Model Kaylen Ward banned from Instagram for offering nudes in exchange for Australia bushfire donations
An Instagram model has raised $500,000 for Australia bushfire relief after she pledged to send her nude photos to anyone who donates toward the natural disaster. But when she tried to spread the word of her unconventional philanthropic efforts on Instagram, the social media platform deactivated her account.
On January 3, 20-year-old Kaylen Ward from Los Angeles, who is now calling herself The Naked Philanthropist wrote in a presently viral tweet: "I’m sending nudes to every person who donates atleast $10 to any one of these fundraisers for the wildfires in Australia. Every $10 you donate = one nude picture from me to your DM. You must send me confirmation that you donated. Please RT #AustraliaOnFire #AustraliaFires"
Soon, her tweet was retweeted over 40,000 times and her inbox was flooded with requests for nude snaps.
“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 Buzzfeed News in an interview later on. "I was expecting to raise maybe $1,000 but the tweet blew up."
The model said that she was selling her naked pictures online anyway prior to her charity drive so she decided to do it for a good cause. The response to her tweet was so overwhelming that she has had to hire a team of four to scour through the receipts she has been receiving of the donations and verify them to be genuine before sending her promised nude pictures.
Meanwhile, as soon as the word of her unusual pledge reached Instagram authorities, they deactivated her account, which meant that Kaylen can no longer reach out to her 50,000 followers on the platform. According to a screenshot posted by her, Instagram accused her of uploading "sexually suggestive content," though the model denies she broke any rules.
But there were more hurdles to come. "My IG got deactivated, my family disowned me, and the guy I like won’t talk to me all because of that tweet. But fuck it, save the koalas," she wrote.
Apart from that, she also had to face the trolls online.
"I am a 20 year old girl. I am just one person. Think about how the shit you do affects me. Now think about millions of people doing things to me all at once. Leave me ALONE. And for the people under this asking for nudes or telling me to check my DMs... y’all should be so ashamed of yourself," she tweeted.
She added: "Just saying y’all bully and harass people on social media but y’all advocate for suicide prevention and shit. Y’all wonder why so many people kill themselves yet you make the internet unbearable for them. You guys have made the internet such a dark place for me."