Internet icon Belle Delphine made quite a staggering amount selling her own bathwater to her loyal fans.
She is one of the most popular people on OnlyFans, to the point where people were seemingly desperate to buy her bathwater.
She made quite a fair amount from selling it, but there was a huge catch.
How much did Belle Delphine earn?
Back in 2019, Belle, now 24 and originally from Cape Town, South Africa, made waves by selling jars of her used bathwater for $30 (£24) each, per the Daily Star.
Dubbed "GamerGirl Bathwater," the product took off, selling hundreds of jars in just three days and racking up a staggering $90,000 (£71,000) in sales.
But there was a catch: she never saw a dime of it.
Despite the media frenzy and online success, Belle’s unexpected windfall was snatched away almost immediately.
In a revelation posted on X (formerly Twitter), the online personality dropped the bombshell that PayPal had taken the entire amount.
“PayPal, without any warning closed my account and took the $90,000 that I earned from selling my bathwater,” she wrote. She called the ordeal the “biggest L I’ve ever taken.”
Adding fuel to the fire, she revealed that PayPal didn’t just withhold the money - they fined her too.
“To add insult to injury,” Belle shared, the platform penalized her $2,500 (£2,000) per violation of its policies, which reportedly applied to every single jar sold.
Despite the setback, Belle said she kept quiet about it at the time for a clever reason.
“I knew it would be a better news story to say that I made ‘so much money’ from selling my bathwater so I just kept this secret,” she explained on X. “Ultimately I’m still glad I did since it was a really funny time on the internet when it happened.”
Viral pressure forces PayPal to pay up
Fast forward to 2024, and the tables turned.
After Belle aired her grievances online, her post blew up - and so did the backlash. It seems the power of social media did what five years of silence couldn’t. PayPal eventually returned the full $90,000, but it didn’t come without public pressure.
“If I didn’t have any [social media] following, they wouldn’t have given my money back,” she told Business Insider. “Which is so s**tty because what are all the normal non-social media users meant to do in this situation? I followed all the normal protocols and was roadblocked and gave up.”
Belle was stunned by how many others had similar stories, saying: “The Twitter post I made about it had SO many comments of people saying PayPal did the exact same thing to them. It was shocking, to be honest.”
According to Business Insider, PayPal no longer enforces the controversial $2,500 fine policy.
Although the company didn’t directly comment on Belle’s case, it may be this policy change that triggered the release of her long-lost earnings.
One key detail in the original drama is that PayPal only permits sales of adult-related physical goods like DVDs or magazines within the US. Belle, however, is based in the UK, which likely played a role in the company’s actions back in 2019.