OnlyFans owner Leonid Radvinsky dies at 43 after cancer battle

Leonid Radvinsky, the Ukrainian-born American entrepreneur who propelled OnlyFans into a multibillion-dollar global platform, has died at the age of 43.

The company confirmed that Radvinsky passed away peacefully following a long battle with cancer. In a statement, OnlyFans requested privacy for his family during this difficult time.

Radvinsky, who was born in Ukraine and raised in Chicago, acquired the content subscription platform in 2018 from its two UK-based founders. While OnlyFans was founded in 2016 as a social media platform for a range of creators, it was under Radvinsky’s ownership that it became synonymous with the adult entertainment industry, revolutionizing how creators connect with fans through livestreams, personalized messages, and custom content.

The site’s popularity surged during the Covid-19 pandemic, a period of explosive growth that landed Radvinsky on Forbes’ annual list of billionaires by 2021.

OnlyFans operates by taking a 20 per cent commission on all payments made through the platform. According to its most recent filing with Companies House, the company generated $1.4 billion in revenue from over $7 billion in transactions in 2024. The platform reported more than 377 million subscribers and approximately 4.6 million creators last year.

Despite its commercial success, the company has faced significant regulatory and legal scrutiny. In 2024, British regulators launched an investigation into whether children were able to access pornographic content on the site, an issue OnlyFans attributed to a technical problem. The investigation resulted in a fine of approximately £1 million from Ofcom, the UK communications regulator.

The company has also been involved in ongoing legal battles with users who claimed they were misled after discovering that chats they believed were with creators were actually managed by third-party contractors.

A graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in economics, Radvinsky was a resident of Florida in recent years. Beyond OnlyFans, he was an active investor in technology companies through his Florida-based venture capital firm, Leo.com. His philanthropic efforts included donations to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.