‘The Sopranos’ Drea de Matteo Says OnlyFans Is A Safer Space Than Hollywood

For Drea de Matteo, OnlyFans has been a significant career change in more ways than one.

The actress best known for her role as Adriana La Cerva on "The Sopranos" recently opened up about having zero regrets since joining the explicit platform. She revealed why OF was a better space to be in than Hollywood.

Drea de Matteo shocked fans when she joined OnlyFans at 51. However, she claims she had no choice but to bare it all to survive.

A snippet of TMZ's upcoming "Famous & Naked" documentary captured Drea's candid reflection on how joining OnlyFans has been a life-changing experience. She thanked the platform for making her financially stable during a difficult period.

Drea explained that she joined OF out of desperation when she had a few hundred bucks left in her bank account, and her house was nearly foreclosed. She stressed that the platform empowered her to care for her family, which was why she could handle the backlash.

"So the negativity that came with it bring it the f-ck on!" the explicit content creator declared before reflecting on how OnlyFans was a safer space for her than Hollywood. In her words:

"Hollywood, the actual industry itself. There's a lot of shifty sh-t that goes on in Hollywood, and we all know that. It's about freedom, and I don't have to answer to f—king anybody right now."

Drea's OnlyFans journey began at the surprising age of 51. As reported by The Blast, she joined the platform to support her children after experiencing career setbacks because she refused to get vaccinated for COVID-19.

The media personality opened up about her reasons in an emotional interview last September, revealing her agent dropped her and she almost lost her house. Frustrated by Hollywood's vaccine mandates, Drea confessed:

"I didn't know this was going to have to be a change of life, you know, all of a sudden that during a time I'm supposed to be relaxing a little bit, that I would have to switch careers and figure new things out because my own industry thinks I'm, you know, a savage."

She continued saying, "I guess you could say I was a bad girl because I did not follow the rules a couple of years ago. So, I don't want to be at the mercy of mandates or strikes or anything like that ever again."

Drea explained that when her vaccine stance prevented her from working, she decided to join OnlyFans to support her family.

"I figured, 'OK, so everybody's in their underwear and being sexy on Instagram, and I don't do that, but I can do that and get paid for it.'… I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner," she said.

The 52-year-old launched her OnlyFans account in August 2023, priced at $15 per month, and playfully named it "THE SOPORNOS ;-)." She saw this career change as another means to support her two children, Alabama Gypsy Rose and Waylon Albert "Blackjack," claiming:

"I used to have a lot of money. And then, all of a sudden, I went from being allowed to work to never being allowed to work again. I was never the kind of actor who took jobs just to stay in the business. I literally took jobs to feed my family."

A year after joining OnlyFans, Drea lost her mother, Donna de Matteo, to a cardiac episode on May 31. The matriarch previously lived with Alzheimer's disease for ten years before dying at 82, a loss that naturally broke her daughter's heart.

"We are deeply saddened by the unexpected loss of my mother, Donna de Matteo," Drea announced in an interview, adding, "I was on my way to New York to spend the summer with her when I received the news of her passing."

Drea followed her mother's footsteps into the entertainment industry, with Donna serving as a playwright during her life.

Per PEOPLE, she wrote over 30 plays, including several off-Broadway productions across various themes with insights from her childhood trauma, the complex dynamics of family, homophobia, and addiction.

Drea's mother achieved several milestones, including serving as an executive director of the HB Playwright Foundation and becoming a founding member of the National Organization of Italian-American Women.

These achievements earned her a touching homage from her daughter, who said:

"My mother was an amazing woman. She was sensitive, emotional, and brilliant. She experienced generational trauma but refused to let it define her. She took her pain and made beautiful art with it, writing plays that tore your heart out, teaching her craft to others."

"All of the best and worst of the Italian American experience was present in her upbringing, and she felt the whole spectrum of experiences of Italian American women," Drea continued, adding:

"She devoted her life to helping women like her, and gave out scholarships so they could discover new worlds like she did."