‘The people who sleep with me are nice, normal men’

After having sex with more than 1,000 men in a single day, Bonnie Blue’s notoriety was sealed. She tells Zoë Beaty her stunts bring her financial freedom – but a new documentary paints a more disturbing picture of her life in online porn

- Zoë Beaty

You may not know her by name, but chances are, you've heard of her. Bonnie Blue - real name Tia Billinger - is less a person now than a provocation, a social Rorschach test who incites fascination and fury - often both at once. In just a few years, the 26-year-old has gone from anonymity to infamy, propelled by controversial sex stunts and built on a mix of sexual provocation, circus, and a talent for turning the internet's thirst for outrage into cash.

In a new Channel 4 documentary, 1,000 Men and Me: The Bonnie Blue Story, she doesn't just double down on the spectacle; she insists it's a public service. But beneath the latex slogans and TikTok bravado lies something far more complex.

It's rare to find someone who doesn't have a strong opinion about Bonnie, though seldom does anyone agree. Depending on who you ask, she's either a dangerous role model or a genius businesswoman; empowered or deeply traumatised and degraded. She's frequently held up as the poster child of bad feminism, as someone who has confused objectification, over-sexualisation and regression of women with our hard-won rights. Her own self-proclamation is that she's “basically a community worker”. Referring to her most infamous stunt - one that catapulted her notoriety into another league earlier this year, when she had sex with more than 1,000 men in a single day – Bonnie also compares herself to “athletes running marathons”.

She is at the apex of a very modern phenomenon - the world of sexfluencers who, in recent years, have become a mainstream presence on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. The rise of subscription-based social media site OnlyFans – and TikTok's QVC-for-Gen-Z culture, where everything is for sale – created a boom in women selling sex on their terms and, they argue, taking control of their online presence.