Catarina Guimaraes is a 22-year-old Team USA Paralympian from Cranford, New Jersey, training in Chula Vista, California, for the 2028 Los Angeles Games. According to NJ.com, she signed a $25,000 annual deal with OnlyFans to post strictly safe-for-work content — and she has turned down five-figure offers for adult material, including a $15,000 request for a single private video call.

What she’s posting (and what she isn’t)

According to The Independent‘s Jasmine Fernández, Guimaraes publishes behind-the-scenes workout videos, gym routines, personal updates, and clips of herself singing Broadway songs to promote OnlyFans Sports, the platform’s non-explicit sports tier. Her profile costs subscribers $10 a month.

“They basically offered to compensate me for posts on their platform and on my platform about them to bring a more wholesome view of their page,” Guimaraes said, per Fernández’s report. “It isn’t anything racy, unless you want to count a video of me doing power cleans in a sports bra and shorts as racy.”

Teammates pushed her to take the $15,000 call. She declined. “All my teammates were like, ‘You should totally take him up on [the call],'” Guimaraes said. “I was like, ‘Nooooo, that is not what I’m about.’ But it was crazy. I did not realize people would offer that much money for that stuff.”

An OnlyFans spokesperson told NJ.com in an email that the company “loves working with athlete creators who are excited about using the platform to connect with their audience while building a new revenue stream through their content.”

Why the money matters

Guimaraes has cerebral palsy, a neurological condition that affects muscle tone, posture, and body movement. She has described it as “having bad WiFi in your brain” and “this constant fight to keep everything in sync.” The deal helps cover out-of-pocket medical and living costs while she trains.

Her father, John Guimaraes, told NJ.com the point is to take money stress off her plate. “The idea behind this is to reduce her financial strain,” he said. “When she wakes up, she shouldn’t be thinking, ‘Do I have enough gas money to get to the training center?’ It should be her training.”

From Cranford track kid to Paris — and L.A. 2028

Diagnosed at age 3 after a neurologist in Portugal identified the condition, Guimaraes pushed into track in elementary school. “I’ve never met a 9-year-old who trained for a school race before,” she said. “But I was at the track every other day, practicing and busting my butt, running sprints, ladders, just to get into this race.”

She lost that first race — “And I got my a** kicked,” she said. “I got smoked, like, completely” — then kept going. She earned a second-degree black belt in taekwondo, joined an adaptive track club, and became the first NCAA Division I athlete with cerebral palsy after signing with High Point University.

At the 2024 Paris Paralympics, she placed eighth in the long jump at Stade de France. “It was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m at the Paralympics,” she said.

She is now balancing training for the International Federation of Cerebral Palsy Football World Cup and the 2028 Los Angeles Games with a master’s degree in kinesiology from Louisiana State University. Her association with OnlyFans has brought drawbacks, including Instagram reach restrictions, but she is still aiming for a balanced image online.

“I really love the idea that you can be feminine and powerful and strong at the same time,” Guimaraes said. “I feel like people forget that. And that’s what my page has been about.”

The takeaway

OnlyFans is still shorthand for adult content for a lot of people, but Guimaraes is using the platform’s sports lane the way other athletes use brand deals: to pay medical bills and keep training. A $25,000 SFW sponsorship and a hard no on a $15,000 private call say as much about her boundaries as they do about where Paralympic funding still falls short.

Image: Catarina Guimarães competing in the women’s 100 meters T38 first round at the Paris 2024 Paralympics, photo by AwkwardChester (CC BY 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons.