Kate Nash has defended her ‘Butts For Tour Buses’ OnlyFans campaign, arguing that it is vital that women are “in control of their bodies”.

Earlier this week, the ‘Foundations’ singer announced that she had started an account on the online subscription service as a way of raising money for her UK and European tour, which kicked off on Thursday (November 21).

Explaining her decision, she said: “Whilst touring is the best job EVER it is currently technically what you might call a passion project for a lot of artists in 2024.”

She went on to state that while ticket prices are rising, most touring musicians are “struggling to be able to afford to actually play shows”.

“Costs of travel, accommodation, food, promotion & employees have also gone up in price but musicians are not seeing changes in their gig fees to help pay for all these rising costs,” she added. “So this Christmas I’m asking that buy either a piece of my merch or my arse on my new ONLYFANS account katenyash87 to support me paying great wages & putting on a high quality show as I will not sacrifice either of things.”

Now, Nash has spoken out in defence of her decision to start the OnlyFans channel, saying she wanted to address accusations that it is a “sad” thing to do.

“Don’t be ‘sad’ that I started an onlyfans to fund my tours,” she wrote on Instagram. “It’s very empowering and selling pics of my arse is fun & funny, sex is fun & funny. Women being in control of their bodies is vital and something we should all be standing by & fighting for.”

“If you could remove shame & sadness from your perception of sex work you can help empower sex workers,” she added. “Is what I’m doing sex work? I’m not sure, you tell me but I love supporting sex workers especially when they are in control and setting their own boundaries. I am a SUPERFAN of women in charge of their bodies & sex lives & feminist porn creators.”

She went on to argue that her starting the campaign has done more to bring attention to her tour than a regular marketing campaign would. “My arse is shining a light on the problem,” she concluded. “Honestly I’m such a legend for this.”

Nash is not the first musician to jump on OnlyFans. Earlier this year, Lily Allen launched her own subscription account where she shares photos of her feet. She recently revealed that she now makes more money from her OnlyFans feet pics account than she does from Spotify.

She posted on X that she “hasn’t posted in a while but you can still check out the archive”, to which another user responded by questioning why she has been “reduced to this”.

Allen quote-tweeted the response, and replied: “Imagine being [an] artist and having nearly 8million monthly listeners on Spotify but earning more money from having 1000 people subscribe to pictures of your feet.”

Last month, figures from the Music Venue Trust have revealed that the touring circuit has been shrinking due to bands increasingly skipping towns and cities.

While 2023 proved to be “disastrous” and the worst year on record with 125 grassroots music venues shutting their doors, the MVT argue that a tidal wave of closures threatens the fabric of the UK music scene thanks to the recent budget announcement. They argue that £7million in new premises taxes will place over 350 grassroots music venues at immediate risk of closure – threatening more than 12,000 jobs, over £250million in economic activity and the loss of over 75,000 live music events.

At the NME-supported Venues Day last month celebrating 10 years of the Music Venue Trust, the charity laid out the situation that the gig spaces across the UK face. Many are simply finding themselves “financially unviable”.

“This is an incredibly worrying trend that’s been going on for a long time that has now reached crisis point,” said MVT CEO Mark Davyd. “That trend is a complete collapse of touring.”

“Bands cannot afford to pick up the cost of touring, venues cannot afford to turn the fucking lights on, agents are becoming incredibly averse to risk on behalf of their artists, managers are averse to risk as well, artists want to be out on the road and getting these audiences but this touring sector is as far as it can go without completely toppling over,” said MVT CEO Mark Davyd. “Something has to be done.”

Recently, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee has welcomed the UK government’s new backing of a levy on gigs at arena level and above to help save the grassroots music scene. 

The CMS committee have penned a letter that “welcomes the government’s recognition of the need for a levy and statement that the government reserves the right to step in if an industry-led solution is not forthcoming in 2025” – but voices “concerns that these long-term reforms will not address the short-term, mutually reinforcing rate of closures and cost of touring”.

As a result, there are now “calls for clarity on how long the industry has to take action before the government itself steps in”.

Featured Artists Coalition CEO David Martin, who has been vocal in his message of “what good is it keeping venues open if artists can’t afford to perform in them?”, also welcomed the news but called for urgency and clarity so that the much-needed levy funding could be spread around the ecosystem.