We couldn’t sign off from the Paris Olympics without acknowledging our favorite collab. Link in bio Details below!
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Two trailblazers, Matthew Mitcham and Robbie Manson both operate popular OnlyFans accounts. And it looks like they couldn’t leave the City of Lights without teaming up for some content.
They also shared the above pic on their OF pages and teased more sultry images in the future.
“It was great to catch up with @matthewmitcham again and do a cheeky collab 😜,” Manson wrote.
“Do you want to see the other shots from the series?,” Mitcham posted. (Umm… yes!)
Manson and Mitcham made their marks on the Summer Games, albeit in different fashion. Manson, who returned to competition following a brief retirement, qualified for the final in his event. The rower said he was proud of his and his teammate’s efforts.
“I’m just incredibly proud of us,” Manson told Rowing NZ. “I think we’re a great team. We take the piss out of each other and our coach Gary [Roberts], and we’ve not only made the final but we’ve had fun doing it. We’ve tried to enjoy the experience as well.”
It’s apparent that Manson relished his time in Paris. The New Zealand native never imagined he would get back into rowing when he stepped away four years ago for mental health reasons. But the draw of competition compelled him to return.
“It’s hard to put into words what a journey this has been, but here goes. Four years ago, I retired, never imagining I’d get back in a rowing boat. Yet here I am, not only back at the Olympics but in the A final!,” he posted on Instagram.
As a three-time Olympian, Manson is one of the most accomplished out male athletes in the world. But when he handed in his paddles after the Tokyo Games, he encountered a rude awakening.
His athletic accolades didn’t mean anything if he couldn’t pay the bills.
Like many elite solo athletes, Manson doesn’t earn gobs of money from his sport. A survey conducted in Paris showed that 26.8% of U.S. Olympians earn less than $15,000 per year.
“It’s hard to have a 12-year career and then afterwards having nothing to support myself,” he told Queerty in a previous interview.
Looking for reliable income, Manson turned to the adult platform, OF. Many male Olympians, leaning into the inherent thirst of sports, Speedos and tight unis, have since followed suit. (Two divers who finished in the top six of their respective events, Timo Barthel and Noah Williams, also operate OF pages.)
Now, Manson says he earns more per year from his photos than his performance in the water. “I get more than double what I would be on otherwise as an athlete – read into that what you will, but I am making more from [OF] than I am from rowing at this stage,” he told Reuters.
Mitcham tells a similar tale. The Australian diver was the first out gay man to win Olympic gold, pulling off a dramatic victory at the 2008 Beijing Games.
But he’s also turned to adult content creation, and sees nothing wrong with monetizing his greatest asset: his body.
Think of it: Olympians spend years perfecting their physiques. They should be able to enjoy the (monetary) fruits of their labor.
“The harsh truth of sport is that a small percentage of athletes make it big. Those people might be rewarded with lots of juicy sponsorships, but we’re talking about only the most beautiful and charismatic of Olympic champions,” he wrote in an op-ed. “A lot of brilliant performers get left behind.”
“My attitude – as a former Olympic Champion who has been posting content on OnlyFans for 18 months – is that it’s a useful way of supplementing income,” he wrote. “After all the hours and sacrifice we’ve put in, we athletes have more than earned the odd side-hustle.”
Since winning gold in the 10-meter platform in 2008, Mitcham has emerged as a strong LGBTQ+ advocate. He’s been open about his various struggles, including his battle with addiction and chem sex.
Working with Pride House, Mitcham was an outward presence at the Paris Games. His shining Olympic moment was when he spoke out against the transphobia directed towards gold medal-winning Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who’s female.
“Apparently, we live in a world now where transphobic bullying has gotten so bad, that it now extends to women who people deem to be too strong and muscly, at the Olympics of all places,” Mitcham said in a video, while wearing a shirt celebrating the hotness of transgender people.
“Like the Algerian boxer Imane Khelif has been bullied so mercilessly, that it’s forced her own father to publicly release her birth certificate to prove that she was assigned female at birth. That’s shocking. Ya’ll need Jesus, honestly.”
Mitcham’s invocation of Jesus is especially poignant, give how homophobes often use religion as a cover for their bigotry. He, like Manson, is an out gay man who’s proud of his identity.
Those are the best Olympic stories of all.
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