Second teacher with OnlyFans page discovered at same school

ST. CLAIR, Mo. (KMOV/Gray News) - A teacher who works at the same Missouri high school as Brianna Coppage also has been placed on leave for what she believes to be the discovery of her OnlyFans account.

Megan Gaither has been teaching at St. Clair High School for four years. Her career now hangs in the balance since she was put on leave by the school district at the end of October.

“I’ve cried a lot,” Gaither said. “It feels like I’m losing a part of myself.”

She said she thinks it’s because she had an OnlyFans page, an internet subscription service where people can provide adult content. Coppage, who had been a coworker with Gaither, gained national attention when she was put on leave and later resigned after her OnlyFans account was made public.

“I know what it looks like,” Gaither said. “I know it doesn’t look good. But, I truly did not want this. In a heartbeat, I would give it all up. I would give every penny back. I would go back to the beginning of summer and I wouldn’t have joined OnlyFans because I love my job and I love teaching so much.”

With two graduate degrees, Gaither’s student loans piled up. She said they’re totaling about $126,000. As an English teacher and cheerleading coach at St. Clair High School, Gaither’s salary comes out to about $47,000 per year.

“I thought about getting a second job,” Gaither said. “But when I thought about how busy I am with coaching and with teaching - teaching isn’t just 7:30 to 3:30 every day. Then you have coaching until 5:30 or 6, not including the games, and then I grade at home. When you have 100-150 students, you take those papers home to grade. I didn’t see how I could logistically do that.”

Gaither said she got the idea to start an OnlyFans account in May but didn’t start posting until June. She said she immediately deleted her account when Coppage was exposed.

“I deleted everything and was ready to just be a teacher,” Gaither said. “I had chosen to just be a teacher.”

In the three months she had it, Gaither said she used a different name and never showed her face.

Gaither said she thinks she was discovered in mid-October, after another woman posted a Halloween picture and tagged Coppage.

“They blurred my face, but I didn’t realize that was going to be posted on Twitter,” Gaither said. “As soon as that picture was posted, almost immediately, I started getting messages and letters from students tacked on my door saying that they know my secret and that I was caught.”

Gaither said St. Clair schools started investigating and then she was put on leave.

“Because it’s ongoing, I’m actually not allowed to say according to the leave paper I got last week,” Gaither said. “It is not for OnlyFans. It is for something technically completely unrelated.”

However, she thinks the real reason is because of OnlyFans. Gaither said she doesn’t think she will ever be able to teach again in the district or others in the area.

“Thinking about the last time I get to go into my classroom to collect my things and turning around to an empty classroom and turning off that light for the last time, that’s gonna hurt,” Gaither said.

After she was told of the school district’s decision, she started a new OnlyFans account using her real name. In the two weeks she’s had it, Gaither said she has made $65,000.

Both Gaither and Coppage said the district’s employee handbook does not have a clear morality clause. They both say the handbook says you should be a good role model in the community, which is something they feel is subjective.

“The school has no right to tell me what I can and cannot do once I come home at night,” Gaither said.

The St. Clair School District did not respond to requests for comment.

Coppage had been a teacher for five years, spending the last two at St. Clair High School as an English teacher before resigning. She said in October that she had made nearly $1 million in six months on OnlyFans.

“I’m not advertising it to students but adults in the community continue to do so,” Coppage previously said. “I just don’t think that’s OK. students were never meant to see this. If we don’t want teachers having to devote time to a second job, whatever that second job may be, then let’s compensate them for that.”

Copyright 2023 KMOV via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.