Aussie Olympian Matthew Mitcham says he has boundaries after joining OnlyFans

Australian Olympic champion Matthew Mitcham has revealed the firm line he refuses to cross on OnlyFans despite admitting more explicit content could help him buy a house and clear his debts.

The retired diving star joined the subscription platform in 2022, but does not share full-frontal nudity or perform sex acts for paying followers.

Mitcham, who has battled drug addiction and low self-esteem, said his decade of sobriety helped him recognise the potential dangers of chasing money and online validation.

‘It is about the body and commodifying it and therefore the more validation you get, the more money you can get, or the more people want to validate you,’ he said on the Mental As Anyone podcast.

‘If I were not so aware of my own history of being very dependent on external sources of validation, it could totally become not a healthy thing.

‘But I guess because I only came to OnlyFans much later in life and my mental health journey … because I was many years sober before I decided to do OnlyFans, I was already aware of all that stuff.’

The 38-year-old applies one basic test before uploading material to the adults-only platform.

‘If I can defend it as art, then I’ll post it,’ he said.

Mitcham acknowledged creators willing to produce explicit material could make significant amounts of money, but said he was not prepared to follow that path.

‘It is a business and the people who really invest in the business make very, very good money,’ he said.

‘And like, I would love to just buy a house, I would love to, you know, pay off all my debts and everything, but I am just not willing to do full porn at this point in time.’

His decision is partly driven by his ambition to continue working on mainstream television, including appearances connected to the Olympics.

‘I do really enjoy still being able to go on Channel 7 or Channel 9 and do little bits and pieces here and there around the Olympics,’ he said.

‘I’d love to work in morning television and I feel like it shouldn’t be the case, however I do acknowledge that a lot of decision-makers, particularly around network television, have to consider the audience and appeal to the greatest number of people.’

Mitcham said television executives tended to take a conservative approach because they did not want to alienate viewers.

‘And so, it’s not inconceivable that a lot of people might not like having a porn star presenting their morning television to their kids,’ he said.

‘I don’t know. Look, I just think it’s better to be safe than sorry.’

His OnlyFans rules come despite Mitcham having previously appeared fully nude on stage.

Earlier this year, he starred in the Australian production of the American play Afterglow, which explored the complicated relationship between a married couple.

The production included nudity and featured a working shower on stage.

‘It’s not the first time I have been fully nude on stage either. I did that in West End last year,’ Mitcham said in February.

‘It’s a kind of a bait and switch. We get people in with the tantalising, like, ooh, naughty, naughty kind of nudity.

‘But we actually get them, once we got them there, we tell a fantastic story.’

Mitcham became an Australian sporting hero at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, producing a near-perfect final dive to win the 10m platform gold medal.

He entered the last round in second place before scoring 112.10 points, then the highest score recorded for a single dive in Olympic history.

The performance earned four perfect 10s and prevented China from completing a clean sweep of the diving gold medals.

Mitcham was also the first Australian man to win Olympic diving gold since Dick Eve in 1924.

He later revealed in his 2012 autobiography, Twists and Turns, that he had struggled with crystal meth addiction.

Now ten years sober, Mitcham said he had learned to associate drugs with their damaging consequences instead of the temporary escape they appeared to provide.

‘Drugs were a tool to change the way I felt,’ he said.