Stephen Bear: ex-Celebrity Big brother winner received £22k profit from revenge porn video, court hears

Ex-Celebrity Big brother winner Stephen Bear earned £22,300 profit after he posted a revenge porn video online, a court has heard today. The 34-year-old is facing a confiscation hearing to decide how much money can be recouped after he was found guilty of voyeurism and of two counts of disclosing private sexual photographs and films with intent to cause distress.

He was released from prison on January 14 after having served a 10-and-a-half month sentence for the crimes. The confiscation hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court heard that Bear earned £22,305.46 after he shared a intimate video of him and his former partner Love Island star Georgia Harrison on the subscription site OnlyFans. The video featured CCTV footage of the pair having sex in a garden in August 2020, with Ms Harrison unaware that Bear would release the footage publicly.

The court also heard that bear was posing as a "billionaire" at the time the footage was uploaded but was "in fact heavily overdrawn", according to Essex Police financial investigator Laura Mackenzie. Prosecutor Andrew Bousfield added that “despite pretending to be a billionaire, his most valuable asset at the time was selling sexual videos”.

The footage of him and his now ex-girlfriend was put onto his OnlyFans account, with subscribers able to pay $9.99 (£7.84) to view the video. A total of 273 people paid to access the video, with the court hearing that there was a "jump up" in popularity after the footage began to go viral and Ms Harrison became aware that it was online.

This earned him £1,650.98 initially after OnlyFans took a 20% cut of the profits. After attracting more subscribers to his account, Bear adjusted his subscription from $7.50 (£5.89) to $50 (£39.28), earning him an additional £15,400.28 on top of the pay-walled video.

Judge Christopher Morgan accepted the valuations of Bear's earnings after the video was posted, but added that it was difficult to know precisely what attracted all of the new subscribers to his account after the video was posted. He added: “He had, by the time the account had been set up, filmed himself and Georgia Harrison, that material being the subject of the criminal charges that he faced. The defendant plainly intended that that material would be placed onto his OnlyFans account.”

Ms Harrison has not been able to contribute to the hearing personally as she is currently starring in the ITV2 reality show Love Island: All Stars. The hearing has been adjourned until March 4 when the show is over.