Sextortion and OnlyFans: The On Demand Content King and the Case of Levi Davis

“Everybody knows the bio is where it gets sticky”, reads Levi Davis’ OnlyFans account landing page. Through the lens of what followed, the gambit is triple-loaded.

Levi’s header image sets the tone of what – for $24 a month – he would be sharing. The strategically placed bottle green boxing gloves say enough. “Take a look and see what else you can find” invites a strapline with five suggestive emojis.

What the intro didn’t tell people, though, is that “doing OnlyFans” had been at the front of Levi’s mind for a long time. And in the end, when he did, it was an act of defiance.

But was it also a motive for murder?

According to three primary sources Byline Times has tracked down during a 17-month special investigation into the rugby player’s unexplained disappearance, Levi had been coming under pressure for at least a year to perform on OnlyFans in order to earn money for a “sex trafficking” outfit.

But when on 28 October 2022 he eventually posted content, the hashtag said something else: “My First Nudes #takeitback.”

​​“This is me taking my power back,” Levi had told Instagram a couple of days earlier. “I understand that they have videos of me. Hence why my OnlyFans makes sense.”

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Cries For Help

The Instagram post itself was, on one hand, an act of rebellion and, on the other, a cry for help.

A few days later, on 29 October 2022, Levi stepped off a ferry from Ibiza to Barcelona and disappeared, apparently without trace.

He had given every impression of loving life during a brief jaunt up La Rambla for a pint at the Old Irish Bar. Seven hours after that, a man was seen stricken out to sea – four kilometres from the ferry gates, in a shipping lane, clothed, screaming for help, in the dead of night.

The Catalan police believe it was Levi Davis. They said as much in their official report, right before icing his case. How he got there, they do not know – and they have not asked.

But Byline Times has independently found powerful evidence to suggest that he could not have got there on his own.

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Key Individuals

Byline Times has further identified several key individuals who may have more information about what was happening in Levi’s life in the lead-up to his disappearance.

Among them is an unnamed Brazilian trans woman who was “a fixture” at a number of the parties Levi was attending in London in 2020, and who is thought to have further knowledge of his lifestyle and the people he was encountering.

Another is a television industry figure Levi claimed was targeting him in the UK, whose activities are examined in detail in a further part of this investigation.

And a third is a person in whom Levi confided much – a friend in Ibiza who helped him set up his OnlyFans account. That person, Richard Squire, was also the last person to confirm seeing Levi before he left unexpectedly for Barcelona.

Squire has given statements to the Catalan authorities about Levi’s disappearance and was prominent in the unsuccessful search for his friend. He is understood to be keen to assist the authorities and has said as much to Levi’s family.

Julie Davis, Levi’s mother, said: “There are lots of loose ends and leads the police have never looked at and which I am calling on them to look at now.”

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Between Calm and Chaos

When Levi first brought up his OnlyFans idea late in 2021, friends thought he was just being madcap.

“It seemed incompatible with the music career he was trying to build and the sport that paid his bills,” said one former teammate and mentor. “I hoped he was joking.”

By October 2022, however, the sport had suffered and the music was a long way from profitable. Rugby clubs had come and gone. Income dried up. But the blackmail seemingly remained. Under its weight, Levi’s life oscillated between calm and chaos; drugs and sobriety.

By his own admission, his mental health was knocked.

On Instagram he described a recent post-drugs psychosis diagnosis. He had been prescribed medication – also for depression and anxiety. Levi rejected the diagnosis and had travelled without his meds.

“I have never seen him so deluded that he is imagining things,” said one close female long-term friend, “but he was vulnerable.”

In that last video, Levi Davis looked haunted.

Yet two years earlier, the athlete was on the very definition of an upward trajectory: scoring mazy tries from the wing for Bath, getting an ITV1 X Factor: Celebrity judges’ ovation for his soulful ‘No Diggity’, enjoying the attention his talent attracted.

Hard, then, to overstate the impact of sextortion.

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Trap-House

The more the blackmail bit, the more it seems Levi sought distraction in drugs.

When he moved into his flat in West Ealing in July 2020, backing on to a well-known supermarket, with an anonymous entrance of nondescript brick, he quickly met local dealers, operating out of a suburban “trap house”.

At the time, Levi was enjoying success. He was playing for Ealing and appearing on TV. Outwardly, he was doing well financially. But, according to former colleagues, his money went as quickly as it came in. It has been a running theme in this investigation that Levi was often short of cash.

Whether this was due, in part, to having to service the alleged blackmail, Levi’s Monzo and Barclays bank accounts might tell. But their contents have never – yet – been examined by police.

Nor have the activities of the “trappers” – described as a “Somali county lines gang” – Levi got in trouble with. A friend said that “Levi was naïve about London” and “met these people in the street and thought they were friends”.

“They came around to use his [music] studio equipment at first in his spare room,” the friend told Byline Times. “They were low-rent – selling skunk [marijuana], heavily cut cocaine and ketamine mainly.”

Another source added: “It was easy for Levi to say ‘I’ll pay you back another time’. But that built up. Some things you just say have to learn to say ‘no’ to or they become too much to replenish.

“These Somalis were giving him things that he could not afford. They were doing it on purpose, I believe. The first favour is fine. He had got some things for free and, at some point, he had to compensate.

“They were just inconsequential figures from the street. It was obvious they were just using him. They stole his flatmate’s watch one time. They ended up taking over his flat to sell drugs from and hiring cars in his name and getting parking tickets and stuff and generally just being a problem.”

This phase of Levi’s life is significant for three reasons. Firstly, it has been speculated in the media that he was fleeing these people when he disappeared, allegedly owing more than £100,000. Byline Times has learned through underworld contacts that this was untrue.

“There are main suppliers whose job it is to know when someone owes a hundred grand for a drugs debt and Levi was not known to them,” according to a crime source.

Secondly, although Levi was being bullied over a much smaller and almost certainly falsely-inflated sum of money, this newspaper has found it to be independent of the blackmail Levi spoke of on Instagram.

And thirdly, it illustrates just how vulnerable Levi was.

“Levi’s life was spinning out of control,” according to a source. “He wasn’t facing up to reality. Drugs were around him a lot more and it caused problems because people that loved him didn’t like to see it.

“And it all completely coincided with what was going on in his other life – these chaotic parties. He was getting more and more unhappy, losing motivation, and in the end having bouts of deep paranoia.

“He carried it all for about two years before he went to a doctor for some help. Predictably, they said it was the drugs that caused it. But Levi thought it was the other way around.”

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Critical New Proof?

The exact nature of the blackmail allegations, though integral to the mystery of Levi Davis’ disappearance, has never been particularised. 

Byline Times has pieced a picture together based on many hours of source interviews and it seems clear that financial – and other – advantages may have been taken in more than one way.

Julie Davis spoke to her son at length over a period of months about what was eating him.

“The blackmail would be for him to go and work, whether it was here or abroad, for them,” she said. “It was really getting to his head. Whether he felt ‘I’ll go to Barcelona, or Ibiza and do some work for them, because otherwise they are just going to continue with the blackmail’, I don’t know.

“I think the work might be of a sexual nature because he opened an OnlyFans account, he said, to take back ownership. They were blackmailing him and every day he just couldn’t focus or concentrate and he was worried for our lives. He felt it necessary to do it.

I have told the police all of this. They said they need evidence.”

Julie’s account is consistent with those of others.

A management source said: “Levi talked about the parties [sex parties he was attending sometimes under duress]. They gave him stuff to hand out to people.

“He said he was at this party and had taken drugs but he didn’t know what they were; that they had videos of him [taken afterward with a pretext of ‘role play’] and that he was being blackmailed and that it was [people] in the [entertainment] industry.”

Another source spoke of an alert going up when Levi “disappeared for a few days” early in 2022 and missed a scheduled media engagement. Worried colleagues and loved ones tracked his iPhone to a café in South Kensington, London, where they found him deeply traumatised.

A couple of days later, over a curry, he described regaining consciousness at one of the sex parties “with his feet in a bowl of water and an electric current attached”.

“He was distressed and looked beyond horrific,” according to a source. “Pretty much straight away after that there was an intervention from his family to remove Levi from London.”

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‘Blackmail Images’

Levi Davis spoke on Instagram about the need “to find evidence” of his abuse, which he said existed on the dark web. Byline Times has learned that he may have been at least partially successful.

We have spoken to one associate who claims Levi entrusted them with one of the “blackmail images”. It is understood that the image will be made available to any investigating police force “if the person is asked”.

The associate said: “Levi sent one of the images to someone he knew for safekeeping. It was a sexual image involving Levi and another person. He shared it confidentially with this person who has said they’ll pass it over to the police and the police only.

“Julie Davis is aware of the situation and so are the police in the UK. It is now up to the police whether they are interested in taking statements. All they need to do is pick up the phone and ask.”

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Organised Abuse

When Levi talked about his blackmail, he spoke of betrayal by people he had seen as “companions” in a London sex party scene who had gone on to wage a long-term campaign against him.

In private messages with university friends, seen by Byline Times, he said he had been targeted in a “variety of schemes”.

“Many times we had met but, on the last occasion, I was drugged and I was blackmailed,” Levi said publicly on Instagram.

“I am no expert but do know what happened,” he added on the social media platform.

“Shaping me into positions in films. Shaping me in role play all in the name of companionship – but these are not my companions. These are not my friends.”

In his description, the relationship with his tormentors was complex. Levi spoke of “gaslighting”, digital surveillance, and overt threats to harm him and his family.

There had been moments where he, seemingly, broke away for a while but “went back” to “conform” as he grew to “understand their demands”, he said.

One of Levi’s group told Byline Times: “He started mentioning OnlyFans a few months before he went missing. It was quite sudden. There were subtle mentions – as I took it, jokes – and then he said, ‘I’m gonna do it – it makes sense that I do’.

“We were surprised, and asked him if it was a great idea given he wanted to pursue an acting and singing career, but the financial side was enough for us to accept it made sense to him.”

But another source, a very close friend and confidant between summer 2020 and late 2021, offers a further extraordinary component to Levi’s OnlyFans decision.

“I remember Levi wanted to make a bit of money and, that for him to make money, whoever wanted money from him told him ‘we have to make an OnlyFans account under (your name) and that money will come to us’,” they said.”

“Word for word, Levi told me ‘some mafia, some human trafficking people, they are threatening me, they are threatening to kill me if I don’t pay them back, and the only way I can pay them back is let them set up an OnlyFans account, and make content; all that sexual stuff’.

“That was the blackmail. So, whatever he was gonna make from OnlyFans, that’s him paying them back.”

The claim that Levi had been under pressure to set up on OnlyFans was confirmed by a second source.

It is not clear, in the end, that he ever intended to give over any of the income generated into his attached Monzo bank account. However, it raises the prospect of the existence of financial trails as yet unexplored by the authorities.

A spokesperson for OnlyFans said the company “works with law enforcement agencies around the world to support and assist investigations where needed”.

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Breakaway Plan

Coupled with the Instagram video, Levi was – apparently – executing his breakaway plan. “He wanted to use this OnlyFans to fund getting out to LA where he wanted to get into real estate and push his music,” said one friend.

Nor was it his first act of defiance.

Two solid primary sources have confirmed that Levi’s decision to announce himself publicly as bisexual in September 2020 – five months after telling his Bath teammates – was to try and neutralise the blackmail threat.

At the time, he wanted to go further in a front page Mail on Sunday article and open up about his relationships with trans women. Levi had even drafted a statement for his friends in which he says he hoped “everyone views me no differently”, but then changed his mind about going public.

On the final occasion, however, Levi acknowledged on Instagram that he was crossing a line: “I am now not safe. By doing this I am not safe. I try not to put individuals’ names in this. And I try to be as vague as possible though fear of retaliation.”

Levi was specific about the forms of retaliation he feared and his reasons. He was acting in order to protect his family, he said, by drawing attention to the situation: “I do believe that this is a lot bigger problem than just me. Hence why I risk my life to do this.”

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An Act of Retaliation?

Julie Davis says she “always believed” what Levi was saying. His brother Nathan agrees. 

“I remember Levi saying people were following him,” Nathan said. “He said he was getting messages saying if they couldn’t get him, they would get the family.

“He never showed me any messages. He would say things but it was like he was trying to keep it to himself. He never said who was after him. He was secretive and didn’t want to involve me. I feel that there were probably multiple people involved.”

Separately to the Instagram post, Levi Davis was warning his family and friends before he travelled to Spain: “Don’t be surprised if I go missing.”

“He was really concerned,” said a friend. “The worry was wearing him down.”

Byline Times has established that contact happened through various apps, including Instagram, WhatsApp, Grindr, and the disappearing message service Snapchat.

But it was OnlyFans – rather than Grindr as the Catalan police believe – that Levi was using heavily before he went to Barcelona, according to sources in Ibiza.

Byline Times has learned that the authorities in Spain have never approached OnlyFans for assistance in their missing person’s investigation, although one UK force did make a request for information in February 2023.

In a WhatsApp message to one friend, sent from the ferry, and seen by Byline Times, Levi stated that the trip was a “business journey”. According to Richard Squire, Levi had been offered €800 to spend a night with a mystery person he met online.

Was Levi’s decision to apparently go it alone on OnlyFans, along with his defiant and revelatory Instagram, enough to provoke the retaliation he feared?

Julie Davis said: “I fear that he went to Barcelona under false pretences and was kidnapped. That is what rings out to me.”

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OnlyFans – Abuse in Plain Sight?

Launched just eight years ago by British businessman Tim Stokely, OnlyFans became a £14 billion business helping adult creators sell their content to consumers on demand.

The London-based firm takes 20% of the revenues, earning its parent company Fenix International $485 million (£370 million) in profits on $1.3 billion (£993 million) in revenue last year – around the same as Burger King.

While executives – including its female CEO Keily Blair – are keen to focus on the fact that OnlyFans also hosts non-adult content, the vast majority is pornographic.

But as the global disruptor of the porn market, has OnlyFans now become an enabler of the sort of crimes against the person traditionally associated with pimps and red-light districts?

Forensic agency DataExpert suggests that ‘e-pimps’ are managing the accounts and money of networks of ‘models’ on OnlyFans.

“One of the terms we came across was e-pimp,” said the company’s Michelle Rasch. “That’s basically an old-fashioned pimp, but online they call themselves ‘OnlyFans managers’.”

The US-based National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) has more to say on the matter: “OnlyFans portrays itself as a glamorous and ‘safe’ way to make money quickly, but the reality is much different, as even ‘creators’ report facing a myriad of serious harms, including doxxing, stalking, rape, abuse, and physical threats from subscribers and traffickers/ pimps.”

Earlier this year a Reuters investigation found almost 140 instances in which men and women complained about sexually explicit content shared on OnlyFans without their knowledge, including images taken during rapes and sexual assaults.

Strikingly, when it comes to sextortion, men are overwhelmingly more likely to fall victim. According to the National Crime Agency, 91% of victims globally are male.

Conor Clark, a journalist for Gay Star News, told Byline Times: “That’s not a surprising statistic – and it’s certainly not limited to the LGBTQ+ community. But from speaking to LGTQ+ people and friends over the past few years, I don’t know a single person in the scene who hasn’t experienced a catfish attempt, in some form. 

“On dating apps people often make faceless or fake profiles, or use photos of other people without their consent, and some users will send sexual images that are not of them, which may have been taken without that person’s consent.”

Byline Times’ dossier of evidence is available to the police.

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