Insta-model Kaylen Ward says she raised $500K for Australia bushfire relief by offering nudes
By: Tamar L.
A social media influencer is fighting the Australia bushfires — with nudes.
Kaylen Ward — also known as “The Naked Philanthropist” — said Sunday that she’d raised an estimated $500,000 in just two days by offering naked photos in exchange for donations to wildfire relief funds.
The 20-year-old Los Angeles model on Jan. 3 tweeted that anyone who sent her proof that they’d chipped in to a list of Australian charities would get a body-baring pic in their inbox.
“I was expecting to raise maybe $1,000 but the tweet blew up,” she told BuzzFeed News on Sunday.
She’s now hired four staffers to help her sift through the thousands of direct messages, verify donations and respond with a steamy photo.
Ward, who already sells naked images of herself online, figured she may as well do the same for the cause after seeing recent coverage of the devastating blazes.
“I was seeing all the posts on Twitter about the Australian fires and I was really concerned there wasn’t a lot of media coverage and not a lot of people donating,” she told the outlet.
Last summer, her family had to flee one of the fires that tore through California.
“I got to see firsthand how many people were affected,” she said.
Ward was running the campaign on Twitter, and word also spread to her 50,000 Instagram followers.
But on Saturday, Ward says Instagram deactivated her account, claiming she’d violated their guidelines about sexual content.
The social media platform said Ward had posted “sexually suggestive content,” according to a screenshot she tweeted. She denies she broke any rules.
Still, Ward vowed to keep the effort going.
“My IG got deactivated, my family disowned me, and the guy I like won’t talk to me all because of that tweet. But f–k it, save the koalas,” she tweeted Sunday.