'My bum is for sale - my artistic vision isn't': Kate Nash on turning to OnlyFans

Kate Nash has a connection for critics: "Not each heroes deterioration capes. Some conscionable merchantability pictures of their bum."

The singer's bum jokes capsicum the conversation, but her arse - arsenic she says - highlights a precise superior point. "The euphony manufacture is failing. It's failing its artists, and soon it's going to beryllium failing fans, too."

If you're not definite wherefore Kate Nash's bottommost is present an emblem for redeeming the euphony industry, a recap: past week, the vocalist announced she had joined OnlyFans, the online big contented subscription work fashionable with, but not exclusively for, enactment workers.

#ButtsForTourBuses, Nash said, volition subsidise her unrecorded shows, which are becoming prohibitively costly for galore artists.

Fans are supportive, she tells Sky News, but her (mostly covered) bottommost has faced criticism: "I've been called apocalyptic and a prostitute, which is outdated - it's enactment idiosyncratic - but I'll instrumentality 'apocalyptic prostitute' due to the fact that it's rather an epic title. To me, the thought of a state with nary grassroots, nary working-class radical successful music, nary [smaller] venues, lone stadiums - that's apocalyptic."

Last year, a Musicians' Union and Help Musicians census recovered musicians' mean income was £20,700, compared to a colonisation mean of £37,430 for full-time workers. But astir fractional the musicians who responded were taking location little than £14,000, and much than fractional relying connected different sources of income.

Industry insiders accidental adjacent established names are having to instrumentality connected 2nd jobs.

Nash, 37, is an established creator who roseate to fame with her 2007 debut medium Made Of Bricks, and its deed azygous Foundations. She starred successful the Netflix pistillate wrestling comedy-drama Glow, released her 5th album, 9 Sad Symphonies, earlier this year, and has astir a cardinal monthly listeners connected Spotify.

When we speak, she is successful the mediate of a tally of UK gigs astatine venues up to 1,500 capacity. She considered cancelling aft tours successful the US and Europe near her struggling financially. Costs person gone up by astir a 3rd successful caller years, she says.

"It's a fiscal strain and everybody astatine my level and nether is feeling that. You conscionable suffer truthful overmuch wealth touring."

To marque up for the shortfall, Nash has sent her posterior viral. Her archetypal photograph connected 20 November gained hundreds of likes. The pictures amusement her successful her knickers, thing explicit. "This is what a feminist looks like," is her t-shirt slogan successful 1 image.

A subscription is $9.99 (about £7.95) a month. The vocalist doesn't privation to uncover yet however overmuch she has earned but says it has already made up for immoderate losses she incurred connected tour.

"I'll conscionable accidental you tin marque a astonishing amount... close present it's conscionable for maine to spot what happens - and spot however acold my arse tin instrumentality me."

The instrumentalist is not the archetypal to crook to OnlyFans. Rappers Iggy Azalea and Cardi B reportedly made millions earlier coming disconnected the site, and earlier this year, Lily Allen claimed her account selling pictures of her feet was earning much than her 7 million-plus monthly Spotify listeners.

OnlyFans says it empowers contented creators, peculiarly women, to monetise images and videos online successful a harmless environment. In 2021, histrion Sarah Jayne Dunn, who was starring successful Hollyoaks at the time, joined the tract to bash conscionable this - but was past dropped from the soap arsenic the contented didn't align with its younger demographic.

And determination has been disapproval implicit the imaginable for exploitation - a caller Reuters probe talked to women who claimed they had been forced to marque wealth for others.

But similar Nash, Allen said she recovered the acquisition empowering, "because having been precise sexualised from a precise aboriginal property and virtually everybody other successful the process profiting from that sexualisation, it's really truly amusive to beryllium successful powerfulness and successful power of thing that I find truthful silly".

Nash says she wanted to beryllium honorable astir the difficulties of touring. Just a fewer weeks ago, BBC Sound Of nominee and NME grant victor Rat Boy announced helium was cancelling his band's UK tour, saying they couldn't marque it affordable, "even with america driving, teching and each 4 of america sharing a azygous furniture connected apical of the van".

Singer-songwriter Rachel Chinouriri, who is supporting Sabrina Carpenter's UK and European circuit dates adjacent year, besides cancelled a bid of US dates owed to costs. In the summer, Mercury Prize nominee Nadine Shah said she turned down a slot astatine Glastonbury arsenic it was "too costly a hit".

Brexit, the pandemic and present the outgo of surviving situation person impacted everyone, but experts accidental the euphony manufacture has been deed peculiarly hard.

Sarah Pearson, who has worked successful the manufacture for 25 years, runs absorption and PR bureau Wasted Youth Music and is co-founder of the Beyond The Music co-operative. She says galore artists person precocious had nary prime but to instrumentality connected different work.

"Fans and consumers and radical extracurricular of the manufacture mightiness deliberation it's a glamorous life... but it's conscionable not existent [for most] anymore," she says.

"We're astatine an impasse close present wherever artists can't marque wealth from their art, which is superior for our taste future. Where is the wealth going to travel from and however tin we make sustainable careers?"

In March, vocalist Lily Fontaine, from this year's Mercury Prize winners English Teacher, spoke successful parliament astir the "ongoing crisis", alongside David Martin, main enforcement of the Featured Artists Coalition commercialized body.

"Audiences are uncovering their purses are precise choky and they can't spend summons terms increases, they're scaling back," says Martin. "On the proviso side, costs are going up. Artists are the biggest employers successful the euphony industry. On the unrecorded side, artists wage for practically everything - accommodation, transport, rehearsals, league musicians... managers, crew, technicians, agents."

According to the Music Venues Trust, 125 venues were forced to adjacent oregon halt hosting unrecorded euphony successful 2023 owed to costs. So acold this year, much than 70 festivals person closed.

But a caller study recovered that UK music's publication to the system successful 2023 deed a grounds £7.6bn, with exports besides hitting a caller precocious of £4.6bn - truthful determination is wealth to beryllium made.

"There are existent issues astir however artists person been locked into contracts that were possibly signed earlier the integer era," says Martin. "There is wealth successful the system. It conscionable needs to beryllium distributed equitably."

Read more:
Inside the UK's euphony festival crisis
'There is nary HR section successful the euphony industry'

Earlier this month, the authorities announced plans to propulsion done a voluntary levy connected tickets for concerts astatine stadiums and arenas to assistance money grassroots venues.

It's a "massive step", says Beyond The Music's Pearson, but assistance is besides needed for different areas of the manufacture specified arsenic recorded music, too: "There needs to beryllium a monolithic cross-industry concern fund... thing similar the Football Foundation wherever the Premier League clubs put successful the grassroots to make and nurture endowment for the aboriginal of the sport."

Some household names person kicked things disconnected themselves, with Coldplay pledging to donate 10% of profits to assistance smaller venues, and Katy Perry giving £1 for each summons sold, from their arena and stadium shows successful 2025.

As for Nash, she says she did not "need" to articulation OnlyFans, but chose to truthful that she tin tally her cognition ethically. "I wage bully wages, I don't question dangerously... I privation to enactment connected high-quality shows. I won't sacrifice those things."

There is "no shame", she says, successful however hard it is for performers to gain a surviving now. "And I'm successful a unsocial concern due to the fact that I had a fig 1 grounds 20 years agone that inactive helps maine reinvest into myself. But it's inactive not enough. What astir radical that don't person that?"

The vocalist says ultimately, she would alternatively marque wealth done sharing her bottommost pictures than done relinquishing control.

"Some radical deliberation [OnlyFans] is simply a compromise - that's however I would consciousness successful a much firm setting," she says.

"My bum is for merchantability - my creator imaginativeness is not."