How OnlyFans Creators Are Fighting Deepfake Scammers

It wouldn’t come as a surprise if you’ve heard the name Elaina St. James before (especially if you enjoy the steamier side of OnlyFans’ MILF/Mature realm), but this shapely OnlyFans star is in the headlines again, this time for thwarting scammers. 

St. James, who will turn 60 next year, started out on OnlyFans in 2021. Before long, she gained widespread attention for her bold content, challenging the notion that there’s such a thing as being “too old for OnlyFans”. She has become known as one of the pioneering mature creators on the platform, having amassed millions of views across her thousands of photos and videos. You’ll find everything on her page from orgies to foot play, and there’s almost no limit to what St. James is capable of creating. She takes her relationship with her fans very seriously, and she’s made over $1.5 million on the site.

The platform she built for herself on OnlyFans has allowed her to grow beyond adult content creation and into writing. In 2022, she penned How to Date Hot Older Women: The Ultimate Guide to Dating Older Women. The book holds high ratings on Amazon, where users praise St. James for her well-written work that’s full of expertise you’ll only get from someone like St. James. 

It’s the photoshoot that accompanied this book that’s started an epic scammer takedown.

While scrolling TikTok one day, Elaina saw a photo of herself and recognized it immediately. Before publishing her book, she posed for some (safe-for-work) pictures with a pro photographer. On TikTok, she saw one of these photos being used by an account called “ElainaStJamespriv” (“priv” is shorthand for private). 

After clicking on the photo, St. James says the photo began to talk. “Hey, it’s me, Elaina. I just wanted to hop on here really quick because I’ve been noticing a lot of fake accounts pretending to be me.” It continued, promising, “If you’re not following me here, you’re missing out on the real me. I can’t wait to chat with you.” 

Getting the obvious out of the way, that wasn’t the real Elaina St. James, but an Artificial Intelligence (AI) “deepfake”. 

The scammers impersonate St. James and other creators using these deepfakes, then lure fans onto CashApp to collect money for “custom content”. They then take the fan’s money and block them. Jessieanna Campbell, another OnlyFans star, says she commonly receives messages from fans asking why she blocked them after taking their money. Campbell then has to break the news that it wasn’t her they were talking to. 

Deepfakes, as they’re called, are often hard to spot, but have become exponentially more common thanks to the rapid expansion of AI software. Now, almost anyone with an internet connection can order an AI service to create an entire video, as the one St. James encountered. One quick request on an AI website and you’ll get Scarlett Johansson wishing you a happy birthday, or Morgan Freeman exploring the Serengeti while reciting Shakespeare. 

While these endless possibilities may be exciting for some, for OnlyFans creators (and women in general), being the target of an AI deepfake scam can be dangerous. According to cyberrights.org, 90% of the time, women are the victims of this non-consensual deepfake imagery.

OnlyFans creator Shaghana Doyle says more than a few victims of the scam have appeared at her home address demanding money or making threats. “If there’s someone else out there making completely fake content of me (with) fans thinking they are talking to me, thinking they’re gonna get married to me, and they see me in person and I ignore them… There are people out there that are gonna snap, and it puts me in a dangerous position where I could be hurt or killed,” Doyle said. 

St. James now has several disclaimers on her website that warn of scammers using her likeness. “BEWARE OF IMPOSTERS!” One warning reads, continuing, “Elaina chats on her two verified subscription ‘SPECIAL’ sites. She will NOT reach out to you, but scammers will.” 

The chief concern OnlyFans stars like Elaina St. James and Shaghana Doyle have? The good technology is being outpaced by the bad. St. James has spent thousands of dollars over the course of her career to have scammers removed through services like Takedown Piracy. The company claims to have removed nearly 400 million unauthorized deepfakes, but that’s just not enough. Before the age of AI, deepfaking required genuine skill with Photoshop or other photo-editing software. Now, one click is all it takes. According to a 2025 Identity Fraud report by Entrust, fraudsters attempted a deepfake scam once every five minutes.

For St. James, it’s simple. She says, “Any time a pirate can figure out a way to utilize somebody’s content to make money without having done all the work, they’re going to do it.”