Dawn Marie has a simple answer for anyone who thinks she started an OnlyFans page because she ran through her wrestling money: there was never a wrestling fortune to run through. According to Ringside News‘s H Jenkins, the former WWE and ECW star laughed off that assumption, saying OnlyFans was something she chose, not a last resort.

“I was broke in wrestling”

The comments come from a new interview with Soundsphere‘s Dom Smith. Dawn Marie said she knew people would come at her with “you must be broke” once she joined the platform, but she pushed back on the idea that wrestling ever made her rich.

She said her WWE contract paid $75,000 a year while she was on the road about 275 days a year, and that she makes more as a nurse than she did back then. “No, I’m choosing this,” she said of the people who assume she blew through her money.

Not living in the past

The other assumption she wants to shut down is that she’s clinging to old fame. She told Soundsphere she stepped away from wrestling for 14 years and didn’t even take appearances during that stretch.

Now 55, she describes her page as “Dawn Marie in her 50s, embracing her sexuality, embracing her confidence.” She’s not trying to recreate the character fans watched two decades ago, and she says many of her subscribers are in their 40s and 50s, people who grew up with her posters on their walls.

Burlesque, boundaries and a home studio

Dawn Marie treats the page like a show. She told Soundsphere her live sessions are burlesque-style and interactive, built around costumes, music, lighting and a set. Her content stays suggestive and stops short of nudity, a line she says she drew partly because of her family, and she says she talked it over with her kids before launching.

That boundary goes back to day one. According to Ringside News‘s Subhojeet Mukherjee, her page launched on August 11 with “fun, flirty” content and no nudes, and she told Fox News Digital at the time that it was about preparing for her future, not “the big money grab.”

The page has since grown into her main job. According to eWrestlingNews‘s Akash Dhakite, she said on The Velvet Ropes that OnlyFans is now her “full-time gig” and that she built a studio in her house for it. She still holds her nursing license and told Soundsphere she may go back to it someday.

Doing the work herself

One detail stands out for other creators: Dawn Marie says she spends much of her day answering subscribers herself instead of using bots or an agency. She also plans a weekly sit-down live where she pulls fan-submitted questions out of a bowl without knowing what’s coming.

The takeaway

Former wrestlers joining OnlyFans is old news by now, but Dawn Marie’s numbers flip the usual story. If a WWE contract paid $75,000 for 275 days on the road, a page she runs from her own home studio, on her own terms and with her own boundaries, isn’t a fall from glory. For a lot of veteran performers, it may be the first time the business side is fully theirs.

Image: Dawn Marie at WonderCon 2009, photo by BrokenSphere, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).