A former nurse who was so poorly paid she took cold showers because she couldn’t afford to put the heating on has revealed how she and her partner turned to OnlyFans – and now travel the world.
Poppy Palmers loved caring for children on the ward but says gruelling 13-hour shifts and a “toxic” working environment left her broke, exhausted and “depressed”.
Together with her partner Zach – the pair are known online as Poppy and Zach – she began selling videos online, and the couple now boast nearly one million followers on Reddit and post under the Instagram handle @poppypalmers2.
“I really loved my job, but you don’t get treated very nicely,” said Poppy. “I’d do 13-hour shifts and always leave late. Once I started at 7am and it was 5pm by the time I got to eat.”
“I was living alone in Leeds and, even as a nurse, I still couldn’t afford to put my heating on. I was having cold showers. It was just such a depressing life.”
She says the problems went far beyond one hospital.
“It was a really toxic work environment, and I can say that because I worked in three different cities and they were all just as bad,” she said.
At the time, Poppy was in a long-distance relationship with Zach, who was living in Plymouth, when he suggested a spontaneous way to make some extra cash.
“He had this idea of, why don’t we make a video and sell it on Reddit?” she said. “At first it wasn’t even an OnlyFans – we were just selling to random people on Reddit.”
The response stunned them – in their first three days, they made £500.
“We made £500 in three days and we were like, no way – all these people want to see us,” she said. “That alone changed the way we saw it. We realised we could actually do something for ourselves.”
“Within a month of having an OnlyFans, we literally doubled our wages, so we quit our jobs and moved to Spain,” she said. “That was about four years ago now.”
The early days were not entirely smooth. Just two weeks in, Poppy was doxed by someone who uncovered her identity – but she refused to quit.
“Someone found out who I was maybe two weeks in,” she said. “But I thought, if I quit now, they’ve still seen me – so why would I stop?”
Since then, the couple say freedom has transformed their lives.
“Every aspect of my life has changed,” she said. “I choose my own hours, I see friends and family more, and we’ve honestly travelled the world – America, Mexico, so many places. If I have a bad day, we just say, right, we’re not working today. It’s as easy as that.”
She adds that the job has even made her healthier.
“One huge thing I used to forget is that you get to choose when you eat – on the ward you eat when you can, if at all,” she said. “Now I’m a lot healthier. I’m not doing night shifts, I’m not always tired, and I’ve got time to go to the gym.”
The couple’s biggest indulgence is travel, with a recent trip to the Maldives costing at least £10,000.
“Travel is the biggest thing for us – it’s beneficial for work and for life,” she said. “We recently went to the Maldives and it was beautiful. We made really nice content there, so we earned it back. It’s that cycle I love – you almost feel like you travel for free.”
Poppy says she never dreamed the venture would take off the way it has.
“We never expected to earn this much – enough to pay your own rent and travel,” she said. “It’s crazy.”
When it came to family, Poppy says earning well quickly helped win them round.
“Most of my family were okay with it – they were mainly concerned about my safety,” she said.
“I explained it’s not like bog-standard prostitution; it’s in my own house, I make things when I choose, I’m not with a company. When they saw how depressed I’d been as a nurse, they couldn’t really blame me.”
Her advice to anyone worried about judgment is simple.
“Don’t be afraid of judgment, because people will judge you anyway – live your life the way you want,” she said. “I’m not going to take life advice from people with a life I don’t want.”
From cold showers on a nurse’s wage to a globe-trotting business empire, Poppy has no regrets about taking the leap.
