Jessie Cave, the actress who played Lavender Brown in the Harry Potter films, has revealed that her earnings from OnlyFans in a single year have exceeded what she made during her entire acting career.
Career slowdown and financial struggles
The 39-year-old mother of four said her acting work began to slow down last year, leaving her unsure of what to do. In an interview, she explained that she couldn't afford to pursue a new degree and couldn't take a supermarket job due to childcare costs and fears of customers shouting Harry Potter spells at her.
Cave described this period as a 'point of complete desperation' and said she had a 'breakdown'.
Joining OnlyFans
In March 2025, she joined OnlyFans, where she posts fully clothed 'hair content' – brushing her hair, which reaches her pelvis, while dressed as characters including Lavender Brown. Her first post went viral and gained her 3,500 subscribers.
'I thought I'd make five grand, be on it for a few months and it would buy me time to work out what we're going to do,' she told The Times. 'But it's now been over a year and a half and it's genuinely saved our lives.'
She added: 'My rule is the hair is the main character. That's how I justify it. It's literally about hair: the texture of hair. The fetish. It's very, very niche.'
Earnings and content
Subscribers pay $6 a month, with additional revenue from paid messages. Cave said she made £15,000 in one day and that in one year, she earned more than during her entire acting career.
While she does not do explicit content, she said she is often asked to do 'gross stuff' on the platform, which gets to her. She suspects her time on OnlyFans may be limited, as she won't cross that line.
Acting background
Before Harry Potter, Cave appeared in the CBBC drama Summerhill in 2008. She won the role of Lavender Brown through an open casting call, beating 7,000 other girls for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. She later appeared in Industry, Am I Being Unreasonable? and Black Mirror, with longer roles in Buffering and Trollied.
Earlier this year, she had breast enlargement surgery, which she said subscribers paid for, partly because her hair 'can only do so much'.
