The "American Pie" actress told Bill Maher she has no interest in dating after her divorce, and says her new OnlyFans venture, which earned her $1.2 million in its first week, is all the connection she needs.
Shannon Elizabeth sat down on Maher's "Club Random" podcast and laid it out plainly. She finalized her divorce from Simon Borchert in May, launched an OnlyFans account in April, and now says the dating market holds nothing for her. "I do not want to date. I'm not interested," she told Maher. "There's too many con artists out there. There's too many people I don't trust. I have no interest."
Maher pushed back. "Come on, you're going to date," he said. Elizabeth didn't budge.
"The only relationships I need are the relationships on OnlyFans that I'm building with all of these people."
Maher tried a different angle, pointing to Halle Berry, who once said she would never marry again, and then married actor Olivier Martinez in France in July 2013. Berry and Martinez filed for divorce in October 2015, were declared legally single in December 2016, and did not finalize their settlement until August 2023. Elizabeth was unmoved by the comparison.
"At the moment, I'm perfectly fine not being with anyone and not wanting anything," she said.
Elizabeth, who became a household name after the 1999 hit "American Pie," moved to Cape Town, South Africa, in 2016 to focus on wildlife conservation through her Shannon Elizabeth Foundation. Acting work slowed. By her own account, she spent roughly a decade living off savings.
That financial reality drove her to OnlyFans. Variety reported she earned more than $1.2 million in her first week on the platform after launching in April. A portion of her earnings goes to her wildlife conservation nonprofit.
Elizabeth told Variety the money gave her breathing room she hadn't had in years:
"For the last ten years, I've been living off of my savings for the most part, because I haven't been as focused on work. To be able to get myself back to the point where I'm not struggling and am able to choose projects because I like them and not because I need the money, it's definitely giving me more freedom to do that."
That kind of candor about money is rare in Hollywood, where public figures often go to great lengths to keep their personal and financial arrangements out of the spotlight. Elizabeth, by contrast, has been direct about why she made the move and what it means for her independence.
OnlyFans is a subscription platform that lets creators charge fans directly for content. Elizabeth said she directs and produces everything herself. She described the work as both creatively satisfying and financially liberating, a combination she said the traditional entertainment industry rarely offered her.
"I've got to be a little bit mysterious," she said. "I do all kinds of content, but I don't even know what my boundaries will be. I'm still exploring it, and as I become more comfortable with it, I'm going to push those boundaries."
She also addressed the stigma that sometimes follows creators on the platform. In a previous interview with Fox News Digital, Elizabeth acknowledged the assumptions people make but said the response has been overwhelmingly positive:
"I know people do make assumptions about creators on the platform. But I don't go looking for it. And people have been nothing but really supportive and kind to me.... I'm really happy doing it. I'm really having so much fun. I'm connecting with people. And I think no matter what you do in any industry, there's always going to be people who don't support you, who want to bring you down or who criticize you."
She went further, encouraging others to try the platform. "Absolutely do it," she said. "It's been an incredible experience. And if you don't like it, you just stop. That's the beauty of it. The control's in your hands."
Elizabeth added that she has already started talking to friends about joining her on OnlyFans, and said many are considering it. Celebrity culture has always been a mix of performance and exposure, and the line between the two keeps shifting, sometimes in ways that catch audiences off guard on live television, and sometimes in ways the celebrities themselves choose.
One of Elizabeth's more striking comments placed her OnlyFans decision in a longer arc. She said the platform represents something she and others in the industry had wanted for decades.
"[This is] something that we wanted to do 25 years ago, but the technology wasn't there yet," she said. "Now the technology is there. I just wish I'd done it sooner."
That timeline tracks. Elizabeth appeared on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno in August 2001, two years after "American Pie" made her famous. In 1999, the internet was dial-up and banner ads. Creators had no direct pipeline to paying fans. Studios, networks, and agents controlled the money and the message.
Now, a 53-year-old actress living in South Africa can bypass all of that, produce her own content, and clear seven figures in a week. Whatever one thinks of OnlyFans as a platform, the economics are hard to argue with. In an era when institutions of all kinds, political, media, entertainment, face questions about who is really in control and who is being managed, Elizabeth's pitch is simple: she controls the product, she keeps the money, and she answers to no one.
Elizabeth also wants to move behind the camera in traditional entertainment, saying she hopes to direct. But for now, OnlyFans is the vehicle, and she's not apologizing for it.
Whether Elizabeth's vow to stay single holds up, Maher clearly had his doubts, is beside the point. She found a way to turn fame earned a quarter-century ago into a direct income stream, on her own terms, without asking permission from an industry that had largely moved on. In a culture that rewards dependency and punishes independence, that's worth noting.
