When the girl real­ized that MMA fans liked her appear­ance, she began to cre­ate explic­it con­tent, for which she was gen­er­ous­ly paid.

How did Paige VanZant become famous in MMA?

Van­Zant was once an unknown, albeit pret­ty, female fight­er who fought in the UFC with vary­ing degrees of suc­cess. She was far from the title, alter­nat­ing vic­to­ries and defeats. But at some point, the label of a sex sym­bol was stuck to her, and her pop­u­lar­i­ty began to grow.

Van­zant has out­grown the MMA indus­try and sports in gen­er­al; now she has no need to get punched in the face. She pleas­es fans with can­did pho­tographs and admits that she earned more in a day of work on Only­fans than in her entire fight­ing career:

“I’ve been very for­tu­nate that my career, even out­side of the UFC and mar­tial arts, has been quite suc­cess­ful. I worked quite a lot in oth­er indus­tries and tried to become a more pop­u­lar per­son.

But Only­Fans was def­i­nite­ly my biggest source of income. I would say that in my entire fight­ing career I have made less mon­ey than I made in 24 hours on Only­Fans.”

Van­zant is sup­port­ed in her sex work by her hus­band, a Bel­la­tor fight­er. He even took part in sev­er­al joint pho­to shoots and assures that he is not against his wife’s work. After all, she doesn’t act in porn and doesn’t appear in front of the cam­era com­plete­ly with­out clothes.

Although not every­one on the net­work sup­ports her hus­band, who posts pic­tures like this:

Vanzant survived school rape

Now Van­zant is a celebri­ty and her fans adore her. But in her youth she was a vic­tim of bul­ly­ing — she was bul­lied at school. The girl did not under­stand the rea­son: she was involved in danc­ing, was from a poor but pros­per­ous fam­i­ly, but could not estab­lish con­tact with her class­mates.

One day they invit­ed 14-year-old Van­zant to a par­ty. The girl was hap­py and came to vis­it, but there was a trap wait­ing for her. Van­zant was made drunk and gang-raped. The girl did not tell her loved ones about this, but admit­ted pub­licly when she was already a fight­er:

“I was so lone­ly, so hurt, I thought only one thing: “Wow, final­ly at least some­one wants to be friends with me.” But the guys at the par­ty sur­round­ed me, and then they broke me and let me go around in a cir­cle. I fell every time I tried to resist, my limbs felt like cement.

I was con­scious, but my body seemed to have died. I under­stood what was hap­pen­ing, but I could­n’t stop it. I had no choice but to endure and pray for this to end soon.”

The school quick­ly learned about what had hap­pened, and Van­zant began to be called a whore. Class­mates hung con­doms on tree branch­es near her house. Every­thing was so bad that Van­zant want­ed to com­mit sui­cide:

“When you’re in that posi­tion, when you feel that much pain, it does­n’t mean you want to die… You just don’t want to be in pain any­more. I had nowhere to run, no one to turn to.”

For­tu­nate­ly, Van­zant got out: the fam­i­ly moved to anoth­er city, where the girl, who was look­ing for a dance stu­dio, end­ed up in a mar­tial arts hall. She fell in love with fight­ing, which became her pro­fes­sion.

Now Van­zant wants to return to the sport and is prepar­ing dili­gent­ly — in the famous Amer­i­can Top Team gym with her hus­band. She admits that she does not pay atten­tion to haters who crit­i­cize her for her frank­ness online. After all, this mon­ey helped her pro­vide for her fam­i­ly:

“I am lucky that I am able to help my fam­i­ly. My hus­band and I help our fam­i­ly. We do our best to bring every­one to the com­mon table. For me, this makes it worth­while to cre­ate exclu­sive con­tent, know­ing that I am help­ing to care for every­one around me.”