Piper Rockelle Says She 'Thrives' Off Online Hate After Going from Child Star to OnlyFans Star (Exclusive)
- - Piper Rockelle Says She 'Thrives' Off Online Hate After Going from Child Star to OnlyFans Star (Exclusive)
Luke ChinmanJanuary 14, 2026 at 4:00 AM
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Piper Rockelle/Instagram
Piper Rockelle -
Piper Rockelle, who rose to fame as a child star on YouTube, started an OnlyFans account months after she turned 18
The internet personality sat down with PEOPLE for a wide-ranging conversation about her life as a legal adult and her reaction to her detractors
“I thrive off of the hate,” she says. “I think, without it, I would have become a little bit irrelevant”
Piper Rockelle’s 2025 did not turn out how she planned.
The 18-year-old internet personality says as much during an exclusive interview with PEOPLE in the early days of the new year. When pressed for specifics, though, she keeps it vague. “It was just a crazy year of people and things and my own issues and just things that I would never expect to happen,” she says. “But again, I'm just so grateful for them, because they made me a better person. And I would live it again, I guess.”
It doesn’t take too much digging to uncover what Rockelle — who has been making content online for the last decade — is gesturing at.
In April, Netflix premiered its docuseries Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing, which laid bare Piper’s rise to fame as a part of the “Piper Squad,” a group of tween content creators who made YouTube videos together under the direction of her mom, Tiffany Smith.
Piper Rockelle/Instagram
Piper Rockelle
It detailed the 2022 lawsuit against Tiffany by 11 of the teens alleging they weren’t compensated for their time collaborating with Piper and were subject to "inappropriate, offensive and abusive treatment," including "wildly offensive and sexually explicit comments." (Tiffany has publicly denied all allegations and settled the lawsuit in October 2024 for nearly $2 million with all parties specifically disclaiming any liability.)
Two months prior, Rockelle had also been embroiled in controversy when she — then 17 years old — visited and posted videos at the Bop House, a collective for creators who primarily make content on OnlyFans, a subscription-based platform known for adult material.
After Rockelle turned 18 in August, she officially joined the Bop House as a member in December, continuing to turn the heads of those who still remembered her as the young girl who did internet challenges online with her mom as an 8-year-old.
In early 2026, Rockelle ushered in the new year by sharing the link to an OnlyFans account of her own — allegedly earning close to $3 million in less than 24 hours on the platform, and with it, a fresh dose of criticism about her move to adult content.
Despite the online criticism surrounding her recent career moves, Rockelle is adamant that she’s unfazed: “I couldn’t be more happy with the way that my life is going right this second.”
For Rockelle, reaching 18 was a huge turning point. In the days leading up to her birthday, she posted video after video counting down to the moment she would be a legal adult; she marked the day itself with a professional photoshoot conducted by Christiaan Mikey. But more than anything, Rockelle was ready for the people in her life to “have no more excuses to believe what I say,” she tells PEOPLE.
“I’ve always been a pretty mature person,” she continues. “I kind of have always felt this age, but now that I’m 18, the responsibilities — they’re just great. I love them. I immediately got my license. I love being 18. I suggest it to everyone.”
Of course, becoming a legal adult meant that she would be able to start an OnlyFans account — something internet commenters had speculated long before she was 18 that she would eventually do. In a Teen Vogue profile released the day of her birthday, she said she hadn’t yet decided.
“I didn’t think it was very appropriate to be talking like that when I was 17,” she tells PEOPLE. “Even though it might have been in my head and I’d maybe talked about it with my friends, I just didn't think it was appropriate to be like, ‘Yes, right when I turn 18.’ ”
But in the months after her August birthday, Rockelle admits that the idea of starting an OnlyFans account was all-consuming — she couldn’t “talk about anything else” — and when she finally pulled the trigger, it went swimmingly.
Now, her day-to-day consists of lots of “chatting,” she tells PEOPLE. She’s constantly messaging her subscribers, sending them custom voice notes. And that’s on top of content creation on her other social media platforms.
Rockelle admits she was unsurprised by the reaction she received after announcing that she had created an OnlyFans — and wasn't afraid to hit back. Responding to an account that wrote “we are cooked as a society” in reaction to Rockelle’s alleged first-day earnings, for instance, the internet star merely posted, “never in a million years did i expect this to happen, you guys changed my life 🥹”
Above all else, Rockelle is criticized online for promoting the lifestyle of an adult content creator to her audience — one that even she acknowledges includes “a lot of younger kids.” She also admits that she gets emails from girls younger than her who say it’s their “dream” to be in the Bop House after watching her videos, but she brushes it off quickly, throwing a quick aside that it’s “just the world that we live in.”
“It wasn’t easy,” she tells PEOPLE of the career pivot. “But, also, I thrive off of the hate. Honestly, I think hate has kept me around for a long, long, long time. I think, without it, I would have become a little bit irrelevant.”
Even if it’s integral to her brand, it’s still a lot of noise. But when asked who she leans on when it all gets too loud, Rockelle says she’s a one-woman show.
“Literally no one,” the influencer defiantly tells PEOPLE. “I mean, just my family. I don’t trust anybody at all, and each time I do trust someone, it just proves another reason why I shouldn’t.”
Continues Rockelle: “I’m cool with what I have. I don’t think anyone takes my relationships or my friendships seriously, so I just don’t take most of them seriously either.”
Even if it is a sacrifice that she can never, say, have a conversation with a stranger in public without thinking they might go home and make a TikTok about the interaction, Rockelle says she wouldn’t trade her level of fame for anything: “This is all I’ve ever wanted.”
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“There's been moments where I'm like, ‘Yep, this is it. I'm done. I'm leaving forever. I'm not coming back on the internet,’ ” she continues. “You know how you can't quit an addiction unless you're actually ready? This isn't an addiction, but it is something that has literally made me who I am today. So, yeah, I'm not gonna just let go of it.”
What, if anything, is Rockelle’s end goal?
“I always say I want all of this to be worth it,” she says — and by “all of this,” she clarifies that she means “the tears and all of the stressing” that she’s done since her debut on the internet a decade ago.
At the moment, she has her sights set on building a home in South Carolina (“I hope to get out of L.A. a bit”), creating a cat rescue, and even someday being able to make money from her YouTube channel again, after the platform demonetized her account in the wake of the 2022 allegations against her mother.
When the idea is raised that she could break into other sectors of the entertainment industry — film or TV, for instance — she says she’s less interested, but does add that her OnlyFans earnings mean she could easily self-fund a project of that sort if she changed her mind.
“I just want all of the good things that I feel like I might've been robbed of,” she says. “I want a secure life.”
“I know that a lot of people think it's closing a lot of doors for me,” says Rockelle of OnlyFans. “For me, this is a complete door-opener and life-changer.”
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
