"A lot of very strange stuff has happened in the last six to eight months," Chelsi says when we chat on the phone. Chelsi is in a very different position now to where she was at the start of the year. Initially being self-employed in the beauty industry, Chelsi was served a Section 21 in January. Just a few months later, she made the move to start working in the porn industry - a decision that she says has turned her life around.
A single mum, Chelsi had been self-employed in the field of beauty for a number of years, but says she was struggling to keep up with rent. After missing rent payments to her private landlord a few times, Chelsi was served a Section 21 notice in January, giving her six months to leave the property. She and her three-year-old son found themselves sofa surfing, staying with family members and friends.
Two months after being served the notice, the 27-year-old felt she had nothing to lose and decided she wanted to enter the porn industry through her Only Fans page. "I thought, 'Right, stuff it," she said. By May, Chelsi had booked on to film her first porn scene for the platform.
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"It's from there really, it just kind of kick-started," she said. Chelsi, who is based in north Wales, says that she has had her hand in the industry "to one degree or another", posting photos and self-filmed videos, who is based in north Wales. "I started off doing cam work when I was 21 in university to make a couple of extra quid when I was in my final year. But, when I became a parent, that side of me disappeared a little bit."
Chelsi says had set up an Only Fans account under the name Wwrappedinplastic "a year or two prior" to beginning her work in the porn industry in May this year, where she posted "self-filmed" content. She later changed her name to The Corn Starr as a re-brand.
However, Chelsi said family and friends were not surprised about her career move. "I think mentally it can be quite strenuous on a lot of creators but it's the first job where I haven't felt like I didn't belong in it," she said. "Mentally, it's been a weirdly cathartic job and I've met some of the best people."
On top of her day-to-day job, Chelsi is also a committed parent and says her job has allowed her to look after him more often. "Because I'm a single parent, I have no help except from the help of my parents - which is brilliant - but it's not someone else in the home.
"It can be quite emotionally exhausting as well. When [my son] has been ill, what [my career] has enabled me to do is actually go out to work a couple of days a month, but the rest of the time I get to spend at home with him. I think it's made mine and his bond a lot better as well."
Chelsi added that she got into debt falling behind on childcare payments, but that half of her debts have now been wiped - something that she says she would not have been able to do if she was on an eight-hour a week contract. When she was working in beauty, Chelsi said that the guilt she felt when she would have to let clients down for childcare reasons began to affect her mental health. "I can stay home with him now and I don't have to worry about letting people down anymore," she said. "It's been a massive weight off my shoulders."
Despite the freedom that Chelsi has found through the job, she says a lot of administrative work goes on behind the scenes and she goes out to film just a couple of times a month. The job can sometimes be isolating, she added, due to the solo work involved. However, she said that the work has allowed her to find a community.
"When you meet people through the industry who are very genuine, it's more than a job. It becomes a community. I think because it's still very frowned upon by a lot of people, that's what you know you're going to have to deal with. So, to meet very likeminded people it's a complete breath of fresh air," Chelsi said.
Outside of the community she has found within the industry, Chelsi says her friends have been very supportive of her career move. "My family, I think, knew that it was coming," she continued. "I've always been very transparent with them anyway. They are quite supportive and my friends are like, 'You're life is wild'. They knew it was coming, but I don't think they expected it to boom as it did."
Despite the support she gets from her friends and family, Chelsi added that there are those who vocalise their disapproval of her choice of career. But she doesn't let these comments affect her. "I'm very heavily tattooed and tall. If I walk into a room, everybody kind of stares at me anyway. I was always the weird kid in school anyway so for me to be able to feel like I was going to be in a situation where people do appreciate me... With OF [Only Fans], you're selling yourself," Chelsi said.
Chelsi has lost count of the number of tattoos she has. "I've got [one] nicknamed 'eat out to help out' and it's a guy going down on a girl on the back of my leg. The artist put it on his page and I just went, 'I want it.'" Having got her first tattoo as a teenager, Chelsi now has her full back, shins, arms, and even the back of her head tattooed. "There's not many places where I haven't got tattoos." She added that her tattoos have become part of her selling point and something she has utilised as part of her profile.
"Anyone can strip off, but you have to put a lot of personality behind it and it's the fact that people get to know you and be interactive, which is the good thing about the platform I think. Because of what it's given me in that respect, the negative doesn't affect me, which I never thought I'd say."
A key part of the job for Chelsi is self promotion. She begins the day by checking her social media - mainly, to ensure that her accounts haven't been deleted. "Instagram and TikTok love to delete us - that's the first thing I check. I'm on my third Instagram account now. When you lose those, it's obviously hard to get that back again or to rebuild new ones," she said.
She then begins to post links across her social media profiles, as well as content to TikTok. "I had a viral TikTok of me in a pair of eight-inch heels and that got, I think, 200,000 views. I'm in a latex dress - you can't see anything, I'd just been filming. We'd ordered pizza and I didn't expect it to arrive so quickly, so I ran to the door. Luckily, [the person I was with] went to film it and that kind of boomed."
In eight-inch heels, Chelsi's height is 6'8. "[After posting the TikTok] my height became a thing. I'm quite a tall woman, so then you get the people who have a bit of a thing for people's height. It's amazing how what happens in a day can dictate what you do with your next day. Because I had that, I thought, 'Now I have to think of some more tall-based stuff.'"
Filming days, however, are very different. The last filming day Chelsi went to, she said she filmed five scenes in 24 hours. "I had a lesbian scene, a male-male-female three-way scene, I had a 12-person orgy, I had two custom scenes which were scenes people had paid for, and then I had all my TikToks and stuff to do as well."
On top of filming, it takes time to edit the scenes and Chelsi says things can become technical with the need to change camera angles. "People think it's really glamorous and actually, it takes you a lot longer because you've got to think, 'How does this look on screen?' If your arm is in the wrong place, you block a key part of the view."
From the end of May, Chelsi says she has been able to make around £18,000. "It's the hardest thing I've ever done, graft-wise. You have to be on it every single day. If you are not, you lose money," she said. While Only Fans takes their percentage of the profits, Chelsi says she has been able to make more money on top of what she gets for her content by selling some unusual items.
"I sold a pot of my squirt for £150," she said. "He's a really good subscriber of mine and we were kind of having a back and forth and I just turned around to him and said, 'Do you want me to do you a pot?' and he just went, 'Yeah, ok then.' So, then [when I was sending it] I had to explain what was in the package - I was like, 'It's... clothes.'"
In terms of some of the strangest content she's ever filmed, Chelsi referenced a company called PhreakClub, which makes adult fantasy toys. "There's a corn on the cob and it's the size of my forearm, and it went in my back door," she said. The video inspired the name she now works under - The Corn Star - after a friend suggested it.
"I've had people pay for dates, where I've gone out with people. It's not payment for content this is just because they get to know me I think," she said. "I've had designer underwear paid for, I've had personal outings paid for. I never thought it would be like this - it's crazy. That's come from me building a work-based relationship with my subscribers. You're selling yourself, basically."
Chelsi says that there are still some misconceptions about the industry. "If you do porn, you can work with as few or as many as you like. I think [one misconception] is that we're not tested regularly. I'm very pro-sexual health - massively. I never used to be, but when I got into the industry I was like, 'Actually, this could damage your life for ever if you're not careful.'
"If you contract something that's potentially incurable, that's not good. We have to get tested every three weeks. We have to have a clean batch of certs [certificates] to work with people." Chelsi says that 'certs' are the certifications you get from STI testing - a service that is offered by Frisky Wales.
Chelsi also mentioned PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) which can be taken if you're HIV negative in order to reduce your risk of getting the virus. The pill is available for some people who are at high risk of HIV infection. "You can contract HIV no matter what gender you are. There's a huge myth that it's within one category of people, one sexual demographic, but actually it's across the board."
Chelsi made the decision to go on PrEP in order to protect herself as well as the people she works with. "There can be some irresponsible people, but the majority of people that I've met are quite responsible with their sexual health."
While she understands that her choice of career is not for everyone, she feels that more awareness should be raised about the job, adding that a thick skin is needed to deal with the hatred directed towards her at times.
"It's the oldest industry in the world, isn't it? People sell their bodies as a labourer, people sell their bodies as a bricky - everybody does it to people who don't really care about them or their welfare either. You can spend your life working for companies who aren't bothered about the bottom line.
"I know people who've worked very strenuous jobs and they've had permanent health conditions - bad backs, hips, things like that. It's exactly the same thing - you're selling your body, but you're just selling it in a different way."
However, her career move has changed her life in such a way that Chelsi doesn't let some of the more judgemental comments affect her. "It completely pales in comparison to the bigger picture for me," she said.
"I'm actually in emergency accommodation at the moment because the rental market is so bad. It's difficult when you're self-employed to get a mortgage and to try and get your foot on the ladder so I'm saving to be able to go on my own into the property market, whether that's to buy or to rent," Chelsi continued.
She added that she's now in a financial position where she could find a decent home and that she doesn't have to rely on anybody else. "Now, you've got the climbing rates of gas and electric and there are people who can't even stick the heating on. It's heart-breaking to watch.
"I was in that position, where I couldn't afford it at the time. You feel like you're letting your kids down as well. When you're worried about putting food on the table, you're worried about having an empty fridge - it's basic things that you should have to be able to provide for yourself at the very least.
"So, now, to be in a position just to be able to do all that for my son is massive. It's sad seeing people not know whether they're going to eat or pay the bills. That was very much me when I was living on my own."
Chelsi says her change of career has "massively" turned her life around. "There was a point where I was crying every day and I was just like, 'This is my life. I'm at rock bottom and I don't know where I can go from here.' I finally feel like there's a way out of that. If you'd asked me three months ago, mentally I really wasn't in a good place. To be out of that now, thanks to the platform, is absolutely outstanding to me."
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