A Crypto Scam Targeted a Gay OnlyFans Star. Then His X Feed Was Flooded With ‘MAGA Propaganda’
Patrick Bewley’s X feed was normally filled with posts about leather three-ways and clips of poolhouse erotica. The gay OnlyFans star, known as Daddy Patrick
Patrick Bewley’s X feed was normally filled with posts about leather three-ways and clips of poolhouse erotica. The gay OnlyFans star, known as Daddy Patrick, had decided to get into the adult industry at age 60 and in under two years his followers on X swelled to 132,000. But in April, his feed suddenly became very political—and very MAGA—with posts like “President Trump stuns the World announcing America has more oil than the next two largest Oil economies COMBINED.” Except it wasn't Bewley behind the change. His account had been hacked. Bewley is one of several gay OnlyFans creators WIRED spoke to who was targeted by recent crypto scams on X, where attackers are attempting to extort money from creators to get their accounts back. In some cases, when they refused to cooperate, their accounts were filled with posts about crypto, or, as with Bewley, MAGA propaganda. On April 9, Bewley received a DM on X from a coworker, the porn director and editor Jasun Mark, whose account had already been hacked, though Bewley didn’t know it at the time.
The message, which asked Bewley to nominate Mark for an award, seemed harmless because “it did sound kind of like something he would do,” he says. The link Mark sent redirected Bewley to an X page that asked for his login information “but nothing was taking, or so I thought.” Bewley went about his day and later, after Mark notified him that he hadn’t actually sent that DM about the award nomination, he went to check his page and it was gone. By tricking Bewley into clicking on the fake link, the attacker was able to change the name, telephone number, and email on Bewley’s account. The handle was first changed to @DADDYPATRIOzvu, and a day later, on April 10, to @Fatherokdwcjo63. Bewley’s partner immediately reported the hack to X from his personal account, saying it had been stolen. Then something strange happened: The account went into “crazy MAGA mode,” Bewley says. The banner and avatar were changed to a menacing black-and-white picture of Steve Bannon that WarRoom.org, the official site for his politics podcast, with a linktree to Bannon’s various platforms, including his TikTok, Telegram, merch store, and official website.
On April 16, a week after the initial attack, whoever hijacked Bewley’s account posted an image on the compromised X account of Donald Trump, with a text overlay that read “GOOD MORNING, I’M STILL YOUR PRESIDENT.” Under the post, Bewley’s partner, Jerry Burt, asked how they could get the account back. “Just pay for it. That’s all,” the account hijacker wrote in a series of screenshots reviewed by WIRED. “You want this account or not? Ain’t joking man.” The asking price? $2,000 in GAT crypto. When Bewley refused to pay, the attacker messaged his employer, Ducati Studios Network, a gay porn production company where he recently joined as CMO, demanding $3,000 in crypto. Bewley’s partner stopped engaging after nearly two weeks of back and forth. The account then “started force feeding pro-MAGA propaganda,” Burt says, reposting between 20 to 30 posts a day from extremist Republican pages like @MAGAVoice, the self-described “Proud Patriot. Pro Elon Musk” account that wants to “take back OUR country.” The loss of the account has been a major blow to Bewley’s brand.
The BriefWire