There are so many ways to help support those in need during the COVID-19 crisis: donating money, volunteering at a shelter, ordering take-out from your favorite restaurants, staying at home unless necessary, and cleaning up the parks (there are discarded rubber gloves ALL OVER NEW YORK CITY, please throw them in the trash, okay?). And then there’s the Ansel Elgort way: using a nude picture to raise cash. His strategy is working really well— the Fault in Our Stars actor has already raised $211,000.
The Instagram post, which is now deleted because it violated Instagram nudity guidelines, featured a photo of the 26-year-old naked in the shower. Elgort wrote, “OnlyFans LINK IN BIO” in the caption—except that instead of going to the OnlyFans website, which is a platform for models, influencers, and sex workers to post pictures Instagram would reject or to produce their own pornography for paid subscribers, the link took followers to a GoFundMe page for Brooklyn For Life!
Brooklyn For Life!, which was organized by Jeffrey Wright, is a fundraiser intended to feed those on the frontlines of the COVID-19 fight. They provide “local Eats for Brooklyn’s Frontline Fighters in Brookdale Hospital, Brooklyn Hospital, Cumberland Health Center, Gotham Health Clinic East NY, Interfaith Medical Center, New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital, Woodhull Medical Center, and Brooklyn FDNY EMS Battalions 31, 32, 35, 38, 39, 40, 44, 57, 58 & 59.”
“Our goal is to fund each Brooklyn for Life! restaurant, enabling them to provide — at no cost to the recipients — at least 75-100 meals per day for delivery to the Brooklyn frontlines of this pandemic,” a statement reads on the GoFund me page.
Elgort was shocked he raised so much money from one naked photo.
“I don’t know how much of this is from the post but it seems a lot of people have been giving in the last few hours,” he said. “Thanks a lot, looks like it was worth it.”
Elgort said he might upload a less risque photo to appease the Instagram gods.
“Sorry if I offended anybody but we did a good thing,” the actor said. “And my dad took the picture by the way. He was mad, he said that I needed to give him credit.”