Kyle Krieger Is Ready to Show Pole Now (On His Own Terms)

If you're gay and have been online over the past decade, the probability is high that you've come across Kyle Krieger. He now boasts over 2 million Instagram followers, but has made a name for himself in a variety of ways.

In the early days of his career, his artistic and suggestive nude photos would go viral on Tumblr. Then, Tyler Oakley convinced him to bring his personality and hairstyling skills to YouTube. Later, he expanded to being a bit of an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and a full-on lifestyle influencer. After attending film school, he then embarked on creating and releasing a few shorts, like the project Boyfriend. Krieger has rolled and morphed with the ever-changing tides of the internet, weathering a fairly tough business for over a decade. Now, he's relocated from the West Coast to New York City, has begun taking clients as a hairstylist at the John Arsenault-owned Mott NYC Salon, and has launched an OnlyFans account.

While it may have seemed a foregone conclusion that a man who initially came to prominence by beautifully shot photographs featuring his ass (we've been calling him an InstaHunk since 2016) would launch an account on the platform known for nudes, it wasn't self-evident for Krieger. As recently as September 2021 he demurred on the idea. "I don't really think sex work is for me, personally," he said in a Q&A video. "However, I think it's great that other people have that because I will happily subscribe!" But as most know, time can bring a greater perspective.

Here, we talk to Kyle Krieger about what it's like living life online, what made him decide OnlyFans was right for him, and exactly what you'll see on his highly-curated page where he's putting his film school degree to good use.

You’ve been a “lifestyle influencer” or in some way “living online” for a long time. What has that experience been like in general?

It does feel like it’s been a long time. I feel like when I had 10,000 followers, that was like a lot. Even when I got 100,000 followers, that was a lot at the time. And it’s been that way since I was like 28 or 29, so it’s been over ten years. But one thing that has been very nice is that the feedback that I get from people is that I feel very vulnerable and I feel like myself. I think that has a lot to do with my sobriety, actually. In 12-step meetings and in groups, you realize how connected you feel with other people when you’re vulnerable with each other. That’s something I’ve learned since becoming sober at 23. That helped me develop a personality that was just very open about what my life was like and I get the sense that people felt that online.

Even on Instagram, my digital footprint with the photos. Even though they were very suggestive or revealing, people found it very vulnerable and would connect to it. They would tell me that it inspired them to also be more vulnerable or gave them the confidence to be naked in front of the camera. I feel like my experience online has generally been a positive one. Of course, I have my own distaste of being online with working with brand partners or feeling the need to post all the time in order to stay top of mind with people or relevant, but over time that has really disappeared. I’m really happy with where I am.

After Drag Race I never want to hear the word "era" again, but it feels like it fits here: I do think I’m entering a new era. After stepping into a new way of being online from influencing and trying to be very brand-friendly online my whole life, to being less worried about being brand-friendly, I feel like there’s a sense of freedom I’ve never felt before.

Are you ever really surprised by how much people know about you or how invested they are in your decisions? I remember seeing a whole thing when people realized you were no longer vegan.

That was wild! Yes, that rarely happens. I was a vegan for a really long time and before that I was a vegetarian. During that time, I was very pro that lifestyle choice and I still believe that people should absolutely do that if it’s right for them. I believe in advocating for it as well, at times. My major in school was nutrition and dietetics so I’ve always been interested in how the body changes with diet because I do believe that 70 percent of how you look is what you put in your body. So I try different things all the time: I tried paleo before. Before that I was doing a carnivore diet. Before that I was vegan and vegetarian, like I said. And I share very often about what’s going on in my life, usually not too much pushback. But I do feel like people have very sharp reactions to veganism. People hold the way that they eat very close to who they are and it’s a reflection of how they see the world. So me deciding not to be a vegan anymore, to some people, is me saying I don’t believe in saving the environment, I don’t care about animals, and all those things. That’s not true, it’s much more nuanced than that, but that’s how they may view it.

But that just comes with being on the internet. When you’re on the internet for so long, you develop a thicker skin about it or you just realize people really don’t know you.

When did you decide you wanted to do OnlyFans?

I actually decided in November of 2022. I had been thinking about it and then I had my knee surgery and Brian Kaminski came over. We have been friends for a very long time and I was asking him about his OnlyFans and how it was going for him. He was just very supportive as were a lot of friends in my life, like Johnny Sibilly, who are all very pro-sex work but also very pro-freedom. For me, I was thinking maybe this would be a way to step away from making brands happy and being brand-friendly and limiting myself. I thought this could be a nice way to get away from it all and step into a new way of being.

I had a lot of time to think about it and plan while I was recovering. I got to think about the types of videos I would want to create and met up with a bunch of creators who came over and gave me insights as to how it works for them. After talking to 6 to 10 people, I decided I could do it, but I knew that if I was going to do it I wanted it to be right for me. I wanted to feel creatively fulfilled and expressed because that would really be a gift for me — for me to be sexually free, have full control over what I wanted to do, and to feel creatively inspired. In January, about a month before the launch, I was feeling really good about it.

I was booking all these shoots and a [director of photography] to help me shoot ideas. I was just feeling so inspired pitching all of these ideas to people and hearing them say yes. I was putting up a lot of money to pay people to help but I was feeling super good about it. And I hoped it would pay off, but people have been in my DMs for a long time asking, so I got the sense that I would be supported if I put in the work.

How was the response in comparison to what you thought it would be?

To be completely honest, in my most grounded mindset I’m supportive of myself and I’m supportive of sex workers and I really just want to support people in whatever makes them happy. However, sometimes in my more irrational ways of being or in my more shame-filled feelings around sex, I can really talk myself out of things. So leading up to the actual launch, I remember feeling nervous about what everyone was going to think. My ex-boyfriend’s family, my family, and all of these other people. It really took my core friend group saying, “what those people think doesn’t matter, and how they feel doesn’t matter. It’s just them projecting onto you how they feel about sex in the world.” That really helped.

Also, all the people who subscribed early on and had this positive feedback about what I was putting out were super rewarding and validating. It felt good and creatively fulfilling. Very rarely did I have people who were disappointed. I had to set expectations in my bio so people didn’t feel like they were getting full intercourse with visible penetration. It’s erotic art that I feel is beautiful and that I wanted to create with other people.

It feels like your whole life is in a period of change though, right? You just moved to New York. There’s Tuba.

It does feel like a lot of things are changing. One good thing is that the people that I care about the most were all onboard with this change. The agency that I work with also represents OnlyFans and my two managers are pro all of this. I feel like my work has always bordered on suggestive and I was always pushing boundaries when it came to nudity online. When brands would get in bed with me, they knew that I showed a lot of skin. So my team was very happy about this, so I was willing to step into a big change for work because I have really great support from people that I really trust.

The catalyst to moving to New York was my dad has Alzheimer’s and he lives in DC. Because his Alzheimer’s is developing very quickly and he’s declining very quickly, he’s in a memory care facility in DC. It’s just easier for me to get down to him from New York than flying from LA all the time. Even though he’s an asshole, homophobic, racist, and not the best person in the world, it was nice for me to be able to show up for him in a way that’s almost like a living amends for me. So the two things sort of balance. And now I'm about to move Tuba into a place in Brooklyn and live there.

But New York has always felt like a safe space for me. I feel like the work I make in New York, even on YouTube, is better. I never want to trash LA, however, I was just inspired there to make different stuff. Here it feels more fulfilling.

Has there been a recurring request that you’ve been getting on your OnlyFans?

The most request that I’ve been getting is that people want to see my hard cock and cum. That’s what they want to see. In my videos... like it’s there, you see it. I’m not showing you a full hard cock jacking off in front of the cameras and cumming, but it’s in the videos. It’s a little more like a cameo, it’s not all about that. I want to make it about the intimacy and connection with the other person. It's about being creative.

I’m sitting on a collaboration with Chris Damned. He has all these tattoos, so we did this kind of jail scene haircut and grooming. That video is pretty explicit. We’re going at it. But I think the way that I shoot it... I like the editing process and I like the filmmaking process, that’s why I went to film school. So I enjoy building a story around something that is explicit. It’s about giving the audience what they want, but also putting out something that I’m proud of. It’s really all about finding that balance. I don’t want people to feel like it’s a waste of their time or money, but I also only want to do things I’m comfortable with.

Did you think this is what you would be using your film school education for?

Never in a million years. Since I graduated until now, I’ve been working on my day job, which has been brand partnerships online. I did not get a brand partnership from June, when I worked with Bros, all the way until January. I just wasn’t getting booked. So I was sort of running on fumes because you sort of get accustomed to a certain amount of money coming in and you build a life around that. But then when you’re not working for seven months, it’s something to be mindful of. OnlyFans gives me much more control over my income.

For the last seven months, I’ve been applying to every production company you can imagine, emailing every queer or gay director to try to get an interview or just get on their set. I was trying to kick down every door. I mistakenly thought that because gays are always one or two degrees away from someone that can hire you, I thought I would get in somewhere. But it just didn’t work out like that. So getting to use my film degree and be inspired and get creative in this way is actually a very happy surprise.

When I’m running over a shot list with my [director of photography] it feels like we’re filmmaking. We’re creating a story and we’re planning the whole thing. It feels like I’m creating a film, it’s just that I’m in it. My whole career I’ve been in front of the camera and I went to film school because I didn’t want to do that anymore, I wanted to be behind the camera. So in that way, it’s surprising, but it has been rewarding.

You can subscribe to Kyle Krieger on OnlyFans!

While you can follow Kyle on both Instagram and Twitter, you can also subscribe to his OnlyFans. In the description for the page, he writes:

Men's Grooming, Fitness and Bodywork -- from an arousing perspective!

Your monthly subscription will include weekly content incorporating workouts, new & archival photoshoots, sexy haircut and body grooming tutorials with models and other creators. It will include the occasional prurient short film with suggestive scenes that are all exclusive only here. For transparency: Some content will be optional PPV and majority of content will live on the main feed.

I personally answer all messages, so I'm looking forward to meeting and chatting with you soon. Let's have some fun!!
Note: If you are looking for hardcore -- you will not find it here.

His OnlyFans is onlyfans.com/kylekrieger.