Sopranos actress Drea de Matteo praised Onlyfans for “saving her life” after her refusal to take the COVID vaccine cost her acting gigs and left her with just $10 in her bank account.
While Drea, 52, was initially reluctant to join the adult subscription service last year, she has now revealed that her racy content uploads proved so lucrative that she paid off her mortgage debts in five minutes and even launched her own business .
The actress, who has been carb-loading to get fit for the cash injections, also revealed how, as well as almost losing her house, she had run out of money to support a father with dementia.
“He saved us,” he told DailyMail.com exclusively. ‘OnlyFans saved my life, 100 percent. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but he really saved us.’
The Sopranos actress Drea de Matteo has cited Onlyfans for saving her and her family.
The Sopranos actress joined the platform in August when she had only $10 in her bank account and was about to lose her house.
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 home of many years which was very important to us. And beyond all that, it has given me enough money to start and fund ULTRAFREE.’
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.
But it didn’t take long for Drea to start making huge amounts of life-saving money on Onlyfans.
“I kept posting more pictures,” he recalled.
She revealed that she was able to earn enough money in five minutes to pay off her debts.
‘I was like, holy shit. In five minutes I was able to pay Compass Real Estate, who took over the sale of my house.’
But turning to the platform initially wasn’t something Drea wanted to do. And in fact, when she first toyed with the idea, it was because she and her husband had thought about teaming up to create a quasi-podcast.
“I did it, but I didn’t want to do it,” he admitted. “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.”
Drea, pictured with James Gandolfini, rose to fame in the acclaimed drama The Sopranos.
Drea played Adriana La Cerva on The Sopranos for seven years between 1999 and 2006.
Although Drea joined OnlyFans out of pure necessity, she’s loved it and found a new sense of empowerment, and she doesn’t plan on giving it up anytime soon.
“It feels good to see those photos,” she enthused.
“They may have been touched up here and there, but the truth is that they video me live when we do the photo shoot so that fans can see the photo shoot in real time.
“In general I look good, and the best thing is that I have gained more weight.” I don’t look good in photos if I’m thin. Before the photo shoot, I can eat and eat. I can bulk up to look better.’
Revealing her surprising pre-photoshoot diet, Drea shared: ‘We’re just carb-loading. I’m just an Italian lady in the world, eating spaghetti, pasta and steak.
‘You want your breasts to be big and your butt to be big. Otherwise the photos are a dream party!’
Drea has launched her own street style brand ULTRAFREE, which aims to “make freedom cool again.”
The clothing style was inspired by Drea’s 12-year-old son, Waylon (pictured).
In addition to gaining a lot of confidence and paying off her debts, Drea was also able to launch her own streetwear brand, ULTRAFREE.
The clothing style was inspired by her 12-year-old son Waylon.
“It’s a lunatic of hype beasts and it works for us because we’re going to make a lot of limited-run stuff, because some of it is handmade in our backyard,” he shared.
Drea explains that the concept behind the clothing is to make “freedom cool again.”
“Freedom from anything that makes you feel caged, whether it’s a mental or physical illness or an ideology,” he said.
‘God knows that the ideologies promoted in the last three years have not helped society.
‘Merchandising is about not letting them tell you who you are, you know who you are no matter what.
“Don’t let anyone keep you small, you don’t need a movement, you just need to be free.”