project came along.
She was forced to launch her Onlyfans profile last year after she was blacklisted by Hollywood for not receiving the Covid vaccine.
While Drea appears to be disillusioned with Hollywood, she shared that she starred in a film after Covid mandates were lifted on May 12, 2023 and before the SAG-AFTRA strike began on July 14, 2023.
In the same interview with DailyMail.com, Drea said her pivot to Onlyfans helped her save her house from foreclosure and launch her own business, a fashion brand she calls ULTRAFREE.
She admitted: ‘OnlyFans saved my life, 100 per cent. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but he really saved us.’
With tears in his eyes, he continued: “Anyone who wants to condemn me and belittle me, let them do so.” I just hope you never find yourself in the position I was in of caring for two small children.
‘It saved my long-standing home which was very important to us. And beyond all that, it has given me enough money to start and fund ULTRAFREE.’
Drea won an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2004 for her performance on the hit series.
Drea had only $10 in her bank account when she opened her Onlyfans account.
She had found herself in a perilous financial situation after applying for forbearance to help with her mortgage payments, but ultimately could not afford the astronomical sum she owed to debt collectors.
“I was put into foreclosure and my house had flooded, so I was trying to sell it quickly,” he said. ‘I wanted to try to sell it before they took it.
‘At the same time, I lost my mother, and my other mother, who has dementia, had run out of money for her carer. She didn’t know which direction she was up.
Initially, turning to the platform was not something Drea wanted to do. And in fact, when she first toyed with the idea, it was because she and her boyfriend had thought about starting a podcast.
“I did it, but I didn’t want to do it,” he continued. “I got a lot of criticism for doing it and it went fucking viral and people went crazy.
‘I mean, the original premise for opening Onlyfans was that Robbie and I were going to do a podcast there that was controversial. We wanted to put it behind a paywall so it wouldn’t get destroyed in the media for it.
“That’s what it was going to be originally, you know, like with him rubbing my feet because you gotta add something for Onlyfans in there.”