Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who made headlines in 2014 for pretending to be Black, is back in the news. Dolezal has a new name and a new teaching job in Arizona—or she did, until she was fired. Not for pretending to be Black, but for having an OnlyFans account.
Local Tucson outlet KVOA really buried the lede in its report on Dolezal’s firing, with a headline that reads, “Catalina Foothills Instructor With Infamous Past Linked to OnlyFans.” Infamous is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Dolezal, who legally changed her name to Nkechi Diallo in 2017, began working for the school district in Tucson in August 2023. The Daily Beast reached out to the Catalina Foothills School District, which confirmed that Dolezal was working as an after-school instructor and substitute teacher until the district was alerted to her OnlyFans page—which Dolezal promoted on her public Instagram account. A representative said that Dolezal is no longer employed because “Her posts are contrary to our district’s ‘Use of Social Media by District Employees’ policy … and our staff ethics policy.”
Sex work is work, and I don’t think professionals—in education or otherwise—deserve to lose their jobs for trying to make a living however they can when they’re not on the clock. That said, it’s obvious that Dolezal is still extremely delusional if she thinks no one is going to notice a link to her OnlyFans account on Instagram. It’s also wild that Dolezal wasn’t fired for pretending to be a Black woman (STILL), but for doing sex work. Apparently, photos from Dolezal’s OnlyFans account were posted to Reddit and other online platforms, with KVOA noting that it’s “unclear if the photos were shared by Diallo or if they were placed there by someone else.” Can’t believe I have to say this, but: Rachel Dolezal is not a great person and no one deserves to have their nudes shared anywhere without their consent.
It’s been all quiet on the Dolezal front since 2018, when Netflix released the documentary The Rachel Divide. The doc rehashes the controversy around Dolezal, an African Studies professor who pretended to be a Black woman and became the head of the NAACP in Spokane. In 2014, Dolezal was outed as white and resigned from her position. The following year, she told The Washington Post that she was “biologically born white to white parents, but I identify as Black.” Dolezal remained adamant about identifying as Black in the 2018 documentary, which follows the public and private fallout of Dolezal’s unmasking.
(featured image: Netflix)
