Lily From AT&T's Bold New Project Is Her Most Unexpected Move Yet (But We Love It)
Lily from AT&T is turning tragedy into hope — and her method is a bit unorthodox. You probably know actor and director Milana Vayntrub as AT&T's spokesperson. The 38-year-old played Lily Adams in the brand's advertisements. What you may not know is why Lily from AT&T stopped showing her full body in commercials. When Vayntrub became known as the AT&T commercial girl, it brought her quite a bit of harassment. Getting unwanted attention for her body was tough. More recently, though, she realized that getting some different attention for her body might be a smart business move. And, this idea helped her make more than $500,000 for charity.
Last week, Vayntraub took to Instagram with a series of photos, starting with one that said, "I had this full on crazy idea for an experiment." After so many people tragically lost their homes to the devastating LA wildfires earlier this year, Vayntraub wanted to help those in need. She offered photos of herself in exchange for donations to one wildfire victim's GoFundMe. The result? $170,000 in just four days. And, she was only getting started. "We've raised over half a million dollars together this year," she wrote on Instagram, launching Only Philanthropy, an altruistic twist on OnlyFans: a popular site where folks sell their photos and videos. According to Vayntraub, all the money she's raised for others has been life-changing. "This is the best thing I've ever been a part of. Thank you. Truly," she wrote.
Milana Vayntrub's out-of-the-box idea has had an incredible outcome
Evidently, Milana Vayntrub has turned one idea into a lot of positivity. And, it's clearly only the beginning. "Now let's grow this into something bigger, stranger, more powerful, with more creators jumping in," she wrote in her Instagram caption. Evidently, through her past struggles with others viewing and commenting on her body, she took lemons and made lemonade. The Only Philanthropy website features the slogan, "Using the male gaze to fight the blaze."
This major update comes nearly five years after Vayntraub took to X, formerly known as Twitter to address why she was no longer showing her body in AT&T commercials. "Been getting a lot of 'why are they placing her body like that in those ads?' Well, I direct the ads. I place myself like that. And it's because of the thousands of unwelcome comments I receive about my body. You've lost the privilege of looking at it until I feel safe again," she wrote. Since then, she has managed to take that struggle and make it into something new, raking in funds that have provided housing, clothing, medical care, and more to those in need.