What “Devastated” Really Means — And Why We Don’t Police How Creators Build Their Lives

-Lila Monroe, staff writer at Only Fans Insider Magazine

I read the Daily Mail’s piece about Kerry Katona late one night in Brooklyn, the way I read most things now — phone in one hand, tea in the other, and a quiet sense that whatever I’m about to scroll through is going to say more about the media than it does about the person at the center of it.

The headline does exactly what it’s designed to do: it hooks you with contradiction.

Kerry Katona has made millions on OnlyFans, plans to stay on it well into retirement, yet says she’d be “devastated” if her children joined the platform.

On the surface, it’s an easy angle — hypocrisy, irony, controversy, pick your framing. But sitting at my small table in my Brooklyn apartment, editing another creator submission for Only Fans Insider Magazine, I found myself less interested in judging Kerry than in what this story reveals about how we still talk about creators, mothers, daughters, and money.

Since I started working with Only Fans Insider in August, I’ve seen this dynamic play out again and again. The mainstream press loves a neat moral box: good choice, bad choice, acceptable work, shameful work. What we do here is very different. Our job isn’t to decide whether someone’s choices are right or wrong. Our job is to create space for their story to exist in their own words.

Joseph reminds me of this constantly. He says it so often that I can practically hear his voice in my head when I’m reading something like the Daily Mail: “We have no opinion on how creators build their businesses. Our only opinion is that they deserve a platform to tell their story.”

That line sits in the back of my mind as I read about Kerry’s complicated feelings.

The Daily Mail frames her admission as a kind of emotional conflict — how can she be fine with doing OnlyFans herself but “devastated” if her kids did it? But what the article doesn’t fully explore is that most parents hold contradictions like this all the time. Wanting autonomy for yourself does not magically erase fear for your children. Worrying about stigma, safety, and public scrutiny doesn’t make you a hypocrite — it makes you human.

I thought about @NaturalBody_Elle when I read this. She’s one of the creators we’ve featured at Only Fans Insider, and she told us something that stuck with me: she didn’t even consider OnlyFans until her children encouraged her to do it. They saw how hard she worked, how little she was valued, and they pushed her toward a platform where she could finally control her income.

That’s not a narrative you’ll ever see in the Daily Mail. It doesn’t fit the sensational mold. There’s no outrage button for “adult children supporting their mother’s financial independence.”

Then there’s Viktoria Winslow, our July cover model, who collaborates with her granddaughter — who is also on OnlyFans. When that story came across my desk, I remember pausing, not in judgment, but in curiosity. Two generations working together, navigating the same industry, negotiating boundaries, creativity, and money in their own way.

Again, you won’t find that nuance in mainstream tabloids. They prefer to flatten creators into caricatures: desperate, immoral, greedy, irresponsible, or tragically misguided.

What struck me about Kerry’s comments is that she actually echoes something many creators have told us privately: they can build successful businesses on OnlyFans and still worry about what that means for their families. Those two truths can coexist.

But the Daily Mail doesn’t seem particularly interested in that complexity. Instead, it leans into a familiar narrative — scandal, estrangement, drama, family conflict — because that’s what drives clicks.

As an editor who reads hundreds of creator stories, I see something different. I see how often these women are forced to justify themselves in a culture that rarely extends them empathy.

Kerry’s story also highlights something Joseph and I talk about often: how difficult it still is for creators to be treated like legitimate business owners.

Try imagining Kerry — or any creator — walking into a local Chamber of Commerce meeting and being taken seriously. Or showing up at a BNI chapter to trade referrals. The social barriers are still incredibly real. The doors that open easily for traditional entrepreneurs remain stubbornly closed to people who build their livelihoods on platforms like OnlyFans, Fansly, Subs, or Patreon.

That’s one of the reasons Only Fans Insider is building local chapters — something I’ve become increasingly excited about since joining the team. The idea is simple but powerful: create real-world spaces where creators can meet, share ideas, collaborate, and be treated like the businesspeople they are.

Reading Kerry’s story through that lens, I can’t help but think about how much healthier these conversations might be if creators had more access to community, mentorship, and peer support — not just online, but in their actual cities.

Kerry says she would never stop speaking to her children if they joined OnlyFans, even if she’d be devastated. In a way, that feels like a quiet act of grace. She’s drawing a boundary around her own feelings while refusing to abandon her kids.

That’s far more complex — and human — than the headline suggests.

What the Daily Mail ultimately misses is that creators like Kerry are not just scandalous tabloid figures. They are mothers, entrepreneurs, workers, and brand builders navigating a rapidly changing digital economy.

And that’s exactly why platforms like Only Fans Insider exist.

We don’t tell creators how to run their businesses. We don’t moralize. We don’t shame. We don’t prescribe. We listen. We publish. We give them room to be more than a headline.

Because at the end of the day, whether it’s Kerry Katona, @NaturalBody_Elle, Viktoria Winslow, or any of the creators whose stories pass across my desk — what they all deserve is the same thing: the freedom to define their own narrative, in their own voice, on their own terms.

And that, more than anything, is what I wish more people would take away from stories like this.

-Lila Monroe, staff writer at Only Fans Insider Magazine