Why you bring a bottle of wine to your date with Diego Barros, the first guy to make one million dollars on OnlyFans in just eight months’ time.
Words by Caspar Pisters, all pictures courtesy of Diego Barros
It was a bit of a moment last week for OnlyFans performer Diego Barros (born in Araçatuba, in the state of Sao Paulo; Brazil, living in London; UK). People at the world’s largest ‘subscription-based social media platform’ had sent him a message, notifying Diego that he was the first male to ever arrive at one million dollars in earnings in just eight months’ time.
“Yes”, he confirms over Zoom after extending a payment slip in an earlier chat, his accent a mix of Londoner Bri’ish and Brazilian: “It’s hard to believe, but it’s amazing.”
For those who need an introduction to OnlyFans: it is notorious for allowing performers to post explicit material on their account and have followers subscribe and pay for access.
For those who need an introduction to Diego Barros, let’s refer to last Summer’s ‘shampoo challenge’. It was a thing on Twitter that had OnlyFans performers posting a picture balancing a shampoo bottle on their erection. Diego, dear people, stacked not one but four bottles on his dick, biceps flexed. The cocky caption: ‘So which challenge is next?’
The stuff I post today, four years ago I would have said: no way I’m ever going to do that”
Diego today is sitting in front of an unmade bed and asks for a moment while he changes a tank top for a T-shirt, off-camera. It may be an unusually bright day for foggy London – he points the camera to his bedroom window, revealing a magnificent view on London’s downtown skyline – it is still also a British November.
Some years ago Diego already tried his luck on OnlyFans, when the platform in its early days reached out to him. Diego: “I had been posting videos on Instagram, teasing with my dick. Not a lot of people were doing that kind of stuff at the time, it was giving me a following, and OnlyFans invited me to start an account.”
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He abandoned it when he became successful as a go-go dancer, getting paid very well to dance and do backflips and Magic Mike hip moves in front of hysterically screaming audiences all over the world.
You try and do that and maintain an erection.
But Covid happened, clubs closed, and Diego found himself locked up in his London apartment, all his future gigs canceled, wondering what to do next.
On February 12 of this year, he opened a new OnlyFans account and decided to take things a little further.
So how do you feel about being the guy that holds this record today?
He laughs: “Oh baby, it’s me! It’s Diego! From now on, all these boys, when they sit at the table having a drink together and they talk about OnlyFans, they know who I am, haha. Seriously though, it changed my life. If Covid proved anything to me it is that in my line of work you have a short career. I need to make my money now and be smart about it. Work hard and save, save, save.”
“I do get a good erection. I’m hard a lot. Even talking to you now, I’m semi-hard”
Did you ever expect to make a freaking million though, doing what you do?
“Well, you know what, I have a million followers on Instagram, almost a million on Twitter, I’m starting to blow up on TikTok with half a million followers now. [his videos there accumulated over 200 million views, CP] So yes, I had a goal of making more than a million dollars. But I never expected it to be this quickly. I put a lot of effort into what I do. I post a video every day, I try to come up with new ideas constantly, I reply to every single message, to every single comment. I do live shows, I do giveaways. The first time I did OnlyFans I only stripped down to my underwear. I don’t do collaborations with other guys, but my stuff has gotten much more sexual. I do fetish stuff, I use toys, I cum on camera.”
Why is it that you do solos only?
“Everything you see me do online, I do it because I want to. Until five months ago I had never even done a cum shot on my OnlyFans page. It happened during my first online live show. I was so horny, I was jerking off, pre cum started flowing, I was talking dirty to the people.” Laughs: “I was like: fuckkk, I’m so close. And then I thought, fuck it, I’m gonna cum for these people. It felt crazy to cum in front of a thousand people. But afterward I figured I actually liked doing it. There was no pressure from subscribers, I wanted to do it. But it’s where I draw the line. Many of my videos on Twitter have more retweets than clips of guys fucking. And if you look at my results, apparently I don’t need to go any further. Though I’m not saying I never will. The stuff I post today, if you had asked me four years ago I would have said: no way I’m ever going to do that.”
How does your family feel about your OnlyFans activities?
“My family is a huge support, they love what I do. My mom once posted one video in a WhatsApp group she has with her girlfriends. It was the first video that really blew up, back when I was still only doing teaser videos. It shows me in a gym, walking on a treadmill with my dick bouncing in my shorts. My mom wrote: ‘Girls, anyone wanna go to the gym with me?’ One of her friends responded: ‘That dick is one hundred percent fake’, and she replied: ‘Actually, no my dear, this is my son.’ It was quite hilarious, and it goes to show how open-minded my parents are.”
Would they be cool with you doing more porny porn, sexual acts with other performers?
“That’s the thing. My mom is super supportive but she did tell me: ‘Just don’t cross the line, because you don’t need it’. She never said: don’t do porn, but I think I understood what she meant. My parents were super young when they got me and my brother, and I’m so grateful for what they have done for me. When I was 19 and I broke off my study at university, I was quite lost what to do. To be honest, I was never a very good student. I studied programming for a year and advertising for two years, and I didn’t really like either. My parents said: ‘Why don’t you go travel, learn a language, find yourself?’ It’s how I ended up in London, fourteen years ago. I’m really lucky that I had that kind of support and it’s also out of respect for my parents that I’m holding back a little bit.”
The only thing that makes me extra horny sometimes is wine”
And while not giving everything, you manage to be the current #1 fastest earning guy on OnlyFans.
“Perhaps it’s the exact reason I’m in the top. In the last eight months, I never had less than six thousand subscribers. And I think it’s because I present a fantasy. Guys text me: ‘Diego, how are you doing so well for so long?’ The thing is, mate, when I sign up to a page, and they give me everything straight away: cum, fucking, all of it. After that, what else can you give? I spent years doing teasers only. Now I progressed, I’m doing scenes with ass toys, I do verbal role play, I come up with new things all the time. And yes, people write me and say: ‘When are we going to see this, when are we going to see that?’ And that’s cool but I need to stick to what I think is the right move.”
Basically, you are applying your stripper’s approach to your OnlyFans enterprise?
“Exactly. Have you ever been at a party where strippers come on stage already naked? After ten minutes people are talking to each other again, they are off to the bar. You need to keep your audience engaged. I always use the example of going for a full course meal. You get your starter, your soup, the main course, and then dessert.” Laughs: “That’s it. You can’t skip. The part where I show my dick is the last few minutes.”
So, obviously, there are millions of people out there who really, really like your dick. How do you like your dick?
Short silence. Then, with a deep voice: “Okay, right. I’m not gonna lie to you. It’s a fucking nice dick.” He laughs: “You know what: it’s very good-looking. Sometimes even myself, I’m looking at it and go: oh fuck, it’s very good-looking.” More laughing. “It is veiny, it is big. Not just big, it’s thick, it’s the thickness. You know. And, so many… There are long cocks, and I think – from what people told me before – they prefer the thickness. It is better sucking a thick dick than one that is long and thin. And I have huge, huge balls, the head is nicely shiny…”
Haha, I have to agree with all of that and thank you for being so honest with your answer.
Laughs: “Well, yes. My friends sometimes try to shut me up because when someone asks me a question, I’m answering. I don’t really have a filter.”
The first time on stage I didn’t last longer than five minutes, I was too shy. I got a lot of bad reviews after that”
You do those stage shows. Does the actual attention turn you on? How do you stay hard on stage?
“I do get a good erection. I’m hard a lot. Even talking to you now, I’m semi-hard.”
He tilts the camera to his crotch. As it turns out, all this time he has been sitting there in just his shorts – we’re wearing turquoise today – and he briefly wiggles what is in there: yup, a halfie.
“I am a very horny guy. I don’t need steroids, I don’t do drugs. I know a lot of guys like to fuck on drugs. The only thing that makes me extra horny sometimes is wine. I do take half a viagra, one hour before a show, it helps me to stay hard. And I put a cockring on.”
But is it a turn-on for you, to be sexually admired by all these people?
“It is. I’m a dancer, I’m a performer and I like to show off my dick. Put these elements together and, boom, it’s what I do. I did this show last year in Guatemala where I got on stage and all these people were watching me, pretty much literally all with their mouths open. It made me even harder, haha. I was like: okay, they are waiting for daddy.” (Laughs)
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I’m impressed though, I could not imagine myself doing that.
“It took me a bunch of shows to get good at it. The first time I did a live show was in Panama. I had already built up an audience with shows that I did online. I was so shy to get on stage. People had traveled to that club from all over Latin America to see me perform, and I didn’t last longer than five minutes out there because I was too shy. I got a lot of bad reviews after that, and I realized: I have to step up my game. Now I’m confident, I know that I give a good show.”
On a vanity meter, from 1 to 10, where would you put yourself?
“Oh, mate. Okay, that is a tricky question. In normal life, if we would have a coffee together, I want to hear about you, too. This is an interview. I’m not usually the kind of guy that sits at the table and just talks about himself. But I am very confident when it comes to my work. I earned it. Who’s the top guy on OnlyFans right now? I’m sorry, it’s me, I’m not gonna be modest. Who is the most asked go-go performer? I’m sorry, it’s me. Who is the best-paid male go-go performer, the most followed go-go on social media? You Google it: it’s me. I can be very cocky in that sense. But in normal life, I don’t think I’m a big head. I’m interested in the person next to me.”
All my gigs got canceled, I had to take down my business, I was losing my savings. That’s when depression hit me”
What kind of stuff do you get insecure about?
“Believe it or not, it’s meeting people for the first time. If I would come to visit you in Amsterdam, meet with you and the team of your website, it might take up to an hour to feel comfortable enough to really be myself. The Diego you are seeing now – we’re talking and laughing – not everybody who meets me the first time gets to see that. I can be quite insecure. And I’ve been in plenty of situations where people were less than nice and I had to take a deep breath to pull through. It’s not always just fun all the time.”
Do you feel a lot of pressure?
“Especially since I’m usually the main name on the ticket, I feel it is up to me to break the ice when I arrive backstage for a show and meet the other go-go dancers, to show them I’m a nice guy. ‘Come on guys, let’s do a tequila together!’ One thing I learned though is that you cannot satisfy the entire world. My mom said: ‘Even Jesus Christ couldn’t please everyone, and he’s the son of God. Do you think you are going to do it?’ And that is very true. I do my best, but I might get people who don’t like me. And sometimes I will learn from it. But yes, I do feel the pressure to do well.”
In an Instragram post you mentioned experiencing mental issues when covid happened.
“Indeed, I had a huge depression for a while. I came back from Mexico where I had toured eleven cities in two weeks’ time. Friends already warned me: Diego, you have to start preparing, things here are going wrong. It was hard for me to wrap my head around while I was performing at all these big parties. A week after returning to London they shut down the gyms and I realized: shit, this is serious. I started to receive calls, one after another all my bookings got canceled. I had just put up my underwear and sportswear line online, and sales plummeted. I had to shut that business because I was starting to lose all my savings. That’s when depression hit me. I ran out of motivation and felt really down. To make things worse TikTok blew up. I had a million followers on Instagram. But all of a sudden TikTok made Instagram look old, in the way Instagram made Facebook look old at the time. TikTok had all these amazing influencers and I was a nobody on there. It felt like I had lost and had to start all over again.”
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How did you pull yourself out of that mindset?
“What helped was visiting my family in Brazil, for Christmas. I would usually stay max two weeks, this time I stayed for six weeks, the longest time since moving to London. I got to reconnect with my parents, I met my friends from school and uni. And they were chatting to me. Even my mom’s friends: ‘D., go back to OnlyFans, make your money’. My mom said: ‘No one has to judge anyone, you never know why a person is doing what they are doing. As long as you don’t kill, don’t steal, and never harm anyone to get to the top, you do what you want.’ That was a big encouragement for me. They told me to reinvent myself and that’s what I did.”
I come from a very religious, straight, macho family. My first experience with a guy was in London”
If you would lose your current success again though: do you need a million followers to be happy?
“That is the most important question I wanted to answer you. Two things actually. People see me traveling the world and doing all those parties and think I’m living on the fast lane, spending all my money. I have already put money aside on my pension to pay myself until I’m 75 years old, which is amazing. I have my house in London, I bought two apartments in Sao Paulo as an investment. I’m handling my money well. And now to answer your question: no. In fact, I think I will be happier when one day all of this is over. And it will come sooner than later. Success on OnlyFans isn’t going to last forever, there are a lot of competitors out there, and I won’t be doing backflips on stage until I’m fifty years old. I don’t consider myself a celebrity – to me celebrities are the people in movies and music, collecting Oscars and grammy awards. But even I am getting so much attention sometimes that it makes me uncomfortable. I have to make sure I always look good and I’m kind of looking forward to not having to impress anyone anymore. But don’t get me wrong: especially because I know it’s not going to last forever, I’m really enjoying my time now.”
Is it hard for you to meet people who are after anything other than your physical attributes?
“It’s why the friends that I made before social media are the ones I make an effort for. They have been there for me before all this. Of course, I still make a lot of friends and I meet so many genuine people that are so nice to me – oh fuck. But I have to be a bit more careful, because yes, I also have people coming to me with double intentions. I think I have a good sensor for it though, and I’ve learned to be straightforward when I have to.”
Do you remember how you felt arriving in London at 19 years old? From what I understand you didn’t speak English.
“Not a single word. I used to go into the tube [metro, CP] carrying a note, saying where I needed to go. It was hard. I missed my friends back home, my family. Building friendships was really difficult at the beginning. I started going to school, learning English, learn to order a coffee, something to eat. London facilitates not speaking the language, it’s such an international place. My first job was at an Italian restaurant, and I have friends who still work in that same restaurant speaking poor English. I knew I had to make that extra effort though.”
Why was that?
“I don’t know if you know, but back in Brazil I never had any affairs with guys. I started my gay life when I moved to London. I had many girlfriends in Brazil. My first experience with a guy was here because I came from a very religious, straight, macho family. I grew up with five cousins exactly my age. Them, my uncle, my grandpa, all those guys that were proper guys sitting in a bar together and just talk about women.”
Was it intimidating?
“It wasn’t easy. It’s why when I came to London I wanted so badly to succeed and be able to stay here. Because here there is a different mentality. I remember when I was settled to come here, everyone said: ‘Diego, no, he will be back within six months’. Everybody was laughing.” He chuckles when he remembers his granny: “She said: ‘Diego, why are you going there, spending all that money?’ But they didn’t know I really wanted to go. I wanted to find myself.”
Have they come around?
“Oh my god, my parents are my biggest fan. You cannot imagine.”
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And the broader family?
“Everyone is absolutely fine. When I finally came out to my mom, when she told my father he was crying. Because so many times he and my uncles would say things like: ‘Don’t touch me, gay boy, don’t touch me’. It’s the way Brazilians are used to talking to each other, it’s not always meant to be disrespectful.”
What did you dream of becoming when you were a kid?
“Believe it or not, but I’m living my childhood dream. I was in theatre plays, I was Joseph in the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, I was Aladdin, I was in Cats. I loved doing that and I told my teachers that I wanted to perform and travel the world doing so, and they laughed. But it’s exactly what I ended up doing.”
You replied to someone’s comment on one of your Instagram posts, writing: Some people are born to make the world laugh, some to make people emotional, some to entertain, and I was born to make the world horny.
Laughs: “Yes, I think so. It is not just me having a big head about myself, it’s what people say to me. I do have this thing apparently that makes people horny. And it’s why I’m doing what I do. I just really like to make people horny.”
Check out Diego’s teasers, enjoy some juicy previews, or go for the real deal. Oh, and someone’s currently blowing up on TikTok.
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