Butts for Tour Buses

Kate Nash, who had previously released the albums Made of Bricks (2007), My Best Friend Is You (2010), Girl Talk (2013), and Yesterday Was Forever (2018), released her fifth album 9 Sad Symphonies in 2024.{{Cite web |last=PA |date=25 November 2024 |title=Kate Nash 'making a point about agency and music industry' with OnlyFans page |url=https://jerseyeveningpost.com/morenews/entertainment/2024/11/25/kate-nash-making-a-point-about-agency-and-music-industry-with-onlyfans-page/ |access-date=26 May 2025 |website=Jersey Evening Post |language=en-GB}} She had previously sung about people attempting to look at her buttocks on her single "Merry Happy" and had appeared on the Netflix series GLOW,{{Cite web |last=Roberts |first=Hannah |date=25 November 2024 |title=Kate Nash 'making a point about agency and music industry' with OnlyFans page |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/music/kate-nash-onlyfans-lily-allen-people-netflix-b1196195.html |access-date=27 May 2025 |website=The Standard |language=en}} which ran from 2017. When that series was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she opened a Patreon account,{{Cite news |last=Simpson |first=Craig |date=25 November 2024 |title=Kate Nash: I've had to join OnlyFans to pay for my music tours |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/25/kate-nash-had-join-onlyfans-pay-music-tours/ |access-date=27 May 2025 |work=The Telegraph |language=en-GB |issn=0307-1235}} having previously funded Girl Talk and Yesterday Was Forever via PledgeMusic and Kickstarter.{{Cite web |date=21 November 2024 |title=Kate Nash launches "Butts for Tour Buses" OnlyFans page to fund tour |url=https://consequence.net/2024/11/kate-nash-onlyfans-butts-for-tour-buses/ |access-date=26 May 2025 |website=Consequence |language=en}} Her early work was compared to that of Lily Allen.{{Cite web |last=Grimes |first=Gary |date=28 May 2025 |title=Kate Nash on returning to Hoopla and toppling TERFs with new politically driven single 'GERM' (EXCLUSIVE) |url=https://www.attitude.co.uk/culture/music/kate-nash-germ-mighty-hoopla-484405/ |access-date=28 May 2025 |website=Attitude |language=en-GB}}

By November 2024, she had mounted a three week tour of North America promoting 9 Sad Symphonies and had scheduled a tour of Europe for the same purpose.{{Cite web |date=22 November 2024 |title=Kate Nash says OnlyFans photos will earn more than tour |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwygdzn4dw4o |access-date=26 May 2025 |website=BBC News |language=en-GB}} Her tour used a crew and band of ten people and cost around £10,000 a day. Between legs,{{Cite news |last=Sarmiento |first=Isabella Gomez |date=31 March 2025 |title=Why would a musician join OnlyFans? Because making a living is only getting harder |url=https://www.npr.org/2025/03/31/g-s1-57321/only-fans-musicians-kate-nash-lizzie-no |access-date=26 May 2025 |work=NPR |language=en}} her accountant told her that her tours were haemorraging money, prompting Nash to set up an impromptu OnlyFans account,{{Cite web |date=2 December 2024 |title=Pop singer Kate Nash defends her decision to join OnlyFans |url=https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/music/news/kate-nash-onlyfans-earnings-tour-subscribers-b2657173.html |access-date=26 May 2025 |website=The Independent |language=en}} katenyash87. She got the idea after dancing around her tour dressing room in fishnet tights.{{Cite web |last=Pullman |first=Laura |date=1 December 2024 |title=Kate Nash: 'OnlyFans funds my tour because music doesn't pay' |url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/arts/article/kate-nash-onlyfans-pay-9prdj7qm8 |access-date=26 May 2025 |website=www.thetimes.com |language=en}} Her account charged $9.99 a month{{Cite news |date=18 December 2024 |title=Kate Nash tells Belfast crowd her OnlyFans account was 'necessary' to fund Limelight gig |url=https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/music/reviews/kate-nash-tells-belfast-crowd-her-onlyfans-account-was-necessary-to-fund-limelight-gig/a228179422.html |access-date=26 May 2025 |language=en-GB |issn=0307-1235}} and offered photos of her buttocks. Shooting for the account took place both at her home and against walls on tour.{{Cite web |date=13 December 2024 |title=Kate Nash On Starting OnlyFans: 'The Music Industry Is Corrupt And Fails Artists Completely' |url=https://graziadaily.co.uk/celebrity/news/kate-nash-only-fans/ |access-date=26 May 2025 |website=Grazia |language=en}} By March 2025, her account had diversified into pay-per-view feet content and comedic food-based erotica, and she had uploaded a video called "Cake Nash".

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| quote = "I'm still doing it [in May 2025] because music is just a cycle of paying for costs and trying to catch up with yourself when you're putting on shows. It's really been a relief for me to have as a support system whilst I continue to put on shows, because it just costs so much money, and I enjoy it. I feel like it's an extension of what I do with my body artistically with photo shoots. And I've been naked on TV, I've simulated sex on TV, on Glow, and I have a lot of experience in entertainment, so for me, it's just another expression of that. And I love the control, and I love being able to see how much money I can raise with a small number of fans, versus the millions of plays that I have on my Spotify that just doesn't really play well at all."

| author = Nash in May 2025

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Nash announced her presence on the platform on 21 November 2024, the day of a gig at Òran Mór.{{Cite web |title=Kate Nash details OnlyFans campaign, Butts For Tour Buses |url=https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/news/kate-nash-details-onlyfans-campaign-butts-for-tour-buses |access-date=26 May 2025 |website=The Line of Best Fit |language=en-US}} The post went viral, and within a week all her bills had been paid. The account increased her Instagram follower count by 10,000 and she was interviewed by "every major UK media outlet". Much of the coverage invoked Lily Allen,{{Cite magazine |last=Brodsky |first=Rachel |date=18 December 2024 |title=Kate Nash on Using OnlyFans to Fund Her Tour and Call Out the Live Music Industry |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/kate-nash-onlyfans-tour-live-music-butt-1235207873/ |access-date=25 May 2025 |magazine=Rolling Stone |language=en-US}} who had previously opened an account dedicated to foot fetish content. Nash stated on a subsequent Instagram post that she had opened the account in order to maintain the standard of her live show{{Cite web |last=Clayton-Lea |first=Tony |date=8 December 2024 |title=How Kate Nash is using Only Fans to combat rising touring costs |url=https://www.thetimes.com/world/ireland-world/article/how-kate-nash-is-using-only-fans-to-combat-rising-touring-costs-507msz2ss |access-date=25 May 2025 |website=www.thetimes.com |language=en}} and on an episode of BBC Radio 4's Today programme that her account had paid for her to bring a crew member from the UK to continental Europe.{{Cite news |title=Kate Nash says she's 'creating jobs with her bum' after launching OnlyFans account |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/kate-nash-bum-jobs-onlyfans-uk-tour-b2653675.html |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250418100702/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/kate-nash-bum-jobs-onlyfans-uk-tour-b2653675.html |archive-date=18 April 2025 |access-date=25 May 2025 |work=The Independent |language=en-GB}} The reaction online was mostly positive, with praise from Self Esteem and Alison Brie, though both Nash and her manager received personal abuse over the campaign.{{Cite web |title=Music Week 06 2025 Freemagazines Top {{!}} PDF {{!}} Hip Hop Music {{!}} Rock Music |url=https://www.scribd.com/document/862253865/Music-Week-06-2025-Freemagazines-Top |access-date=26 May 2025 |website=Scribd |language=en}} Some of her fans described her pivot to sex work as sad, prompting Nash to post that she found posting to OnlyFans "very empowering".{{Cite web |last=Walters |first=Meg |date=27 November 2024 |title=Kate Nash doesn't want you to feel 'sad' about her decision to join OnlyFans |url=https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/kate-nash-onlyfans |access-date=27 May 2025 |website=Glamour UK |language=en-GB}} In December 2024, she stated that her account had made more in a week than her music made in a month.

On 27 November, just before her Koko gig, Nash put a picture of her buttocks on a fire engine, drove around London, and visited the London offices of Live Nation and Spotify and the House of Commons. For the occasion, she wore a pink thong and partnered with Save Our Scene, an organisation that aims to support the preservation of UK grassroots music venues.{{Cite web |last=Rigotti |first=Alex |date=28 November 2024 |title=Kate Nash and her "bum on the back of a fire truck" take to Live Nation offices to protest |url=https://www.nme.com/news/music/kate-nash-and-her-bum-on-the-back-of-a-fire-truck-take-to-livenation-offices-to-protest-3816821 |access-date=27 May 2025 |website=NME |language=en-GB}} Her protest had been inspired by a stunt involving Gail Porter, who had appeared nude for FHM, only for them to promote their 1999 Sexiest Women listing by projecting it on to the House of Commons without her consent. Nash asserted outside her Live Nation protest that the firm "had an annual revenue of £22.749 billion", that this was "a 36.38 per cent increase from last year", and that they were "the main hold-up in the government's recommendation to give £1 per arena and stadium ticket to the grassroots". Outside Spotify, she stated that they "paid 0.003 of a penny per stream", had "demonetised 80 per cent of music on the platform", and had given its shareholders "over 419 million between them".

Critics of the campaign included Thom Rylance of The Lottery Winners, who tweeted his objections to Nash becoming "the spokesperson for the 'working class musician'" due to her education at BRIT School, a performing arts college that he falsely alleged counted among its alumni "8/10 best artist nominees at the Brit Awards last year" (it was actually two, Olivia Dean and Raye). Rylance later stated that he had meant that "more than half" of its nominees had attended fee-paying schools, compared with 5.9% of the population that went there, and Nash responded with a series of Instagram Stories using images from Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a background.{{Cite web |last=Burton |first=Poppy |date=2 December 2024 |title=Kate Nash hits back at Lottery Winners for questioning her class for going to "completely free to attend" BRIT School |url=https://www.nme.com/news/music/kate-nash-hits-back-at-lottery-winners-for-questioning-her-class-for-going-to-completely-free-to-attend-brit-school-3817933 |access-date=27 May 2025 |website=NME |language=en-GB}}

The success of the campaign increased Nash's platform to discuss artists's struggles, especially theirs of the live music industry; by May 2025, she had spoken on several programmes including Huw Stephens's BBC Radio 6 show and on ITV's Lorraine and BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour. On the last of these, Spotify blamed Nash's deal with Universal Music Group for her lack of royalties.{{Cite web |title="It's disappointing that Spotify's payments are not making it through to Kate herself": Spotify responds after Kate Nash calls out its "very, very poor and unethical" payouts |url=https://musictech.com/news/industry/kate-nash-spotify/ |access-date=27 May 2025 |website=MusicTech |language=en-GB}} Claudia Cockerell of The Standard wrote that Allen and Nash's presence on OnlyFans should be a wake-up call for the state of the industry,{{Cite web |last=Cockerell |first=Claudia |date=24 November 2024 |title=Kate Nash and Lily Allen on OnlyFans should be a wake-up call for the music industry |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/kate-nash-lily-allen-onlyfans-music-industry-b1195961.html |access-date=27 May 2025 |website=The Standard |language=en}} while The Independent ran an article on 30 November asking whether OnlyFans was feminism or exploitation and David Walsh of World Socialist Web Site wrote "that performers have to resort to semi-pornography to earn a living brings to mind the general identification in the 18th century of actresses with prostitutes".{{Cite web |date=23 December 2024 |title=On contemporary music and musicians: What singer Kate Nash's choice tells us … |url=https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/12/23/hdgy-d23.html |access-date=27 May 2025 |website=World Socialist Web Site |language=en}} Jenessa Williams of The Forty-Five wrote that "fussing over Nash's bum or Allen's feet only serves to distract us from the bigger issues" and that "refusing to understand why it's becoming such a viable option for many artists is simply akin to being a little bit prudish".{{Cite web |last=Williams |first=Jenessa |date=3 December 2024 |title=The music industry is broken, but sex work shaming won't fix it |url=https://thefortyfive.com/opinion/butts-for-buses-music-industry-sex-work/ |access-date=7 June 2025 |website=The Forty-Five |language=en-GB}} In May 2025, Beth Ashley of Mashable attributed negative reactions to Nash's account to a wider stigma surrounding sex work that had seen both Lily Phillips and Bonnie Blue condemned for doing their jobs.{{Cite web |last=Ashley |first=Beth |date=15 May 2025 |title=Why are we obsessed with body counts again? |url=https://mashable.com/article/body-counts-online-obsession |access-date=26 May 2025 |website=Mashable |language=en}}

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Category:Social media campaigns