Missouri teacher who performed on website known for explicit content has resigned, official says
ST. CLAIR, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri high school teacher who was suspended after officials discovered that she had performed on a subscription-based website known for sexually explicit content has resigned, a school district official said.
St. Clair High School English teacher Brianna Coppage was placed on leave last month after school officials discovered her page on the OnlyFans website, which she said she joined to supplement her teaching salary. She recently tendered her resignation, Superintendent Kyle Kruse told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The 28-year-old teacher was not asked to resign, and district officials took “all possible steps to ensure confidentiality” after Coppage’s page was discovered through social media posts, Kruse said. Last month when she was placed on leave, Kruse said in a statement that “an employee may have posted inappropriate media on one or more internet sites.”
When she was suspended, Coppage told the newspaper she had joined the site over the summer to supplement her second-year teaching salary of about $42,000. Missouri has among the nation’s lowest starting salaries for teachers in the nation, according to the National Education Association.
Coppage said she earned up to $10,000 a month on the OnlyFans website — before the story of her suspension made international news.
In the days that followed, her account gained more than 100 new subscribers and she more than doubled her subscription price. She said at the time of her suspension that she would continue posting on the site.
“I do not regret joining OnlyFans. I know it can be taboo, or some people may believe that it is shameful, but I don’t think sex work has to be shameful,” Coppage told the newspaper in September. “I do just wish things just happened in a different way.”
A publicly listed phone number for Coppage could not be found Wednesday.
St. Clair is about 55 miles (88 kilometers) southwest of St. Louis. The high school has about 750 students.
