Why Did This Paralympian Turn Down $15K?

Catarina Guimaraes is a Paralympian with bills to pay and a gold medal to chase, so a $15,000 offer should have been tempting. All a stranger wanted was one "sexy video call." She turned him down without much hesitation.

The 22-year-old track athlete from New Jersey says she was "baffled" and "flabbergasted" by the offer. Her teammates were not. They told her to take it. She didn't, saying that kind of thing simply isn't what she's about.

But it had to be tempting. That one call would have paid more than half of the recent $25,000 OnlyFans sponsorship she's signed. That’s for one calendar year of work, and one call would’ve been more than half that. Yet she said no.

Because for Guimaraes, that kind of content is a non-starter. Instead, she has a $10-a-month page filled with gym routines, power cleans, pull-ups, a protein shake, and clips of her singing songs from "Hamilton." In one video, she admits from her car that she's "realizing that life is a lot." It's all safe for work. OnlyFans signed her as part of its sports program, which has around 285 athletes. It’s part of the platform’s effort to change its image and bring what she calls a more wholesome look to the site. Sure, several athletes run a clean page that funnels fans toward a VIP page with explicit videos. But that’s not something Guimaraes is interested in.

Yet the money does matter, because her body makes training harder. Guimaraes has cerebral palsy, which she describes as "having bad WiFi in your brain." She tells her legs to move, and the signal arrives a half-second late. Even so, she became the first NCAA Division I athlete with cerebral palsy, finished eighth in the long jump at the 2024 Paris Paralympics, and is aiming for Los Angeles in 2028. Oh, and she's also finishing a master's degree in kinesiology. NBD. Her dad says the deal is meant to keep her from worrying about whether she has enough gas money to get to practice, and with so much on her plate, a traditional 9-5 won’t cut it. 

She's not the first Olympic-level athlete to look to OnlyFans for help. Australian diver Matthew Mitcham, a 2008 gold medalist, reportedly made about triple what he earned as a top athlete once he started posting. German bobsledder Lisa Buckwitz, a 2018 gold medalist, helped pay for the 2026 Winter Games with her account. It’s becoming increasingly common for Olympians of all kinds to create accounts to fund their athletic careers during the Games and beyond.

Being on the platform still has a price, even with a clean page. Instagram has cut the reach of some of her popular posts, saying her association with OnlyFans violates its rules, and it doesn't pay her anything. After she spoke out against Sydney Sweeney's nude sports-betting ad, the backlash got ugly enough that she shut off comments on her 78,000-follower account.

Maybe Guimaraes will one day change her mind about the kind of content she creates. But for now, she chooses workouts and Broadway show tunes.