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Another teacher at Missouri high school on leave after administrators find Only Fans

November 4, 2023 | | Print Article

It appears some Missouri teachers are taking their state’s nickname a bit too literally.

For the second time, a high school teacher in the Show Me State has been placed on leave for moonlighting via an OnlyFans account.

“Teaching does not financially support a person,” Megan Gaither, 31, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It’s really hard to stretch those paychecks during the summer. That’s why I did it.”

Gaither, a St. Clair High School English teacher and varsity cheerleading coach, said the district put her on leave on Friday night. Now that she’s gone public, she believes she will be fired.

With more than $125,000 in student loans to pay back — and with a teaching salary of only about $47,500 a year, including the stipend she receives for coaching cheerleading — Gaither joined the adult direct-to-subscribers website in May and was generating an extra $3,000 to $5,000 a month from her 1,500 subscribers when she deactivated her account.

The decision to shut her OnlyFans page down came after Gaither’s former co-worker, Brianna Coppage, was placed on leave for having her own successful OnlyFans account.

Coppage resigned from her teaching gig last month and chose to focus on her lucrative porn site, which boomed after her story attracted global news headlines. According to the Post-Dispatch, her subscription rate has “increased more than fivefold” as a result.

Gaither opted to stay anonymous on the OnlyFans site, never showing her face, but, last week, she appeared in one of Coppage’s videos wearing the same costume as when the St. Louis party shot, taken from a hotel room, was posted publicly.

That was enough to put the school’s rumor mill in motion.

On Monday, a note slipped under Gaither’s classroom door by a student revealed they “knew her secret.”

“I was in like maybe four minutes of the entire thing, and I definitely did not think this would be the thing that would ruin my entire career,” Gaither said of Coppage’s video.

Now best friends, Gaither and Coppage didn’t know they shared OnlyFans in common until a comment made by Gaither at a “Teacher’s Night” at Busch Stadium led to a deeper discussion between the two.

Armed with a master’s degree from Missouri Baptist University and Arizona State University, Gaither has spent four years teaching American and British literature and three years coaching cheerleading at St. Clair High. She said she loves teaching and didn’t want the same thing that happened to Coppage to happen to her, which is why she deactivated her account when Coppage’s was discovered.

But the damage has clearly been done.

Gaither said she knows her “career at St. Clair is over regardless of what I do.”

“I legitimately have love in my heart for each and every one of (my students),” she said. “The students are why I told myself I would spend 30 years of my life at that school, and I feel like I am abandoning them. I know I will likely never see them again.”

Officially, the district told Gaither that “professionalism and student communication” were the reasons she was put on leave, but she maintains she was always professional in the classroom. Administrators, she said, gave her good reviews.

According to the Post-Dispatch, the district’s superintendent, Kyle Kruse, said this week that the “district does not have a statement to issue at this time.” A request for more information on Gaither’s employment status and the decision to put her on leave reportedly went unanswered.

As for her OnlyFans account, Gaither said she’d probably reactivate it. She and her husband are considering leaving Gaither’s hometown of St. Clair, and making ends meet is a struggle.

“Right now,” Gaither said, “I am just hoping to make enough to support my family.”

While she insists her decision to go public isn’t an attempt to ride Coppage’s coattails, Gaither does hope to shine a light on the plight of poorly paid teachers.

“In order to make change, you have to make noise. and I think that is what Brianna did,” Gaither explained. “And I think that’s what maybe I’m getting ready to do — make noise about how unfair teacher pay can be.”

With the potential to bring in between $3 and $75 for a monthly subscription on an OnlyFans account — more for those who want custom and pay-per-view content — Gaither believes there are a lot of other teachers on the site.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other teachers out there (in Missouri),” Gaither said. “Teachers are probably freaking out right now because two teachers from the same school, in less than a month, have been caught.”

On X, Gaither has hardly been shy about her side vocation.

Her bio reads, “TOP 0.46% on OF! Come play with me. EX-teacher, teacher on leave! formerly known as “Paige” or “Ava”. 31 y.o, 5’4, 34DDD, bisexual, 160lbs. $10 OF!”

While she told the Post-Dispatch that she didn’t show her face on OnlyFans, her pinned post on X, from August, leaves little to the imagination.

“Kiss me and tell me I’m pretty, please,” it reads. “Free OF  #amateur #onlyfans #onlyfansgirl”

“I LOVE education and teaching, and I loved seeing my students and cheerleaders learn and grow into themselves. I’m damned good at helping them do that,” Gaither wrote in a Facebook post that stated, “‘morality’ is a sliding scale and what is moral to me may not be moral to you, and that’s ok.”

“I did NOT want this to happen. I hid very well behind an alias and no face pics. The fact of the matter is, this choice was taken from me,” she explained, adding that she will now be “making noise.”

“What adults do in their own time is their choice, and you have no right to dictate those choices for them, regardless of career choice,” she concluded.
“So, I’ll be speaking to media. I’ll be telling my story. And hey. At least I didn’t try to neglect my duties of paying back what I borrowed to get educated, right? I made the adult choice of getting a side hustle. And guess what? It’s working out ok so far.”

Melissa Fine
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