Instagram models Sarah Stage and Jessica Quezada are the latest creators to sue OnlyFans management company Unruly, accusing it of pressuring them to do more explicit content and wrongfully sharing sexual materials and sending sexual messages to fans.
They are the first former clients to disclose their names in lawsuits.
Unruly and affiliated firm Behave also face three other lawsuits from creators, filed anonymously, that similarly allege the company improperly shared sexual materials. Six creators told BuzzFeed News they have struggled to get out of burdensome contracts with the agencies, and workers have sued Unruly, claiming the company illegally underpaid them. Content management services like Unruly have become popular solutions for OnlyFans creators who often face long hours or abusive fans. The services typically post and respond to messages on behalf of creators and assist with production.
Both Stage and Quezada have significant followings on Instagram. Stage has about 2 million followers, while Quezada, better known on Instagram as Jessica Giselle, has about 230,000. On Instagram, they each share content about motherhood and family life along with fitness, bikini, and lingerie photos. In their lawsuits, which were filed last week in Los Angeles County Superior Court, they say they were clear in questionnaires and surveys with the company that they did not want to produce nude content or engage in sexually explicit conduct with customers. Despite informing the company of their intentions, Stage and Quezada said, they were pushed to take nude photos at a company photo shoot and were told that if they wanted to grow their accounts, they should “do sexier stuff” and engage in sexually explicit conversations with fans.
In the complaints, both accused the company of “hoodwinking” them. The suits say the company used photo captions and sent messages that were more explicit than they’d agreed to, and that it had ignored the women’s requests to make their accounts private and set them to public instead. Quezada’s suit says that the company improperly shared an unedited photo in which her nipples were visible and asked if she would travel to meet a VIP fan in person. Stage’s suit says that company representatives who were chatting with fans on her behalf solicited pictures from fans for “dick rating” — a practice where fans send pictures of their penises to rate in exchange for a fee — without her consent.
When the women decided they had to leave, they said, Unruly claimed ownership of their OnlyFans accounts and threatened to sue them in retaliation.
A lawyer representing Unruly, Armand Jaafari, called the women’s claims “blatantly false” and “wildly inaccurate,” and said the company was “following their direction to solicit clients to purchase their pornographic content.” In a letter responding to a request for comment to BuzzFeed News, Jaafari described the matters as a contractual dispute rather than an issue of sexual abuse or exploitation and said both women breached the terms of their contract.
Jaafari acknowledged that the company had forwarded a request for Stage to rate a penis image and did not dispute that the company had shared a request for Quezada to meet a fan in person. Unruly, Jaafari said, merely presented these requests and “does not pressure nor commit any act that contradict the model’s wishes.” In response to Quezada’s claim that Unruly improperly sold a photo in which her nipples were exposed, Jaafari said the company “only uses content that creators have provided.”
In its response to Stage’s lawsuit in court, Unruly argued that she was responsible for the increasingly sexual approach on her account. Text messages included in the complaint show Stage was pushing to make more money and discussed engaging in some sexual practices on the site, including a “sexy strip tease” and selling her underwear to fans.
Camron Dowlatshahi, a lawyer representing both Stage and Quezada in their lawsuits, said that the women felt pushed to move the lines they had set because of the company’s pressure.