Paige VanZant Fires Back at Critics Who Say She 'Ruined' Her Career

Paige VanZant isn't exactly losing sleep over people who think she “ruined” her career. She pulled out the receipts anyway.

On Tuesday, Sept. 1, the combat sports star dropped a carousel on TikTok highlighting some of the biggest accomplishments she’s racked up over the years.

First up was her climb to No. 6 in the UFC women's strawweight rankings, a milestone she reached in September 2015. VanZant had first stepped into the Octagon less than a year earlier at just 20 years old, stopping Kailin Curran in the third round of a bout that earned both women Fight of the Night honors.

The next slide went to bare-knuckle boxing, which VanZant took up after leaving the UFC, signing a four-fight BKFC deal worth more than $1 million in 2020. “I feel like I still have this stigma in MMA that I'm just a pretty face, and what a way to prove to people that's not the way I see myself at all,” she told ESPN at the time. She headlined KnuckleMania the following February and fought twice in the promotion.

Then came Dancing With the Stars, where VanZant and partner Mark Ballas made it all the way to the Season 22 finale in 2016. The pair posted the highest score on the first night of the finale, earning 59 out of 60 points across two routines, but ultimately finished runner-up to Nyle DiMarco and Peta Murgatroyd.

AEW was on the list as well. VanZant made her in-ring debut in a six-person tag match at Double or Nothing in 2022, then added Power Slap to the mix two years later. She currently holds a 2-0-1 slap record.

The final three slides shifted outside competition: VanZant's December 2025 Playboy Sweden cover, her 2019 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit shoot in Puerto Vallarta and Rise: Surviving the Fight of My Life, the memoir she published in 2018.

“Just a reminder... Should I keep going?” VanZant captioned the post. The consensus was yes.

“Yeah I think your accomplishments outway the opinions of mere mortals ma’am. Here for it all,” one person wrote.

“That a girl!!!!! You are great at everything,” another added, while a third chimed in, “haters gonna hate.” Others kept it short, calling VanZant “super successful,” “my favorite” and “the coolest chick alive.”

She didn’t say exactly who she was firing back at or what prompted the post. Bloody Elbow, however, framed it as a response to critics of her move into OnlyFans, which has become one of the more lucrative chapters of her post-UFC career.

“OnlyFans has definitely been my largest source of income,” the Oregon native said during an appearance on Barstool Sports’ Only Stans in 2023. “I think I made more money in 24 hours on OnlyFans than I had in my entire fighting career combined.”

She’s hardly the only decorated athlete to find another source of income there, either. Olympians including Canadian pole vaulter Alysha Newman and British diver Jack Laugher have used the platform, while German bobsledder Lisa Buckwitz said subscription income helped finance her run at the Milan Games this year.

For VanZant, that willingness to branch out seems to be the point. While discussing her Playboy Sweden cover, she said she no longer felt “boxed in by one title” and teased “more unexpected moves” for 2026.

“I’m all of them at once,” she said, “and it finally feels aligned.”