Aussie Olympic diving champion Matthew Mitcham is making the move to OnlyFans, seven years after getting sober.
The 2008 diving gold medallist was the star of the Beijing Games, becoming the first Aussie in 84 years to win gold in the 10m platform, pulling off what was then the highest-scoring dive in history to win the event.
But Mitcham battled a methamphetamine addiction in 2011 which he said was due to a “post-Games comedown”, finally getting clean in 2016.
He has now been sober for seven years.
He also revealed he battled depression, saying he realized he was gay at an early age but felt ashamed of his sexuality.
He battled addiction for Mitcham has been clean since retiring from the sport in 2016, and last year married his British partner Luke Rutherford.
Interestingly, both are creators on the platform.
On Wednesday, he spoke with Seven’s The Morning Show from his home in London, revealing a simple reason he was joining OnlyFans.
“The money, duh,” Mitcham said.
“But also, do you know that quote Moira Rose (from Schitt’s Creek) said ‘take a thousand naked photographs of yourself while you’re young and beautiful’, so I took 8000 just to be safe.
“It was a pretty quiet period over Christmas and that got me through quite easily. It’s just another way for people to connect with me.
“I don’t do anything too raunchy. I just like to show off my beautiful body, which is very quickly becoming more of civilian body than an athlete body but people want to see it.”
Of his addiction, Mitcham said he learned a simple lesson that “Drugs and alcohol don’t make problems go away — you’re just left with problems and a hangover.”
Mitcham works in diversity and inclusion in business and sports settings as well as being the ambassador for the charity Controlling Chemsex, which helps people deal with drug and sex addictions.
“(It) deals with addictions to drugs, sex, and particularly with sex and drugs addictions which are insidious,” Mitcham said.
“This charity provides free online counseling for people who are struggling to have sober sex and any other traumas around sex.
“We are trying to raise money to bring on more therapists to meet demand.
“It’s all online, even though it is a London-based charity, they do counseling for people in America, Thailand, Australia, wherever cause it’s all online.”