Former AT&T “Lily” actress Milana Vayntrub has quietly pulled off one of the most surprising celebrity pivots of the year: transforming years of online harassment about her body into a mutual aid machine that has already raised over $500,000 for wildfire victims in California.
Instead of ignoring or retreating from the scrutiny, she’s built a new kind of fundraising platform — and it’s changing lives in a very direct, very measurable way.
From AT&T’s “Lily” to Accidental Internet Target
If you recognize Milana Vayntrub, it’s probably from her role as
Lily Adams in the long-running AT&T commercials, which made her one of the most familiar faces on TV starting in 2013.
- She fronted the national ad campaign for about four years, becoming a recognizable corporate spokesperson.
- After the initial run ended in 2017, she shifted behind the camera,
directing commercials instead of starring in them.
- AT&T later brought her back during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, but that return came with a darker side: a wave of
lecherous, objectifying online comments, photos being shared without consent, and even spammy sites falsely promising explicit content of her.
Vayntrub responded by covering up more in ads and speaking out, bluntly telling followers:
“You’ve lost the privilege of looking at it until I feel safe again.”That could easily have been the end of the story. Instead, she took the same unwanted gaze that once felt weaponized — and turned it into rent money, medical gear, and cars for families who lost everything.
The “Only Philanthropy” Experiment
In 2025, Milana co-created and launched
Only Philanthropy, a deliberately tongue‑in‑cheek nod to platforms like OnlyFans — but with a hard line:
no nudity, all mutual aid.
How it works:- Fans
donate directly to vetted causes and individuals in crisis.
- In exchange, they get access to
exclusive, watermarked, flirty photos of Vayntrub — more playful than her usual content, but firmly on her own terms.
- The model is built as a
“playful fundraising platform” that turns creator influence and the
male gaze into cash for people in immediate need.
Vayntrub herself has described the project as using
“the male gaze to fight the blaze” and calls Only Philanthropy
“the best thing I have ever been part of.”What started as a half-joking idea after watching other creators monetize attention has become a serious — and seriously effective — pipeline for
direct aid.
Campaign #1: A Single Mom, a Burned Home, and $170,000 in Four Days
The first big test came earlier this year, when wildfires devastated parts of the Los Angeles area.
On Only Philanthropy, Vayntrub launched a campaign for
Bridget, a single mother in LA whose home burned down and whose son has cerebral palsy.
According to Only Philanthropy and interviews cited by Parade and other outlets:
- The campaign raised
$170,000 in just four days.
- The funds covered
a year of housing, replacement
medical equipment,
clothing, and even a
car so Bridget could safely care for her children.
- Bridget later said,
“It was the first time in a long time I felt seen… like someone actually cared that we were still here, still fighting.”For Vayntrub, that impact was the moment she realized this wasn’t just a stunt — it was a
proof of concept.
Campaign #2: Disabled Families Displaced by the Eaton Canyon Fires
Next, she went bigger.
A second campaign targeted
disabled individuals and families displaced by the Eaton Canyon fires near Altadena earlier in 2025.
- Working with the local group
My Tribe Rise, the effort raised
over $350,000 in about a week.
- The money went out as
direct grants to disabled families forced from their homes by the fires.
Reports from Parade and Indian outlets sum it up this way:
- Campaign 1: ~
$170,000
- Campaign 2: $350,000+
-
Total: more than $500,000 in wildfire relief by late 2025, with more than 3,500 donors participating.
Some coverage, including BollywoodShaadis, notes that by Milana’s own count on Instagram, she has now raised
around $500,000 for Los Angeles wildfire survivors alone, not including earlier mutual-aid work.
Wildfire Relief at Scale: “Real Money, Real Impact”
By early December 2025, Vayntrub posted on Instagram that
total funds raised through Only Philanthropy had crossed the half‑million‑dollar mark, specifically for wildfire survivors.
In posts cited by multiple outlets, she wrote that this is:
-
“Real money, real impact, right where it makes the biggest difference.”- And urged followers:
“Now let’s grow this into something bigger, stranger, more powerful, with more creators jumping in.”Key details from recent coverage:
-
No nudity: The platform is built around flirty but non-explicit photos.
-
Direct mutual aid: Money goes straight to individuals and community partners, not into a large, faceless charity pool.
-
Creator-first model: The concept is explicitly designed so other women and creators can “mobilize their audiences into
powerful, purpose-driven communities.”
As wildfire seasons in California get longer, hotter, and more destructive, journalists have framed Only Philanthropy as a fresh twist on
mutual aid — where fandom doesn’t just fund merch, but
housing and medical care.
Reclaiming the Gaze: From Harassment to Agency
Context matters here.
For years, Vayntrub has talked about how being sexualized online — via invasive comments and manipulated images — left her feeling unsafe and objectified. That’s part of why her approach now is so pointed: this is not just fundraising, it’s a form of
reclamation.
In a recent Yahoo Life essay cited by Parade, she explained that using flirty photos for philanthropy helps her take
power back from attention she never wanted in the first place. Instead of being passively consumed, her image becomes a
tool to funnel resources to families facing the kind of emergencies that don’t wait for slow-moving systems.
She has framed it bluntly: this is about turning a “ridiculous” idea into very serious relief for people who lost their homes.
Money, Fame, and a Different Kind of “Influencer”
Several outlets have also dug into Vayntrub’s
net worth and career arc in light of her new project.
- Estimates from celebrity finance trackers put her net worth in the
$3–4 million range.
- Earlier local reports suggested she once earned around
$500,000 per year from AT&T commercials, with later contracts reportedly rising into
seven-figure territory.
Yet what’s striking here is where the focus has shifted. Coverage now centers less on how much she makes — and more on how effectively she’s
redistributing attention and cash to people on the margins of disaster zones.
In comment sections highlighted by Hindustan Times and other outlets, supporters cheer the move as
“an excellent initiative” and say things like,
“We need more wonderful people like you in this world.”What This Means for Creator Culture and Tech
Zooming out, Only Philanthropy sits at the intersection of
creator economy,
sex‑adjacent platforms, and
disaster relief — and it raises some big questions about where online fundraising is headed.
A few key implications:
-
Mutual aid goes mainstream: Instead of traditional charities, more fans are comfortable sending money to individuals and small groups, especially when a trusted creator vouches for them.
-
Consent and control: Vayntrub’s model is built around images that are playful but entirely on her terms, flipping the script on nonconsensual sharing that many women in the public eye face.
-
New platform template: By branding it Only Philanthropy and pitching it as something “bigger, stranger, more powerful” with more creators involved, she is effectively offering a
blueprint other public figures can copy.
In other words, she’s not just doing charity — she’s
prototyping a platform: a tech-enabled
Sources
1. Meet Milana Vayntrub: Actress Behind USD ...
2. Milana Vayntrub Raises $500,000 for Los Angeles Wildfire ...
3. Who is Milana Vayntrub? Former AT&T star raises ...
4. Milana Vayntrub Net Worth: Inside The Fortune Of AT&T ...
