Not every OnlyFans story ends with a mansion or a million-dollar payday. Sometimes it ends with a creator logging off for good. According to Attitude‘s Aaron Sugg, gay OnlyFans creator Michael Doherty has deleted his accounts so he can chase a very different dream: becoming a pilot.

The announcement

The 24-year-old creator broke the news on social media on October 28, saying it was a choice he had been weighing “a lot over the last few years.” His message was simple: “I’ve waited a while to make this decision. Today I quit and deleted my OnlyFans accounts.”

He didn’t frame it as a money problem. Doherty said the work had been “a huge burden on my heart, soul and mind,” adding that “it has distracted me and made me comfortable.” Attitude reports that while the income brought him enjoyment, he said it never gave him a feeling of “real success.”

What comes next

Doherty said a talk with the people closest to him helped him finally make the call. He now wants to put his energy into his friends, family, gardening and chickens, “but most importantly, my childhood dream of becoming a pilot, starting a family and finding love.”

He also thanked the people who have backed him so far, and especially “the ones that are gonna support me through this change.”

A long time coming

This wasn’t a sudden turn. Attitude notes that Doherty joined OnlyFans in 2021, according to the tracking site Fanstats, and has spoken openly about the platform for years. On the Say It, Slay It podcast in March 2024, he said he didn’t like to call anything a regret, but if he could do it differently he “probably would have been like making money in a more respectable way.”

He also described the stigma that follows creators off the platform: “When you do only fans you’re looked at in a different way and even look at yourself in a different way.”

Doherty has built a following by sharing his life openly online, including his coming-out story, which he has said his parents struggled with at first before coming around.

The takeaway

For all the headlines about celebrities jumping onto OnlyFans, the exits matter too. Doherty’s post is a reminder that a profitable creator business can still feel like a trap if it pulls you away from what you actually want. Whether he ends up in a cockpit or not, he’s one more creator showing that walking away is an option, and that the next chapter doesn’t have to look anything like the last one.

Featured image: AI-generated illustration.