The Missouri high school teacher who was placed on leave last week after being outed as an OnlyFans performer wants to return to the classroom — despite conceding that some of her students may have seen her X-rated content.
Megan Gaither, 31, was the second educator to be suspended from St. Clair High School in a matter of weeks for running an OnlyFans page.
The English teacher and varsity cheerleading coach said she was placed on leave after other faculty members told the media that she had sex on camera with her “best friend” and former co-worker, Brianna Coppage, New York Post reported.
Ms Coppage, 28, was suspended from St. Clair High School last month after administrators found out she and her husband were making adult content on the subscription porn site.
“There’s nothing in our contract besides being a role model that I have violated, so I am letting them do their investigation, I have the teachers’ union involved. So I’m just waiting to see the results of the investigation, to see what they are thinking,” Ms Gaither told The Post.
“Would it be strange, yes?,” she added of returning to teach kids, who have likely seen her risqué content.
“But I also know the level of the relationship I have with my students and the respect that I already have.”
Ms Coppage, who also taught English, quit her role as an educator after her suspension — and claims she has earned $1,569,400 on OnlyFans in the month since leaving.
Ms Gaither, however, has every intention of returning to the classroom.
“They deserve a qualified teacher and the fact of the matter is, they don’t have one. They technically don’t have two now,” she said, referring to Ms Coppage.
Ms Coppage agrees that they did not violate their contract, but decided it would be too hard for her to resume teaching high school kids given the content of her channel, which features everything from solo sexual acts to full-on intercourse.
“I felt like, after adults were putting our stuff out there for kids to see and I just didn’t feel like it would be appropriate to return to the classroom and be able to do my job effectively after students had possibly seen something like this,” she told The Post.
“A lot of people are saying ‘well this goes against the contract that they signed and teachers have a morality clause,’ and we don’t. We do not have a morality clause; I did not sign a contract stating I would not do something like this.”
The two married women’s journeys into the adult content world started in the spring, unbeknown to one another, to supplement their measly teaching salaries.
“Brianna and I had no idea that each other was doing it, it wasn’t something we started together,” Ms Gaither explained.
The motivation for Ms Coppage to bear all online was “60 per cent financial,” she said, as she looked to supplement her $66,000 salary.
“As we know, Missouri is one of the lowest-rated states in the United States for teacher’s pay and St. Clair school district is one of the lowest-paying districts, like, in our immediate area.”
In just several weeks, Ms Coppage said she made 25 times her prior annual income — and flew to New York and Los Angeles for television appearances to promote the X-rated work she enjoys.
“It was never meant for students to see, they shouldn’t be seeing this, and like adults are still posting in the local Facebook group both mine and Megan’s stuff for kids to see, which is not appropriate,” Ms Coppage said.
Ms Gaither also started her page, which she said is more vanilla, in the spring after facing $196,000 loan payments for her two master’s degrees.
As an honours English teacher and cheerleading coach, she earns $74,546. Since last Friday she had earned almost a fourth of that pay.
“It was something we did and because we were really close friends, we kind of, like at a baseball game, I don’t know how it really came up, we just looked at each other and were like ‘you’re doing it aren’t you?,’” Ms Gaither recounted.
Once the cat was out of the bag, the two teamed up for “girl-on-girl” action on Ms Coppage’s channel, following her brush with infamy.
Ms Gaither said she knew the scene was risky for her career but said she didn’t think she’d be recognised because she was being filmed “completely from behind.”
“I did not get any financial gain for it, I just did it because we were having fun and I wanted to,” she said.
Ms Gaither was outed after someone posted a picture of her at a party wearing the outfit she had on in her sex scene.
“In a small town like St. Clair speculation is all you need to be crucified,” said Ms Gaither of the tiny city 80km southwest of St. Louis.
She said she had been “sl*t-shamed” by many in her hometown of less than 5,000 long before — just for wearing makeup to school and athletic clothes to cheer practice.
“I am a woman and some people do not like me in the community, I’ve known this for three years now. I have been sl*t-shamed, I’ve been ostracised at work, I had essentially no support, especially last week which was the hardest week of my life,” Ms Gaither said.
The English teacher said her “passion” for educating dates back to her own schoolgirl days — when she would come home and present her day’s lesson on a chalkboard to her stuffed animals.
“I have always loved learning and reading,” Ms Gaither said.
Ms Coppage too shares a devotion to education, saying she “definitely miss[es] my students
and the moments that I shared with them.”
Still, she conceded her days of teaching are over.
The newly minted millionaire said she expected to do porn for another five years before launching her own business.
School district officials did not immediately return a request for comment about Ms Gaither’s future employment prospects Monday.
But the X-rated educator has a word of advice for anyone who rushes to judgment about her.
“Mortality is a sliding scale, and just because you think something is immoral and it goes against your code of conduct does not mean that it goes against other people’s code of conduct, and to force your ideals of how somebody should behave and act onto somebody else is not correct,” Ms Gaither said.
“People have the right to be individuals, and it’s okay if people have different beliefs and we don’t have to crucify and shame them,” added Ms Coppage.
This story originally appeared on New York Post and reproduced with permission.