The Louis Theroux Podcast - S2 EP5: Belle Delphine discusses selling her bathwater, dealing with stalkers and why she’s called ‘The Queen of the Simps’

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Louis chats to internet sensation and adult content creator, Belle Delphine. Joining Louis in the studio, Belle discusses how she made millions from her first adult video, why she’s been labelled as “Queen of the Simps”, and a surprising ambivalence about her chosen career. Plus, Louis gets to grips with internet slang. Warnings: Adult content and discussions of a sexual nature. Links/Attachments: ‘Who is paying $30 for ‘gamer girl’ Belle Delphine’s bath water?’ - The Guardian  https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/12/belle-delphine-gamer-girl-instagram-selling-bath-wate ‘What is kawaii? Understanding Japan cute culture’ - Art in Context  https://artincontext.org/what-is-kawaii/ ‘What Harajuku girls really look like?’ - Refinery29  https://youtu.be/WblNctc3ys0?si=ZQfKD1aI0CFqKQXr ‘What is ahegao?’ - Know Your Meme  https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/ahegao ‘Burusera’ - fetish paraphilia shops in Japan  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burusera PewDiePie reacting to Belle Delphine on YouTube  https://youtu.be/KYyycHAxOVw?si=o5YhTPs6M1_YSLyt  ‘Simp: The new slang teens use to insult boys who are ‘too nice’ to girls’ – CNN https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/19/health/what-is-simp-teen-slang-wellness/index.html ‘What guys mean when they call someone a Chad’ - Men’s Health  https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/a33499682/what-is-a-chad/ ‘A dictionary of the manosphere: five terms to understand the language of online male supremacists’ - The Conversation  https://theconversation.com/a-dictionary-of-the-manosphere-five-terms-to-understand-the-language-of-online-male-supremacists-200206 ‘Louis Theroux’s Forbidden America: Extreme and Online’ - BBC (UK only)  https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0014khc/louis-therouxs-forbidden-america-series-1-1-extreme-and-online  ‘Footage of her daughter’s murder went viral. Now Bianca Devins’ mother wants to change the internet’ - The Independent  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bianca-devins-murder-brandon-clark-kimberly-b2291549.html Credits: Producer: Millie Chu  Assistant Producer: Maan Al-Yasiri  Production Manager: Francesca Bassett  Music: Miguel D’Oliveira  Executive Producer: Arron Fellows     A Mindhouse Production for Spotify  www.mindhouse.co.uk  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All right, let's do this. Hi, I'm Louis Theroux. Welcome to my podcast. Sorry, I shouted. Called the Louis Theroux podcast. How original. So today I'm here to talk to Belle Delphine, an internet legend. I don't think that's too strong a term. Even if you haven't heard of her before, and many of you will have,

please be assured she is an icon of early internet culture. Well, early, I mean internet culture more generally, certainly of web 2.0, the moment when YouTube sat up and roared and said we are incubating the talent now, we are the destination for creators to influence culture, where your children will be flocking to learn their catchphrases and to find their new gurus. Belle is an online prankster e-girl. Her real name is Maribel Kirschner. Belle Delphine is her nom de internet. She's 24, but she's been around for at least four or five years. She went viral for her ahigao face. That's spelled A-H-E-G-A-O.

A sexual facial expression used in Japanese porn, known as hentai. And then began a stint making strange YouTube videos that captured the world's attention, sticking googly eyes on a dead octopus was one, eating photographs of her followers. Yes, you heard me correctly. I think we talk about her various viral hits during the conversation, so I'll explain more during the chat. But she just seemed to have a kind of genius for understanding the internet for speaking its lingua franca and knowing what would go viral. And I don't just mean mini viral, just tens of millions of shares. She's now an OnlyFans star, having traded in her YouTube virality for the more cloistered

confines of OnlyFans. I think you know what that is. Subscription-only platform, largely driven by adult content, and where many of the biggest stars of porn now do their work, including Mia Malkova, who I interviewed for a TV episode of my series, Forbidden America. And in fact, Mia has done a sex scene with Belle. So synergy alert. She really doesn't do many interviews. So it was kind of a bit of a coup, if I can say that, getting her as a guest. And she's deliberately kept a kind of veil of mystique over her personality. At times, she's done a few podcast chats, but it's always been at a moment when she was looking to make a strategic move online and needed to leverage some visibility. And this

is slightly different. She's, I guess, maybe something of a fan of this podcast or maybe TV shows I've made. So she wanted to come on. So I'm grateful for for that this one was recorded in person in london she arrived from brighton with her other half slash manager slash partner uh seemed like a nice young man i think they've been together a few years and i believe all her scenes that she does with him he is her exclusive online adult content penis provider to use the technical term warnings well this has come too late adult content obviously discussions of a sexual nature boomer content throughout. That's a joke.

I'm a boomer. You know, it was a difficult one because I was sort of trying to straddle... Stop it. I was trying to straddle the two worlds of kind of a younger skewing internet audience and then an older skewing clueless boomer audience. So if I seem stretched uncomfortably at times, that's what's going on. But I really did want to do justice to what I regard as kind of a really interesting cultural area

and something that's kind of fun and provocative and different and that says something about where culture is at. So all of that and much, much more coming up. Hello. Hello, Liv. How do you do? How do I do? I do quite good. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. I can't believe you're here in the flesh. And are we good? So we're rolling. Everything's... Should I put these on? I think it's up to you.

Have you just come up from... Am I allowed... I don't want to be indiscreet, but it's obviously I've read, it's been published that you live in Hove is that is that uh I say Brighton but I live outside Brighton okay yeah but that's fine to say that because I know security can be an issue for you and um you don't want any more security concerns than you already have yeah we'll try not to um give too much away okay that'd be great. Yeah, welcome. Thank you.

Thanks for being here. I feel like it might be a while since you've done an interview, is it? Yes. So I did a couple of interviews when I first did porn. Because with my work, I think podcasts are quite not the best thing to do I feel like it takes away from the alert but I couldn't say no to uh this podcast in particular that's very kind I'm going to assume that's because you thought it was a an attractive offer like it was something that you were happy to do because you felt I had a few bucket list things that I want to do on my quest on the internet and this was would definitely be one of them I appreciate that yeah I mean

where do we start can I big you up a bit is that all right oh god what because I think you know you're an exciting guest for me because as a bit of a boomer I'm not always aware of everything that's happening online and so for me I always regard it as a privilege to a boomer, I'm not always aware of everything that's happening online. And so for me, I always regard it as a privilege to be taken into the world of YouTube and influencers because it's so strange and it feels new. And as much as it sounds a bit cringe to say, I see it as, I don't know if it's anarchic or disruptive or kind of maverick ethos, certainly going back a few years where it just felt like culture exploded on the internet and kids were feeling like, this is ours, this belongs to us. And you had big stars emerging, KSI, PewDiePie,

and your good self. I remember when I first became aware of you, like a lot of people, it was 2019 when you were selling your bathwater. Yes. And then in digging into this, I've been conscious that you've a track record of kind of hits where you just did provocative pranks or publicity stunts, whatever you want to call them. You've got a huge following based on that. Should we talk about, I mean, I feel like that was the longest

run up to a question in the history of podcast recording. Oh, it was great. We can start anywhere you want, but I'd be curious to know how you first came in 2019 to the world's attention. So I think for me, a real pivotal part of my journey was when I was 14. I was just posting on Facebook. That was the only thing I was posting on. And that's when my obsession with the internet really started.

And I was always really interested in Japanese fashion. So I'd post fashion pictures like this. So there was always a very strong connection to the internet there for me. And then for other reasons that came about, for example, I dropped out of school very young. So that really pushed me even further into being almost, well, actually, yes, very obsessional with the internet. And you mentioned Japanese culture. I mean, you'd already evolved this online persona

that involved what's called kawaii. Yeah, kawaii basically just means cute. So anything sweet looking or colorful, kind of what you imagine when you think of Harajuku, Japan, that sort of type of aesthetic, very bubbly. Did you say Harajuku, Japan? wave of alternative fashion in Japan and that's what I've always been kind of interested in I've always been drawn to cute things and fluffy things and it never really stopped for me as I grew older it probably just intensified I mean to some extent it's a mystery why Japan should be so interested in that aesthetic right I don't know what i think it's because of how intense their business uh and work-life balance is i mean they work all day and even when they're not working they go out drinking with their bosses and maybe it's a rebellion of the youth they're

just wanting to express themselves that's interesting you have no japanese heritage no have you been to Japan? Not yet. But you like to? I've been to South Korea. There you go. So you were saying, so then we went off on a tangent. I think we've established. We went on a full circle there. What Kauai is. When you say the internet, what were your grazing grounds? YouTube, Facebook. I never owned a phone, so I didn't really have Instagram, but I'd spend about

12 to 15 hours a day on the internet every single day. So that was, it gave me a lot of insight about how the internet worked. 12 to 15 hours a day, did you say? Yeah. Right. Which is, I think, not recommended. Your dad wasn't around we can talk about that in a minute uh was your mum kind of not policing your screen time at all this is louis and dad mode so apologies for that but I've got kids who do a lot of internet stuff your mum wasn't worried about how long you were online surprisingly not no and I've had conversations with her since becoming an adult because I've recognized looking back some of the things that maybe I was doing on the internet or how long I was on the internet or I think she

found it quite difficult because she came from a very conservative family and she was the rebellious child from that family she's English yes she's English so she I guess wanted to be that carefree person and she was and I thought that was really awesome really cool but I think maybe a little bit too much leniency I probably took that a little bit too far and um I think if I didn't get into what I am into now I have no idea where I'd be in life. So in some ways, I'm very fortunate because I have no idea where I'd be. So yeah. I get it. And you were born in 99. So you've really, for as long as you can remember, YouTube's been a thing, would you say? Kind of, yeah. So ever since I got my own laptop, it's been kind of up and running with the content coming out in

it every day so I feel like a first generation real internet type person describe how how did you come to the world's attention I think I really blew up when I changed my content to become sexual and it's pretty much as soon as I did that, I was like, okay, I'm going to, maybe there's something in this. Maybe I can take this seriously. Let me see what I can do. If I start maybe pushing it to lingerie pictures, because realistically that's what people are going to pay for. So I made my first ever Instagram account. And within a month I had a million followers on there. So it really snowballed. I was not expecting it. I had such a low goal for myself. I just wanted to move out.

Within a month you had a million followers, did you say? Yeah, on Instagram. On Instagram. As soon as I went sexual. Prior to that, you'd just been posting what kind of pictures? Mainly just outfit photos, fashion things. My demographic was mainly just women or young girls like I was at the time and then when I went to Instagram it slowly became more men and more men and now I

think it's pretty much 80% 85% male but how I got the million followers I think at the beginning million followers, I think at the beginning, was the Ahigao face, which is from hentai. And hentai is Japanese drawn pornographic material. You can see it in a video format or magazine format. And the Ahigao face is basically an orgasm drawing of a woman. And I always, out of awkwardness, I'd always stick my tongue out in photos and I saw this face and I'm like oh I can do that because I can roll my eyes back to the back of my head also so I just decided to do a video of me doing this strange face and it went uh I think mini viral sort of small viral uh spread around the internet and I I think it went viral, not because it was a super sexy face and I'm super sexy or anything like that. But I think it was just because it was a very strange face. It is a strange face. It feels like on every

podcast you go on, they ask you to do it. Oh God, I know. I'm not going to ask you to do it because I feel a bit like, it looks like it might make your eyeballs hurt. I had to record that one video that first blew up many times because it's very hard to nail. Basically, you're just trying to create content that will engage people, right? I really didn't think twice about it. I didn't think anything of it. My plan wasn't to become big or popular or anything like that. I literally just wanted enough money to move out of my mom's place. Did it go majorly viral? It was felt like a breakout moment. It's super hard to explain the

concept of viral because everything's viral in such a different big way. But for me, it definitely felt like that at the time. It felt like something had changed or at least that you'd had a little moment. Oh, completely. I remember sitting in a pizza express in Brighton and uh looking at my Instagram account and being because it was only a month it was so quick and it was still going I was trying to calibrate how many people that looked like and I was thinking I was like oh my god how many people can fit in the o2 I was trying to visualize it and I was like this is super super bizarre right and then you had five million or five and a half million at a certain point followers is that right on insta yeah so you had it from from when you joined how long did it take to get five and a half million i think maybe a year and a half. So pretty quick. Yeah. So there, because we started by talking about the bathwater, right?

That was 2019? I think so. Or 2020? Oh God, I'm so bad. No, 2019, I'm pretty sure. Okay, yeah. Well, according to my notes. Then you're probably right.

It wasn't in lockdown, was it? I think that makes sense because I think pre-lockdown, you know, obviously the virus hit. Oh yes, it was before because people were like oh the bathwater started this right people were joking that it started coronavirus which i guess can't be ruled out i've heard stranger theories um okay so i'll confess my interest which is i think it was i was reading the guardian newspaper and it was something like, influencer Belle Delphine is selling gamer girl bathwater for $20? I think it was $35. $35 a bottle.

And I just thought, well, you know, the internet's a strange place. But it was definitely a moment where, for whatever reason, it became quite a big news story. reason it became quite a big news story i think it's quite interesting because it's the whole conversation about a girl capitalizing on something very strange and i think a lot of people found it funny because there's so many questions that come from it it's like oh is the bathwater real why does she think of this who's buying it and what are they doing with it there's so many questions that spawn from it so it's a whole it started an interesting uh conversation obviously the sexual aspects of it also is very uh clickable but where i got inspiration from it was i knew that japan has panty vending machines so yeah famously yeah you can buy used undergarments is that right yes from a vending

machine because i guess it's more embarrassing if you buy them from a normal human so like easier for a salary man to buy anonymously from a vending machine right yeah so I was kind of thinking of something along those lines but a lot of sex workers sell panties I thought that was quite uh because I had done that before there's nothing really more to that and you can kind of understand that so I was trying to think of something more unique so I went down the aspects of selling my own spit or hair but I didn't want to cut my hair and it's very hard to produce a lot of spits I have tried to do that so then I was thinking of something else that's close to my physical body that I could produce and sell in a cute way that I thought was quite fun to do. And that's where I take a lot of baths anyway. So the idea came about and I, before I even did it, I designed the little bottle all

by myself. And then, um, I pretty much more like a jar, was it? Yeah, it was a little job, but it had a little sticker on the top sticker on the top. Yeah. How many did you sell? Oh, little sticker on the top a sticker on the top yeah how many did you sell oh I think I only ordered around 500 or 600 things and it sold out I mean within a day or two days maybe max and then it went really big because of that and I could have made more and sold more but I thought it was funner it being a one-time thing and leaving at it I don't like milking something until it's dry I think that was a one-off special moment and I think if you manage to buy a bathwater thing you're the only person who's going to have that from now on I don't think I'll do it again how did you first realize it was more of a thing than you expected? I think when someone sent me a message the week after

saying, you're on Australian TV. And I think, you know, it's the whole thing like parents find it very difficult to understand how big their children are on the internet until it hits something like a normal newspaper or written in a magazine or a radio host is talking about it this morning invited me on i didn't take it up but they invited me on and i was like oh wow this is a daytime conversation that normal people are talking about because it's quite bizarre because youtube can be quite isolating to young people just on it but i feel like it's a ghetto you know if someone like you found out about it i was like okay this is quite big why did you not go on this morning

i only well i've only ever done content from my own bedroom so i think being in front of a big camera like that in front of so many people and something that possibly family members would watch it was a cool opportunity but not sure not sure I wanted to do it. Are you quite a shy person? I say so, yeah. And maybe YouTube feel, and doing it from your bedroom, it feels like you can push the envelope in a way that feels a bit safer. Comfortable and within my own control.

I think control is quite important. So if I don't like something, it doesn't get posted, especially with something as vulnerable as sexual content. I mean, the old school porn, how they used to shoot it feels very different and far off to what I do. I think there are different realms. Do you consider, I mean, do we want to go there? I guess we should. What you mainly do now is OnlyFans. Yeah. Back then, I would have thought of you as just a kind of undefinable internet personality, right?

Exactly. With fetishy elements and comedy elements and, you know, an influencer, a model, a gamer, entertainer, someone who's able to intrigue people by putting up random bits of content and monetizing it and so in a sense when you go back and say well that was adult content or whatever it doesn't quite fit it feels like well that was a side effect of a bigger plan which was just to create a space where you were doing all kinds of things that would appeal to people. Does that make sense? Oh, absolutely.

I definitely had a strategy feels quite clinical, but I definitely had a plan for an end outcome. So I was doing whatever I could do to play around the virality aspect of the internet to push my face forward so that I could push my patreon that i was doing at the time and now only fans because i never wanted to be known a known person or you weren't aiming to be famous oh gosh no if i could somehow find a way to have a stable future and take that part back then i would which is why I'm actually really grateful for aging I think I'm really looking forward to be a 35 year old hopefully with more and a minute and a minute I can't say this word how you say it anonymity yes with that

so that's something that I'm looking forward to but I was just it was fun oh don't get me wrong it was super fun playing around on the internet and seeing people's reactions and stuff but it was i was playing a cheeky game i mean i'm aware i don't know if we're really doing justice to it the sense in which it just felt like you'd kind of gamed the internet like you'd you'd hacked it you figured out what was likely to blow up whether by accident certainly by design and i guess you didn't know it was going to blow up as big as it did but the things you were doing were creating a level of intrigue I think there's a combination of what I was trying to put out there and I think say for example you're a young guy on the internet

and you see a video of this sexy girl you're not gonna show this video of this sexy girl to your friend because that feels quite strange for example you wouldn't show or talk about your porn preferences to your best friend but you might show a video of a hot girl but she's doing something quite strange something quite uh that you can't quite keep your eyes off of and is quite bizarre you you might share that to a friend and be like, look what this weird girl is doing. But at the same time, I was trying to keep my appearance because that is my one thing that I kind of am able to make money off of.

So the shareability is in the weirdness and the money is from the appearance. There's the pull quote like i'm not one of those ceo style podcasts but i think what you said in terms of um actually monetizing it you create intrigue through the weirdness of it and then actually the real engagement comes through i think it applies a lot with people weirdly and i hate bringing him up but like andrew tate his shareability is in his crazy things but at the end of it he's got this strange like course manosphere course that he's trying to sell so he's basically the uh alpha male weird strange version of me and oh god i hate that i've compared myself to him but

you get what i mean he's kind of i think he's tried to grasp on the virality part of horrible things and is trying to sell at the end of it a course from it to make money it's interesting in a way how easy it is to manipulate people right i don't mean it to sound like but in a way like when i see andrew tate he says um women shouldn't be allowed to drive i don't think he said that but he's come close to saying things like that he believes that no i don't think he does and that's my point but you think you are laughing at him but actually he's sort of got your number once you've clicked on it he's pitching to you completely once you Once you've gained their attention, it's all about retention at that time. I think a lot of YouTubers in particular, when they're thinking of video concepts,

they're not thinking about the full video. I think they're thinking about what is a clickable thumbnail and what is a good title. It's exactly the same premise as newspaper journalists. They're not thinking about the full article initially. They're thinking about what is a great title to put in my newspaper and then maybe they'll chase the story once they think of that clickable title and i think uh that is a good way to think about if you want to make content that goes viral i think thinking about the title and the shareability of that single sentence first. So early on when you were posting content, your model wasn't to get adverts on YouTube.

You know, there's a revenue model. It sounds like yours was completely different. It was just guiding people to your Patreon. I think what I was trying to do is that by making content, I was making content for YouTubers to react to because there's a whole genre on YouTube of reaction channels for example PewDiePie is one of them PewDiePie for the for the people who don't know I always think about my mum listening to this I think she would have become confused quite a long time ago but um PewDiePie is the world famous Swedish yes YouTuber he was the biggest YouTuber in the world famous Swedish YouTuber.

He was the biggest YouTuber in the world. And I think probably MrBeast is overtaken. I think so. Yeah. So people like PewDiePie who do reaction, so much content on YouTube is reacting to a video from somewhere else, right? Yeah. So it's always kind of difficult to explain who I kind of am on the internet because a lot of the content that made me so big is all like

this is splattered on other people's YouTube channels so there's no way I can really direct people to make people understand because it's just hundreds of different YouTube videos of other people reacting to me doing something strange I mean videos that aren't even on the internet anymore that I don't even have that I used to make of them reacting to that and being like this is so strange or whatever so I was basically just farming content for them and it was beneficial for them because they have a great video and my weird ahi gal face served as a great thumbnail and then it was great for me because they were just saying my name and that was amazing because I was trying to sell my explicit stuff for people who thought I might be cute because you weren't really I mean again it's hard to reflect on but you weren't really looking for

a profile you didn't especially love visibility for its own sake it was very much no a means to an end. Yes. Okay, got it. Hi, I'm Louis Theroux, and you're listening to the Louis Theroux Podcast. And now back to my conversation with Belle Delphine. So, they also call you the Queen of the Simps. Who came up with that? Oh, I have no idea. I think simp, the word, was pretty much born on the internet around the same time. Maybe 2018, I think.

on the internet around the same time maybe 2018 i think sims basically just a very strong male fan of a woman who maybe has connotations of giving her money or white knighting her a bit on the internet white knighting that's another one basically someone who is seen as weak isn't it it's seen and you could argue that it has a loaded connotation someone who does way too much for a person they like typically a man who does way too much for a woman right uh yeah and i suppose some people generalize it as any man who does pay for sexual content could be classified as a simp often seen as sort of a synonym with um beta cuck i think cuck's slightly different cucks cucks what cuck is more we've gone really deep into 4chan now if we're going to try and explain the internet to everyone who's listening we're going to die on that hill um a cuck is short for cuckold it's basically again

a guy who's seen as weak and allowing his woman to be i don't know i don't want to explain it i'm going to leave this one up to you. Let's just leave that in the air. Do I seem like a simp? Quite the opposite. Wow. A Chad? Wouldn't go that far. Oh.

What's the pathway between a simp and a Chad? Normal British man. Okay. Simping. Got social media traction in 2019. And then I read this this morning, because it came up kind of from rap and hip-hop circles and crossed over to the internet community, and it was almost seen as an opposite to a pimp.

A pimp is a strong man who's in control of women, and a simp is the opposite, a weak man who's being controlled by a woman. I suppose so. Is it rude to fans to call them simps? Some like it. Some, the thing is, most of them really are the most normal people. I was expecting them to be older.

They're not. They're really between the ages of 21 to 28 and because i speak to them a lot they're just super normal guys um i mean there are some that maybe game a lot maybe some of them have worse social skills maybe somewhere on the spectrum obviously it varies but what i found surprising was just how normal these guys are so what are you basing that on uh conversations with them really yeah do you have in real life conversations with them i used to skype with some of them but now it's mainly just messaging them do you get much hate yeah yeah i'd say a lot I think there's different types of hate that I get I think there's the very expected you know this girl's really weird she's doing this for attention all

of this just goes over my head and then I think there are a lot of people who I think everyone on the internet gets hate nothing I'm going through is different than anyone else so but you know some things are more hurtful than others and then other things just fly over my head so I'm just thinking about and I may have a skewed perspective because I did a story about the far right as it exists online and the followers of someone called uh Nicholas Fuentes who came to fame recently or I should say greater fame because he was associating with Kanye West. But really, more than anything, what I got from him and his community was an antipathy, a real dislike or resentment of women. And they're constantly going about e-girls and, you know, just basically it was just a rampant misogyny. But it was very striking it was the feeling that and i think it's associated with the incel phenomenon these would be so-called

involuntary celibates and the idea that women have too much power and women need to be taken down and women shouldn't be allowed in our communities do you recognize any of that oh yeah definitely i think the first time where my address was leaked it was because there's this whole very i don't know whether to call it alt-right or whatever what it was but it's definitely a misogynistic movement basically of men that were really angry about anyone who had only fans because they were angry that they weren't paying tax which is untrue it definitely was um but they were saying all of these were angry that they weren't paying tax, which is untrue. It definitely was. But they were saying, all of these OnlyFans girls, they don't pay tax. They've got it so easy.

And then just basically tearing down any aspect of what we're doing. We're all sluts and things like this. And then one person who was a part of this movement came to my house and started regularly visiting it a day, at night, taking photos outside of it. And I only became aware about it because he stuck a piece of paper on my door house and started regularly visiting it a day at night taking photos outside of it and i only became aware about it because he stuck a piece of paper on my door saying pay your taxes and my mom found it and she was like what is this and i was like oh my god and then because of that i saw the 4chan thread of course it's on 4chan where he was posting all of these photos outside my house. So very scary, very unhinged. Posting photos of your house?

Yeah, outside of my house. Really? Yeah. When you were still living with your mum, this was? Yeah. That must have been alarming. Very disturbing. Yeah, it was because you're not quite sure what to do about that.

So I went down the usual route, contacted the police, and obviously, what can they do? So they blurred my house on Google Maps, which I feel like does the Barbara Streisand effect. So I feel like... Right, it's like if you want Belle Delphine's house, look for the blurred one. Blurred house, yeah.

But I moved house pretty soon after that, and so did she. So it wasn't really an issue. Was it an organized group or was it just a sort of grassroots collection of 4chan as saying like oh here's we need to do this thing it was this strange relatively small group i'd say maybe about 100 men or something and they it wasn't just me that they were harassing they were harassing any girls and they were going were going, a lot of them, because I'm UK based, but most of them were American based. So they were reporting all of these girls as business to the IRS and things like this to try and get the IRS to do investigations on these girls and things like that. But

I'm in the UK and I also do pay my taxes. So I wasn't really bothered about it. Apart from, obviously, I didn't like him coming to my house house to what extent is it a concern that because you have this intense virtual relationship with fans that it could become something more troubling or dangerous or dark this is big fear I have so a lot of other sex workers or cosplayers have a lot more experiences than me the ones who have been doing it longer and I've spoken to a few of them and one thing that they do is they never speak about their experience because I feel like it's only a ripple effect once you speak about it you're more likely to encourage like stalkers or harassment or anything like that but it is worrying and especially for example there was this one girl called Bianca

Devins she was an e-girl and she posted similar content to me I think she was younger though and I on Instagram or which was Instagram yeah and she wasn't sexual anything like that but Bianca was murdered Bianca Devins it was July 2019 she was 17 and she was murdered by Brandon Andrew Clark who thought he was in a relationship with Bianca and when that came out it was obviously big news especially within my community because she was an e-girl and so many girls were like you know shocked by this just people in general and then there was a comment on a news article about this and the top comment was oh Belle Delphine should be next and it had I think about a thousand likes on it and that just because I was on holiday at the time when all of this happened and I think it just made me it was like

a kind of a jolt of uncomfortability someone commenting that I should be killed next on an article about a real girl who had just been murdered it just felt a bit more real than any other comment and i didn't like how many so many people were liking it casually agreeing with that statement well i'm not surprised yeah it's quite upsetting i would imagine how did you process that but how did you kind of just i was just disturbed i mean what can i do i can't take down that comment or reply to them being like hey this is not nice what can i do there's nothing i can do i think it just hit different because anyone on the internet gets you know death threats and things like this but this is all just standard of the internet it doesn't mean anything i think the one things that I've really kept a lookout are not violent comments like that,

more so disturbing comments, things that are quite bizarre, that don't make sense and are consistent. So I like to leave all my messages open. So on Instagram and Twitter, my DMs are open. So you are free to message me and I've got my email public as well. So you can message me because I want people to message me because I want to kind of have a grasp on if anyone is obsessed with me in a way that I should be aware of. And that has actually helped me with people who have been obsessed with me. I had to, there was this one guy in the UK who I didn't take it to court or pursue anything like that because he had mental health issues. And I didn't think that the court process would help anything like that. So it was just a constant barragement of taking his very erratic strange messages and

emails and letters and posts and all of these things claiming that he knew who I was and that I was a 30 year old woman and that we were in love and that he met me many times and that we had this whole relationship and he'd rewrite the same handwritten letter hundreds of times and that we had this whole relationship and he'd rewrite the same handwritten letter hundreds of times and send me really sad gifts for example like lilo and stitch merch and care bears and things that made me feel really upset because obviously this guy has mental issues and it it's just really upsetting that he wanted to send me something sweet like that and I just feel really sad it makes me feel really sad I'm not angry at him at all which is why I like keeping things like this open because I like keeping tabs in case I do get a weird guy like a real bad weird guy one day you know right yeah so what

did you do about that uh well he actually also sent me his birth certificate his passport and all of his credit cards which is when i first contacted the police because i was like this guy is not mentally stable and now he sent me all of his credit cards his documents and a receipt from a doctor's appointment or something like this with his psych report and it was just i was like okay he needs to get all of this back. So that's when I contacted the police about it. But I mean, what do you do? What do you do about something like that?

Well, I think you do what you did, which is notify the police, don't take his money. And then the Lilo and Stitch merchandise is a gray area. Yeah, I've put them all in one big box. I haven't opened any of it because I don't really feel quite uncomfortable. I don't really want this sweet teddy with this weird connotation. So I've kept them all in a box in case anything strange does happen. Because with stalker cases, you have to prove repeated behavior.

So that's something that i've kept in mind in case you document it that's one day yeah and the thing is with online things is a lot of people can believe that they are in love with you and that is a difficult part on the other side to deal with because at the same time this this is my business. I do want people to be admired by me, I suppose, because that's, I suppose, where I own my money. But at the same time, I think at the end of it, I don't care about money that much. So if someone is getting to the point of obsession, I have blocked people before. It's tricky because you are, I think you've said selling a girlfriend experience. Is that the term? Yeah. So you can see how there's a scope for a level of,

it's not ambiguity as such, but there's a sort of a consensual fiction that's in place. They know that you're not, hopefully they know you're not their girlfriend, but you're both pretending a little bit. I suppose in a way, I speak to a lot of these people one-to-one and it's not like anything I'm saying is fake because a lot of these people, as I said, are normal people and I actually do enjoy their conversations. And a lot of them ask me about my hobbies. I ask them about their hobbies. I'm quite open sexually as well. So it's quite fun being openly sexual with them as well. I quite enjoy that personally myself. They pay a bit extra for one-to-one. Slightly, yeah.

Your baseline on OnlyFans is $35 a month subscription. Yes. That's right. Which is, I only know a little bit about OnlyFans because I did a program a couple of years ago. My recollection is 35 is on the higher end. It is, yeah. But it's working for you. And I'm very confident in what I produce on there. I think I like being a little bit on the higher end. I think it adds to maybe the exclusivity of it, the feeling of it.

And it is expensive, though. It is a little bit expensive. I think you probably will not tell me how many subscribers you have. It constantly changes. Does it? Yeah, it does. It fluctuates quite a lot month to month. It seems like the figure that's commonly given out in terms of revenue,

sorry, it's a bit crass to talk about money. It's okay. Nevertheless, it's sort of come up, hasn't it? Have I got this right? About a million pounds a month? Yeah. Does that sound about right? Yeah.

Which is a good living, as they say. And this isn't by, I'm not trying to, this isn't an expose, and we can choose to gloss over this if you like. Obviously, there's a degree of management that goes on on OnlyFans accounts. It just wouldn't be realistic for you notionally you're available around the clock right are you able to talk about that would you prefer not to go too far into that i'm fine so quite evidently if you've got say 15 000 only fan subscribers and they're all hoping to get individualized content or daily photos,

you are not going to be able to do that. One person, it's physically impossible for one person to do that. My messages are way too much for me to message everyone. In terms of management help, how does that work in terms of managing the account? So this is the one problem. I can't message everyone. It is just me, but I'm quite picky. So I do have like a bunch of people that I speak to, maybe 50 different people, maybe 100 people who are either high tippers or people who are maybe medium range tippers, but I personally like who have been subscribed to me for a while. So I just can't message everyone. It's not something that I think you should expect. That's a lot for you to, I mean, look, people are going to be listening to this and saying, it's better than working in a factory, Louis, like she's making a million a month. Like,

why wouldn't she work hard for it? Like, but I do think in terms of your head space and that level of intimacy spread across so many people I just think psychologically that's quite complicated it is quite strange on self-reflection I think speaking sexual so much of the day not not every of my conversation is sexual with people but a lot of them are and that's okay so I think it is quite strange being so much in a sexual mind state and I think that's quite strange to manage internally uh some days I won't and then some days I'm feeling it so I think it fluctuates, you know. You said between 50 and 100, right? Yeah. But not daily?

Not daily. No, I won't message them every day. But I mean, it's quite, I'm a very fast typer. So I can have around 15 conversations all at the same time. And as soon as I've sent one message, I'm going back up to the top and I'm replying to the other person. That sounds, i'm sorry that really sounds crazy making that would drive me bonkers not that people are queuing up to ask for it from me but but you know all these people it's like if you're on facebook and you're

messaging like five of your mates at the same time it's kind of like and you're saying like oh wow you're making me really hot next one oh you're making you know what i mean like it must get no it's it's it's more sexting is different to casual sexual conversations so casual sexual conversations really just go over my head it's like normal conversations to me i wouldn't be able to sex that many people at the same time for sexting things like that it's very uh one-on-one got you yeah i didn't mean to confuse sexting, things like that, it's very one-on-one. Got you. Yeah, I didn't mean to confuse sexting with casual sexual conversations. Should we talk a little bit about where you came from? I know you grew up in South Africa, in Cape Town, is that right?

Yeah. Your dad was a... He worked in making adverts and movies and production, things like that. And your mum had gone over as a model, is that right? Yeah. That's how they met. It sounds like it was complicated. It was complicated. I think they were very young.

And I think they were, looking back now, being the same age as my mother when she had me, I can look back now and reflect upon that and be like wow 23 that is I think so yeah 23 yeah that is young yeah it's very young so she went over there for work they met each other there and they were pressurized to get married because her visa ran out at the same time that she got pregnant with me only a year into knowing each other so maybe a controversial thing to say but I don't think my dad was I think some people aren't meant to be parents and I think that's okay and I think I knew that on very early on I don't hold you know that there was no aspect of raising children that he seemed to enjoy my My childhood was very much tiptoeing around

my dad. And I think that was the main thing that I sort of thought about him was just, he's going to shout at me if I do something. And for example, he wouldn't hold my school bag because it was pink and, you know, real silly things like that. There was no interest in anything I was interested in. I was very embarrassed about liking the things that I liked, like childish things because I was a child. He would make fun of that. I think I could tell he's got no interest in me. So I think you have no relationship with your dad. Is that right? No, I don't. Any interest in attempting to change that? I don't any interest in attempting to change that I did try so I reached out to him and this was at the beginning when I bought my first house so I felt like I was rooted in England

work was going quite well how long ago was this uh this was early 2019 you had already bought your first house yeah early 2019 yeah with patreon money yeah wow so i try to rekindle something there because i think when you get older i've always been understanding he he had a very tough upbringing so i can kind of see why he is the way and i feel like i have a lot of empathy and sadness for that so I tried to rekindle it but it did not go well because he didn't I knew I couldn't tell him he was the only person I couldn't tell about what I do because I'm open everyone else in my family knows I never wanted it to be a secret thing because everyone always finds out eventually but he was the one person that I knew wouldn't accept it and he didn't and I didn't really know how to

how to go on from that because I already tried to get over my own childhood issues that I had with him because it's quite sad never knowing your father and if he dies and not being able to say anything but I think after that I like, there's no way that I'm ever going to have a normal or even vaguely normal relationship with him. He's just tides apart from everything. And it would just be negative. Wow. When was the last time you saw him? 2019. You went there or he came over here? He came over and he came over to my house met my partner for the first time it all went well and then obviously he saw that I owned a house and was like how has she done this sort of thing like that and obviously I guess googled me straight afterwards and then

I think it was that evening or the next day he just went wild went crazy and was just so just the messages he was writing it was horrible and but he's always been like that so it's not something that i wouldn't have not expected so it's just very in character i'm not sure what i was expecting i'm not sure if i was expecting him not to find out but i guess i was just trying it was all i could do to i don't know well yeah i mean i think it's good that you did try i guess i always would have wondered yeah if i didn't he was a drinker i think uh no my mom was oh yeah well they both were but my mom was that the part of the toxicity of the relationship yes yeah i think because he had bad anger issues and she had a drinking problem which was got quite bad and i don't think he knew how to deal with it because she was going

through her own thing i mean everyone's just faulted, troubled people, I think with problems like that. And I think when you've got two troubled people trying to look after each other, it's just not going to work. No. So. So you're okay now with not having a relationship with your dad? You feel like that's okay? Yeah. I don't really know what having one's like, so I guess I've never really mourned not having it. It's not like I had a great father and then he passed away and now I really feel that emptiness. I don't feel any emptiness, which is a good thing, I think. I don't have that negative, scared feeling anymore. put naked pictures of yourself put sex acts of yourself on the internet do you suppose if your relationship with your parents had been in a better place I'm thinking mainly of your dad that might have held you back I wouldn't have done it you wouldn't have I already know that if and it seems so typical like oh you've got daddy's issues or whatever but I really do feel like that is the reason I feel like my father issues have stemmed through a lot of aspects of my life for example when I look for a partner I look for

someone who's older and will be a father figure to me in a way and that goes into a lot of different aspects in my life sexual relationship I think it can't not affect someone growing up right and so in your relationships it's someone not a provider because you're you're really the provider yeah but someone who who what who feels like they can look after you in some sense he's like a daddy yeah what does that mean though like a daddy like someone who will look after you you feel safe around who takes control over situations you can fall back on who is there to help and provide for you not monetarily but in all other aspects where i feel like i'm unable to fill those roles for myself and look after myself in certain ways I struggle with. So. Solid and stable and dependable and practical

and emotionally mature and consistent. I know you've got a significant other, a man friend, a boyfriend? Partner. Partner. Who's been with you the whole time you've been in the public eye that's right yeah he likes to remain in the background I think yes I think uh we both think it's probably the best thing um but he comes along and on all my journeys and it's quite fun and it's great to have I need a person supporting me I wouldn't be able to do all this I mean there's so much behind the scenes and everything's so complicated so I kind of need a buddy and how is your relationship with your mum it's getting better it's gotten a lot better she's okay with the sex work yeah she wasn't at first which I don't blame her at all

it's not a good thing for your child to do I wouldn't want my children to do it well look we have to be conscious that there's a lot of people out there listening who may be in sex work and perhaps doing it in a healthy way right well and you're doing it now would you say in a healthy way but I still think it's it's not something that you dream for your children to do so I understand why she was contentious about it at the beginning well the quote you gave that I've written down is I don't think sex work should be normalized so much I don't think it should be such an easy job to get into yeah do you stand by that I do yeah why one thing that I don't think people think about that much is it really, really is true.

Whatever you post on the internet stays on the internet. You know that. But I think when it comes into terms of sexual things, for example, I think it's quite uncomfortable and will be quite uncomfortable for when I turn 30 or 35 knowing that there's nude photos of me when I'm 18 on the internet. And maybe when I have my own daughter of myself reflecting when she turns my age I think um it's just quite uncomfortable I'm not against sex work at all obviously but I don't like how easy it now is to get into because it's accessible you can do it from your house and I think it is such a personal job. And for example, there's so many things you

don't think about that you can now realize. I mean, I've been lucky, for example, that I've stayed with my partner and I think it will be a long time thing for the rest of my life. But what about if you shoot content with a partner and maybe things go quite sour? Where's the line where you shot content with your ex girlfriend right and now you've got a new partner everything's going great do you still keep reselling this video of you and your ex partner to people because it makes you money where is this line here's another thing I haven't personally had this but other people have where relatives buy your only fans how do you deal with your uncle purchasing your only fans you know people for whom that was the case people have spoken about it yeah

and it's very normal for old school friends who knew you as a child when they were also a child who subscribed to you there's just yeah there's a lot of weird things that happen I get the feeling you've got mixed feelings about being involved in this work completely um it's definitely a fun job I like doing it I've always been quite a sexual person even growing up when I was younger it's quite fun and exciting but at the same time sex has a lot of complexities more than any other subject, I feel like, because sex can be hot and then it can be strange and then it's uncomfortable. And there's so many different elements to it. And consent is so big in this.

And sometimes you consent to putting something out on the internet and you've done that at the time but then looking back on it you wish you might not have done that but now it's you can't take it back uh you basically you were offered too much money to turn down like the money that was offered in the sense that you you became aware that there were tens of millions of pounds on offer if you were prepared to do this thing and you thought well I'd be crazy not to I think it's interesting because a lot of people maybe say you're given a hypothetical and it's like if you do this one weird thing you can get this pot of gold and you'll be like oh yeah I'll do it or no I won't

do it but I think it really changes this hypothetical question when you're like if I do this I know a hundred percent I will get at least this and that even being a thing really changes the way that you think about what will people do for money like how far will people go because I never thought I'd go this far at the beginning I only thought I'd do lingerie and then I said I would only do implied nudity and then I was like I'll only do nudity and then it's I only do solo must can I say that masturbation things and then just before I knew it I was like I know that if I post this I will be able to buy my house my dream house and I did it and now I've got my dream house that was the full contact full intercourse that was

when I was at my peak and I knew that I had the most eyes on me on the internet and I was right that was the time I had the most eyes on me and I was like we're talking late 2020 yeah when you had just you'd done many of your stunts and what was in the background you were doing your podcasts you were just I get what you were just aware that that's why I did all those podcasts was because I knew I was the biggest I was ever going to be I needed all eyes on me then to really push this video that i was going to sell and even though i regret how it came out because i don't think it was that good thing is i was is it still on your only fans it is yeah but i'm very inexperienced in it i wish i could have changed it but do i regret it no you think the production values could have been higher it was just quite shit quite awkward quite shit it was quite awkward

yeah there's one thing posting your first porn video and there's another thing posting your first porn video knowing millions of people are going to see it and the pressure of that was too much for me and that ended up making a worse video so if i had none of that pressure, it would have been better. How much money did you make on it? Around, around 5 million. Really? Yeah. For real? Yeah.

You've said I'll do everything and then I'll leave. Right? Yeah. So what does that look like? Have you already got an exit plan? No, I don't. I think at the moment, I'm not doing any stunts on the internet. I found it all consuming. When I was doing that all during 2019, 2020, it was my entire life. It was all that I could think about.

I didn't hang out with friends. I didn't see my family. I feel like my relationship was getting quite strained because of how work-orientated and focused I'd become. I was very much on the machine and I was not going to quit until I made the choice to where I thought, okay, now I'm going to take the break and cash out. So now I don't feel pressured to really try and make a lot of money because I'm in a fortunate position where I've bought my house now.

Don't have to stress about that. Is it huge's a it's a country house how many bedrooms eight how many bathrooms seven wow but it's a one poor guy doesn't get a bathroom with his bedroom it's a sad story very sad but um i'm in a good place now I'm just doing what I enjoy would you still like to have an internet presence like would you still like to have even if it's a kind of a more vanilla kind of content would that be fun or that you see that I wish I wish there was a way to kill me on the internet and just like somehow delete everything or just kind of die in a sense and uh just move on i like chapters really yeah i think just like to disappear would be a nice maybe maybe close the chapter but there's no way to do that which is fine well what you can do

is just as we were saying disappear stop doing anything maybe what you can do is just, as we were saying, disappear. Stop doing anything. Maybe what you're saying is like, rather than fizzle out and have a kind of lower rated, non-adult content social media account, you'd prefer just to be completely gone. I'm not interested in the fame aspect of it. So there would be nothing really holding me on at that point.

And I think once it's run its course just leave it Hi, me again, Louis Theroux. Just to remind you, you're listening to the Louis Theroux podcast. And now back to my conversation with Belle Delphine. So I think we're pretty good, you know, do you feel all right? Yeah, that was awesome. I'm really glad you say that. I felt like I was trying to translate the internet from someone who just arrived from 1756 and was only, you know, just getting their head around movable type and newspapers. And there's me going like, and a simp is, and YouTube is, and OnlyFans is.

You've got a good understanding though. Thank you. Very grounded. Being the king of TikTok comes with its perks. Okay, so there it was, me talking to Belle Delphine. And since that was recorded, she's actually disappeared back behind the veil of anonymity that OnlyFans affords her. That is to say, she's still doing stuff on OnlyFans, but on no other platforms. She's not done any other interviews. interviews. I found it a fascinating chat and in a weird way, sort of, well, I've interviewed sex workers on TV, but I think it's a podcast first for me. And I feel like, despite my kind of boomer qualities, I think I appreciate what she brings to the table, right? the sort of strange artistry that she has infused in her various internet outings and i mean whether that's still happening i suppose in a weird way

maybe i sense some ambivalence on her part about doing the sex work well quite clearly she says she doesn't really recommend it and it feels conflicted about working in that industry and thinks that maybe we put too much as a culture well it's not that it's not stigmatized you know it is probably unfairly stigmatized but it's also monetized massively and bell was completely open and forthright about her feeling that this was something that perhaps needed to have a degree of judgment attached to it which I wasn't really expecting it was also sort of an insight I thought the stuff around Andrew Tate and the idea that she kind of understands his tactics and that a lot of the controversy that attaches to both her and to Andrew Tate is kind of deliberate that there's a provocation and a trolling in order to intrigue and draw

eyeballs with a view to then converting those eyeballs into coin sorry for that weird image regarding stalkers we'll put some information on where to get help in the show notes and you can also go to spotify.com slash resources so good luck to bell if you're listening uh a big thank you to you credits produced by millie chu the assistant producer was man al-yazari the production manager was francesca bassett and the executive producer is Aaron Fellows. The music in this series is by Miguel de Oliveira. This is a Mindhouse production for Spotify.