Former Congressional Candidate ‘Horrified’ After Mexican Tabloid Published Her OnlyFans Photos

"This is as if my wallet got stolen," Alexandra Hunt told Jezebel.

By Audra Heinrichs  |  October 14, 2022 | 1:45pm
Politics
Former Congressional Candidate ‘Horrified’ After Mexican Tabloid Published Her OnlyFans Photos
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Last year, soon after Alexandra Hunt, a 28-year-old public health researcher and community organizer, announced her candidacy to represent Pennsylvania’s 3rd District, she spoke candidly about being a stripper to put herself through college at the University of Richmond and later, using OnlyFans to help fund her campaign and pay the bills. Backlash was predictably swift, but Hunt doubled down—in interviews, on social media, and via buzzy merchandise (“Elect Hoes” brandished t-shirts). Everyone from advisers to priggish constituents discouraged her full-throated endorsement of sex work, warning it would be used against her at every turn. Now, five months after Hunt lost her primary, she’s seeing yet another way it is.

This week, Hunt told Jezebel that she learned El Gráfico—which calls itself Mexico’s “most important popular newspaper” and is in reality a tabloid that lustily covers crime—had published photographs lifted directly from her OnlyFans account. The article, headlined “Alexandra Hunt, the horny US politician who shows everything on OnlyFans,” summarized an interview she’d done with Spanish outlet Hipertextual and featured photographs lifted from her OnlyFans account, where she posts photos that are available exclusively to subscribers—meaning that the publication accessed the content by first purchasing a subscription.

“A media outlet believed it was OK to steal my content from me and make money off my body,” Hunt told Jezebel. “There is no accountability for something like this. It happens regularly, and the rhetoric surrounding this issue was, ‘What did you expect? If you put it out there, you’re to blame.’”

Disturbingly, the newspaper credited Instagram for the photographs, though Hunt has only posted one of the lifted photographs—an advertisement for her merchandise and the account—on the social media platform.

Hunt first vented her outrage and asked for advice on her Tiktok—where she has over 88,000 followers:

“Their issue with me is how I make a living, and yet they stole my intellectual property and put it out into the digital universe with the same intent of getting clicks, getting views and making money. We’re the same, except I didn’t steal from anyone and I didn’t violate anyone’s privacy. We need to show these kinds of people that we do not back down in the face of bullying. I’m planning on fighting this, and I need your help.

As of now, the video has been liked over 11,000 times and accumulated 500 comments—many of them being kind words or connections to attorneys. However, Hunt told me she’s yet to find an affordable lawyer. She’s also made more than one attempt to get in touch with OnlyFans in the hopes that they’ll lend a billion-dollar hand in removing the stolen content. Thus far, she hasn’t heard back.

“They gotta work on this and try to get the content down, but they also need to try to set a precedent in the media,” Hunt said. “This is not a way to attack people, and it’s very dangerous.”

Content creators and sex workers on OnlyFans have long criticized the platform, largely for its compliance with FOSTA-SESTA (Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act), a federal law enacted during the Trump administration. The legislation has prompted de-platforming, banking and payment platform discrimination, and predicaments like Hunt’s.

Even still, she says she’s exploring another run for public office and will continue to use OnlyFans as a form of income.

“I want to be very clear that I’m not ashamed of having an OnlyFans, and of this being what I do for a living,” Hunt explained. “I am horrified at the exploitation and theft, as anyone would be. This is as if my wallet got stolen, or if someone came into my place of work and took things from me.”

 
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