{"id":189850,"date":"2025-10-04T17:15:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T17:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/189850\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T17:15:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T17:15:11","slug":"how-bonnie-blue-became-a-34m-family-enterprise-and-feud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/189850\/","title":{"rendered":"How Bonnie Blue became a \u00a334m family enterprise (and feud)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rise to fame of Bonnie Blue<\/a>, who became Britain\u2019s most notorious adult entertainer by claiming to have had sex with 1,057 men in 12 hours<\/a>, raises any number of questions. Not the least of these is: how do her friends and family put up with it?<\/p>\n

After all, it is one thing when an individual decides to make her living by filming herself having sex with hundreds of strangers. What about when that woman is your daughter, sister or wife?<\/p>\n

The depressing answer is that they all appear to be on the books. Earlier this year, viewers of a Channel 4 documentary, 1000 Men and Me: The Bonnie Blue Story, about Blue \u2013 real name Tia Billinger, 26 \u2013 were shocked to discover that not only was she married, but her husband, Oliver Davidson, 27, had encouraged her into the porn industry in the first place, and had a job helping to manage her.<\/p>\n

\"Bonnie<\/p>\n

Channel 4 released a documentary of the porn star this summer called, \u20181000 Men and Me: The Bonnie Blue Story\u2019 – Rob Parfitt\/Channel 4<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re married so he\u2019s going to get some of the money regardless,\u201d Billinger said of Davidson in an interview last year. \u201cHe might as well work for it. This job benefits everyone in my family, including him.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is a family enterprise \u2013 her mother, grandmother and stepfather have all been enthusiastic supporters, too. \u201cIf you could earn \u00a31m a month, you\u2019d change your morals and get your bits out,\u201d Billinger\u2019s mother says in the film. After a screening earlier this year, The Telegraph critic, Anita Singh, noted the crowd was packed with Billinger\u2019s close relatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might be thinking that Bonnie\u2019s parents are horrified by her life choices,\u201d she wrote. \u201cNope. They\u2019re on the payroll. Also at the screening I attended were Bonnie\u2019s mum, dad and granny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: The Reality Check Podcast on YouTube<\/p>\n

\u2018Evil and controlling\u2019<\/p>\n

All the same, few were surprised when it was reported earlier this year that Billinger and Davidson, childhood sweethearts who married when Billinger was 22, were planning to divorce.<\/p>\n

Billinger has insisted the separation was amicable and has \u201chad nothing to do\u201d with her work, of which Davidson, a rugby-loving, privately-educated estate agent, was said to be \u201cvery proud\u201d.<\/p>\n

There is mounting evidence, however, that the gargantuan fortune Billinger has amassed through her work, reported to be as much as \u00a334m, is at the heart of an acrimonious split.<\/p>\n

\"Tia<\/p>\n

Childhood sweethearts, Billinger and Davidson, have broken up and are planning to divorce – @olliemdavidson\/Instagram<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Oliver\u2019s mother, Gill Davidson, gave an interview in which she said Billinger and her \u201cevil\u201d team were working to prevent her son from profiting by the divorce.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy son is no longer on the payroll,\u201d Gill Davidson told the Daily Mail. \u201cTia and her team have cut him out, and it seems he is not entitled to a penny of her wealth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be glad to have got rid of her,\u201d she added. \u201cIt\u2019s all about her. She\u2019s controlling and manipulative.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family circle<\/p>\n

It is the latest twist in a saga that has revealed the mind-boggling and tawdry extremes of internet culture, as well as the vast sums of money involved. Billinger\u2019s own earnings are thought to exceed \u00a31.5m per month.<\/p>\n

Born in 1999, Billinger grew up in Draycott, Derbyshire, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone, she has said, and where it\u2019s \u201cnice, but it\u2019s as if you can\u2019t leave\u201d. Her mother, Sarah, is a care worker. She never knew her biological father, but saw her stepfather, Nicholas Elliot, a welder, as her \u201creal father\u201d. Both have been supportive of her career choices.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously he doesn\u2019t sit watching the videos, but all my social media, my TikToks, he\u2019ll have a look at,\u201d Billinger said earlier this year of her stepfather. \u201cAnd he\u2019s just proud seeing how happy I am, how much I\u2019ve been able to support the family \u2013 it\u2019s really changed my life and my family\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarah, for her part, told the Channel 4 documentary: \u201cWas it something I\u2019d have chosen for her to do? No. I was really shocked. Would I want her to do anything else? No. All you want is for your kids to be happy, and she is happy. She\u2019s got no daddy issues, she\u2019s not been abused \u2013 all these things people insist that must have happened to her. It\u2019s her choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarah has even reportedly helped produce props for her daughter\u2019s stunts, including a sign saying, \u201cBonk me for free, let me film it\u201d, which was used by Billinger last year when she slept with 150 students during Nottingham University\u2019s freshers week.<\/p>\n

\"Tia<\/p>\n

Billinger has been banned from two countries for her extreme behaviour and sex stunts – @bonnieblue\/Instagram<\/p>\n

Billinger met Davidson, the son of a successful local businessman, at a New Year\u2019s Eve party in 2013. After she left school during sixth form, it was his parents who helped the couple put together a deposit to buy their own home outside Nottingham. By 19, she was working in recruitment for the NHS, but wondering if there was more to life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kept thinking, \u2018Is that all there is?\u2019,\u201d she told The Times earlier this year. For 18 months, they tried and failed to have a baby, before alighting on another solution to late-adolescent ennui: heading Down Under. After lockdown, she and Davidson sold up and moved to Australia, where she first started working as a \u201ccam girl\u201d, performing sex acts online for paying customers. Davidson, she told a podcast earlier this year, was one of her biggest early supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said I could never do that,\u201d Billinger told the Holly Randall Unfiltered podcast. \u201cI\u2019d never have the confidence. People wouldn\u2019t want to watch me, I\u2019m not pretty enough. He was like, \u2018No, you\u2019re beautiful. Do it\u2019, and I guess, gave me the confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s just sales\u2019<\/p>\n

The skills she had picked up in her office job proved transferable. \u201cInstantly I enjoyed it, and I was good at it,\u201d she told The Times. \u201cIt\u2019s just sales, really.\u201d Before long, she was making thousands per month. She and Davidson, who was schooled at Trent College in Long Eaton, split up when he moved back to the UK, having reportedly tired of the endless beach days and boat trips.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was living in Australia. He\u2019d moved back to the UK,\u201d Billinger explained at the time. \u201cAnd we\u2019d been together from the age of 14, so we just grew apart… I changed a lot. He changed a lot. We weren\u2019t the most compatible towards the end. Like, we both wanted different things from partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

She subsequently became a real-life escort, and launched a profile on OnlyFans<\/a>, a subscriber-based platform popular with sex workers. Billinger soon discovered a knack for publicity-generating scandal. She advertised herself as free to school leavers and students who would agree to being filmed while they had sex with her (they could maintain anonymity with balaclavas or masks).<\/p>\n

She was banned from AirBnB, Australia and Fiji for her stunts. When criticised for her extreme behaviour, she replied even more provocatively, claiming she was only doing things that ought to have been the duty of wives and girlfriends.<\/p>\n

\"Tia<\/p>\n

The adult entertainer claims to have had sex with 1,057 men in 12 hours – Instagram\/@bonnieblue<\/p>\n

The combination of PR nous and a willingness to put herself through extreme physical stunts meant her earnings skyrocketed \u2013 and she quickly became OnlyFans\u2019 bestselling performer. But the platform finally banned her earlier this year, not after the 1000-man stunt in January, but following another proposal in which she would become a human \u201cpetting zoo\u201d, where she would be tied up in a glass box so that anyone who wanted to could come and have sex with her, in full view of onlookers.<\/p>\n

Although she has yet to hit the same revenue on her new hosting site, Fansly, Billinger has already amassed a fortune. As long as she maintains her instinct for the internet economy, where the spoils often seem to go to those who are most extreme, she is unlikely to starve. Nor are the friends, family members and other close accomplices who have become dependent on her.<\/p>\n

Billinger is the most famous face of a booming industry. OnlyFans generated more than \u00a34.1bn in revenue last year, and Pornhub reported 115 million visitors per day. Even within the growing field, her numbers are impressive \u2013 she has amassed more than 600,000 followers across different accounts and millions of views on TikTok.<\/p>\n

No sign of emotion<\/p>\n

Other performers have done shocking stunts. Lily Phillips, another OnlyFans star, made headlines when she slept with 100 men in a day. In the documentary about that event, Phillips breaks down afterwards. In an interview in August, her father, Lindsay, said he would sell the family home if it would help his daughter change career.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s anything we could do to change her profession, we\u2019d do it overnight,\u201d he said in an episode of Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over. \u201cIt\u2019s the \u2018degradingness\u2019 of it and making sure that she\u2019s safe,\u201d Lindsay explained. \u201cSometimes we think, \u2018Have we done anything wrong with her upbringing?\u2019. Well, as far as I\u2019m concerned, we\u2019ve had nothing but nice times and lov… Is it money? Because if it was money, we\u2019d sell our house. You could have everything you want, Lily, if you gave it all up now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Billinger has yet to display any such vulnerability, despite constantly being told she must have trauma, or some other mental health issue. Instead, she gives the impression she thinks of the most intimate human activities as no different from shaking hands, and is pleasantly surprised to find she has made generational wealth from doing so.<\/p>\n

Those around her, apart from her mother-in-law, appear to remain loyal. As with successful musicians, actors or sportspeople, such sums of money at such a young age have a warping effect. As Billinger herself has bluntly put it, \u201cMy mum said to me as a kid, \u2018Don\u2019t be a town bike\u2019, but now me being a bike has paid for our bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Blue empire, a multi-million pound family porn business, is not going anywhere. But whether Davidson will receive any of the proceeds of her work remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

Billinger has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rise to fame of Bonnie Blue, who became Britain\u2019s most notorious adult entertainer by claiming to have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[94912,94908,49,48,361,75,852,94909,94910,94911],"class_list":{"0":"post-189850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-billinger","9":"tag-bonnie-blue","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-celebrities","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-family","15":"tag-oliver-davidson","16":"tag-sarah-billinger","17":"tag-tia-billinger"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}