In an effort to raise money for families of color displaced by the recent Los Angeles wildfires, actor and comedian Milana Vayntrub is going much farther than a GoFundMe.
Rising to fame a decade ago as “the AT&T girl” featured prominently in commercials for the telecom giant, Vayntrub recently launched OnlyPhilanthropy – a kind of spoof of the ubiquitous adult content platform OnlyFans – where she’s sharing “flirty” photos in exchange for cash for victims.
Though she is not providing nudes, Vayntrub says the project hopes to “use the male gaze to fight the blaze.” One such flirty pic will run you $69, with tiers for more. The platform comes with a gentleman’s agreement that donors will not proliferate the images online. Vayntrub is handing 100% of her proceeds to benefit BIPOC families affected by multiple devastating fires in Southern California this year. In four days of operation, she’s stacked nearly $200,000.
“I’m excited to take male attention and alchemize it into resources for women in need,” she said. “This is about more than one fundraiser; it’s about redefining who controls the financial power of online attention.”
Vayntrub hopes to eventually recruit other celebrities, influencers and activists to join her “purpose-driven experiment.”
A refugee escaping antisemitism at age two, Vayntrub was raised in West Hollywood. In addition to her work with AT&T, she most recently appeared in “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” and the Tribeca Film Festival player “Bad Shabbos.” Additional credits include the Judd Apatow Netflix series “Love,” HBO’s “Silicon Valley,” NBC’s “This Is Us” and Showtime’s “Californication.”