OnlyFans Could Be Next For Pioneering Pornstar

Before the exciting world of OnlyFans, cam modeling or even flat-out pornography made it into the mainstream, there was The Robyn Byrd Show. Starting in 1977 on New York City’s public access channels, budding pornographic actress Robyn Byrd started her own adult talk show. What began rather innocuously evolved into a cult hit and featured plenty of porn stars (usually wearing nothing or close to nothing) throughout the show’s 22-year run. Now, a new HBO documentary produced by actress Sarah Jessica Parker is exploring Byrd’s past and plans for her future.

Airing from 1977 to 1998, The Robyn Byrd Show helped elevate the adult industry into the public eye and even educated people along the way. After all, airing at the height of the AIDS epidemic gave Byrd an educational opportunity that she did not refuse. The many episodes that aired around this time urged safe sex and even demonstrated proper condom use. Though some may know Byrd as a pornstar, most overlook her role as an advocate for free speech. The fact that her show had uncensored nudity (and lots of it) angered many on the American political right, namely Ronald Reagan and his administration. Byrd eventually took both Reagan and Time Warner Cable to the Supreme Court and won, meaning public access channels could remain free of censorship. Byrd says this made her into “an accidental activist”. 

Byrd, now 71, keeps an eye on the adult world, but mainly cares for her husband Shelly, who has dementia. She claims that many other documentary filmmakers approached her in an effort to tell her story, but she says that no one understood her quite like Stephanie Schwam and Jyllian Gunther, the directors of the upcoming documentary. “I had many offers before, but it didn’t feel right. And Stephanie and Jyllian, they were [fans of my show]. I raised them. They got it.” Byrd is a firm believer in astrology and adopts a universal way of thinking. She says that the director duo came to her when Mercury was in retrograde, a time that astrology followers use to “renew and redo and rethink” as Byrd tells it. Stephanie Schwam says of Byrd, “If you talk to Robin, she’ll say the universe said it was time. She leads with her gut.”

Byrd has always been a leader when it comes to discussing gender and sexuality, which is part of the reason she elected two female directors who had grown up with her show to direct the upcoming documentary. When the show was still on the air, before trans adult film actors & actresses became popular, both gay and straight communities widely discriminated against trans actors & actresses. Byrd’s show helped to bring attention to a growing community and eventually smooth over any hostilities toward actors and actresses in the trans community.

Byrd looks at today’s adult content on more mainstream websites as “LED” versus “an old-timey bulb”, adding, “[Analog era porn] was soft, it was artsy. It was an art form… And digital [porn] is very harsh… It [is] very distant, very cold. I [don’t] like it.” She posits that the internet is too vast an expanse for porn, which used to be a lot more personal in her public access days. “The internet is open to the world. Here in New York City, where I was born, bred, and raised, people got it. But to be open on the internet to some rural religious towns - they wouldn’t have gotten it. In New York, we accept everybody, and we accept everybody to do their own thing as long as you’re not hurting anybody. But in other parts of the country, they don’t like that.”

While it’s not as difficult as Byrd may think to find accepting audiences on OnlyFans, the phone sex pioneer claims that “OnlyFans is phone sex lines with video,” adding, “We have OnlyFans and whatever because I’m not on the air anymore.” While the platform could certainly benefit from the addition of content from an adult industry trailblazer, Byrd says she’s busy “enjoying the life that I built. Why do [I] have to do more?