Influencer Piper Rockelle, 18, Claims She Made $2.9 Million After One Day on OnlyFans
Robert Downey Jr. doesn’t think influencer culture is endgame.
In fact, while influencers grow more ubiquitous across the pop culture zeitgeist, the Marvel actor still doesn’t see them changing the celebrity landscape in the long run.
“When I hear people talk about, ‘Oh, the stars of the future are going to be influencers,’” Robert said during the April 26 episode of Conversations for our Daughters podcast. “I go, ‘I don’t know what world you’re living into, but I think that that is absolute horses–t.’”
Though the 61-year-old is aware that today’s landscape for being an up-and-coming star today is much different than the one he grew up in.
“In the late ’70s, early ‘80s,” he said, “there was this this sense that the competition wasn’t so stiff that you shouldn’t even bother trying. Whereas nowadays, people can create celebrity without ever doing much besides rolling a phone on themselves.”
However, he doesn’t necessarily “look at that as a negative thing,” he said. “I just look at it as more like the challenge for individuation is being upped.”
In fact, the Oppenheimer star has faith the next generation of stars will seek out a niche beyond the confines of social media.
“Hopefully, the grosser part of the youth is going to say, ‘Yeah, but that’s not my thing,’” he reflected. “‘I want to go do something. I want to make something. I want to build something. I want to I want to educate myself and I want to have more inputs. So, whatever my output is, isn’t just um a self-aggrandizing kind of influencer type thing.”
Craig T Fruchtman/WireImage
Though Robert did admit that the digital age obsession even made it into his own home with his son Exton, whom he shares with wife Susan Downey, in addition to 11-year-old daughter Avri. Robert is also dad to son Indio, 32, with ex-wife Deborah Falconer.
“My now 13-year-old son, he kind of got caught up in this whole influencer thing and next thing you know it’s like, ‘Hey, if you like the way I’m playing this video game, do you want to send me a donation?’” the Oscar winner recalled. “And really it becomes a religion. So, there’s something about the influencers today are almost like the evangelical hucksters of the information age.”
And yet, he noted, “at the same token, it’s different because we’re playing in this new territory. So, it’s a little bit of a frontier and I don’t really have a judgment on it.”
But in a world where more and more of the cultural exchange happens on cell phones, the life of an influencer likewise becomes an increasingly lucrative career opportunity. For more insight into how much money some of your favorite influencers are actually pocketing, read on.
Bradley on a Budget
Bradley, who documents ways to save and make money, shared that he earned $58,857 on OnlyFans in 2025, as well as $123, 933 on content creating as an influencer with 1.5 million TikTok followers.
X / Lil Tay
Lil Tay
The content creator said in an August 2025 Instagram post that she earned over $1 million on OnlyFans in three hours, less than a week after turning 18.
Tay shared a photo of her alleged earnings, in which she earned $1,024,298: $486,558 from messages, $511,003 from subscriptions and $26,736 in tips.
Ariana Biermann
Kim Zolciak-Biermann‘s daughter is making her way an influencer, sharing on her Bravo show Next Gen NYC that she makes $1,000 per sponsored post on TikTok.
“Now living in damn New York City, I need to be making a lot more money than I was making in Atlanta,” she said in a July 2025 episode. “Right now I need to be doing everything that I can to generate even more money.”
Ariana—who inked her first brand deal at age 14—knows it can be lucrative, saying, “You can get paid astronomical [amounts] to do a story or do an Instagram post, and I made quite a bit of money.”
Miriam Ezagui
She shared in June 2025 that a sex toy company once offered her $100,000 to do advertisements for them, which she turned down. The deal would’ve included two in-feed Instagram posts, two TikTok posts, two Instagram Story posts and two YouTube integrations.
Photo by John Nacion/Variety via Getty Images
Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson
The YouTuber—who boasts over 430 million subscribers on the platform—shared that he had become a billionaire “on paper” in February 2025.
However, he explained that he mostly doesn’t keep that money for himself.
“In my actual bank account, I have less than a million dollars,” he explained during an appearance on the Diary of a CEO podcast at the time. “I just like to reinvest it all.”
As of January 2026, he shared he has “negative money,” despite his estimated $2.6 billion net worth.
“I’m borrowing money. That’s how little money I have,” MrBeast told the Wall Street Journal. “Technically, everyone watching this video has more money than me in their bank account if you subtract the equity value of my company, which doesn’t buy me McDonald’s in the morning.”
Sophie Rain
The OnlyFans model revealed that she made over $43 million in just one year on the adult subscription platform. In fact, she even shared screenshots of her earnings from November 2023 to November 2024, which included a $4.7 million paycheck from one subscriber alone.
J Lingo/Shutterstock
JoJo Siwa
The Dance Moms alum revealed that she made “six digits a month, easy” on YouTube videos as a 13-year-old. She added in the 2024 documentary Child Star that she now posts up to 300 times a day on Snapchat as part of her influencing career.
Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images
Chris Olsen
The TikToker revealed he has a net worth of over seven figures.
“You guys can keep calling me annoying,” he quipped in a July 2024 video. “Being annoying has made me a millionaire.”
Rosdiana Ciaravolo/Getty Images
Jeffree Star
The makeup artist revealed he earns $50,000 when he hosts a TikTok live—which he does four or five times a week—through selling cosmetics and gifting from fans.
“I’ll make bacon in the morning and make $50,000,” Jeffree told the Cancelled podcast in November 2024. “There’s some times where I don’t sell at all, and I’ll just make bacon in my kitchen, in my bathrobe, in my little slippers, we’ll just hang out and I’ll just chat and I’ll do a Q&A.”
Other times, he’s making bank by offering discounts on his own branded makeup products.
“It’s a niche market but it’s massive,” he added. “We’re the No. 1 or 2 beauty store.”
Instagram/Lily Phillips
Lily Phillips
The OnlyFans model—who made headlines in December 2024 for sleeping with 101 men in one day—told E! News that she earns a “good amount” off of creating NSFW content on the subscription-based platform.
As for a ballpark figure, she said, “Oh, we’re in the millions.”
Cassidy Sparrow/Getty Images for META x Megan Thee Stallion
Markell Washington
Markell—known for his dance videos—told Salary Transparency Street in 2023 that he earns between $500,000 and $700,000 a year, mostly from brand deals and Snapchat’s mid-roll program.
Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Netflix
Deepti Vempati and Natalie Lee
After appearing on Netflix’s dating show Love Is Blind in 2022, the pair pivoted to social media stardom and said they each made $500,000 in less than two years as influencers.
Instagram (@heidimontag)
Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt
Similarly, the Hills alums turned to social media to make money after the Los Angeles wildfires of 2025. But they weren’t earning as much as people thought.
“Everyone thought that was $3.5 million in the week,” Spencer told E! News at the time. “If it was true, we would be in Bel Air right now shopping for our new house.”
Instead, he revealed he only made $3,500 that week from the 5,000 videos on his TikTok page.
Julia
The ASMR influencer—known as @itsblitzzz on YouTube —admitted in January 2024 that she scores about $56,400 a year on ad revenue from old videos, without creating new content.
She’s made over $610,000 in 14 years on the platform in ad revenue alone, with less than a million subscribers.
King Caitlin ASMR
The ASMR creator shared that she made $3,948.05 on TikTok in September 2024 (with nearly 400,000 followers) and $910.95 on YouTube in the same month (with nearly 27,000 subscribers).
Makayla Samountry
The Minnesota YouTuber made over $193,000 on the adult platform OnlyFans from January 2020 to December 2022, she shared in a Medium article.
Morgan Presley
As explained on The Really Good Podcast in 2023, the content creator has scored $50,000 on a single sponsored video.
Jared Siskin/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Gigi Robinson
The chronic illness advocate told Salary Transparency Street in 2023 that she earns about $150,000 a year with less than 40,000 Instagram followers.
Ben Brainard
The comedian charges between $5,000 and $10,000 for a sponsored video, he told Salary Transparency Street.
Kamillah Rae
The YouTuber shared that she made $4,746.94 from monetization on the platform from August 2023 to January 2024 (from a total of 923,700 video views), with under 30,000 subscribers.
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