Наталя Хандусенко That's Life 23 March 2026, 15:58

UPD. The owner of OnlyFans has died: what is known about the mysterious Ukrainian-American businessman from Odessa

On March 20, 2026, OnlyFans founder Leonid Radvinsky died after a long battle with cancer. His death was announced later as his family requested privacy during this difficult time.

Radvinsky was a major donor to a cancer research program. He wanted to join the Giving Pledge, an initiative in which members, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, promise to give away a majority of their wealth to charity.

Despite the format of the adult content platform he owned, the Ukrainian-American businessman kept his personal life a secret and very rarely gave interviews. We have collected the most interesting facts about him.

British company Fenix

In 2016, the father and son Stokely founded OnlyFans’ parent company, Fenix, in the UK, with just $12,500 in start-up capital. Back then, OnlyFans was a platform where any creators could offer their subscribers exclusive content on a subscription basis. In 2018, Fenix was acquired by Leonid Radvinsky, who is said to have paid millions of pounds.

Investor and founder Guy Stockley resigned from Fenix in December 2021. That same month, Tim Stockley, Guy's son, stepped down as CEO of OnlyFans to "pursue new endeavors."

OnlyFans is not Radvinsky's first business related to the pornography industry.

Before becoming the sole shareholder of OnlyFans’ parent company, Fenix, he founded a website-specific company called Cybertania when he was 17. The business offered users links to passwords for content, including pornography, starting in the late 1990s.

In 2004, Microsoft sued Cybertania, alleging that it had sent "millions" of illegal and deceptive emails to users of its Hotmail email service. Radvinsky denied all charges and said the case was settled out of court.

In 2002, Radvinsky created MyFreeCams, a pornographic website that featured "models" who stripped naked and offered sexual services on webcam. By 2010, his site had over 100,000 models and over 5 million users.

Radvinsky then continued to build his empire by purchasing other pornography-related domain names, such as ultraxxxpasswords.com.

By 2014, he owned at least 950, including URLs like sexhackers.com and camwhores.com, Business Insider reports .

What Radvinsky's LinkedIn page says

The LinkedIn page description states that Leonid Radvinsky is an experienced venture capitalist, philanthropist, and technology entrepreneur with a particular interest in emerging social media platforms.

He has dedicated the last 20 years to building successful companies in the areas of social communities, digital advertising, web hosting, and software development.

Since 2018, he has invested over $3 million in creating the future of social media through an open source platform.

No posts were ever made on the page.

Charity and investments

In 2022, Radvinsky donated $5 million to aid Ukraine, and also donated funds to a cancer charity, an animal welfare organization, and a skin disease research foundation.

He invested in Israeli software developer B4X. Incidentally, Radvinsky is of Jewish descent.

He also supported social media software developer Pleroma.

In addition, it actively supports the Elixir programming language.

So, according to Radvinsky's website , he has 3 projects he's been working on — B4X, Fenix (OnlyFans), and Pleroma.

In 2024, Radvinsky and his wife became the main donors of a $23 million grant program aimed at studying cancer diseases. This was announced during a gala evening of one of the research foundations.

Plans on OnlyFans

Radvinsky planned to sell 60% of OnlyFans, counting on the valuation of the entire company at $5.5 billion. According to Bloomberg, a source close to the situation, the San Francisco firm Architect Capital expressed a desire to lead the investment group. The proposal involved a combination of equity capital and raising about $2 billion in debt. In February, negotiations were still at an early stage, and the details themselves remained confidential.

Radvinsky aspired to become so rich that "one day I would be able to sign the Oath of Giving"

The list of super-rich people who have pledged to donate most of their fortunes to charity includes Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and MacKenzie Scott.

In 2026, Forbes estimates Radvinsky's fortune at $4.7 billion. In 2023, he received $472 million in dividends from OnlyFans, in 2022 — $233 million, and in 2021 — $284 million.