‘The Sopranos’ actress joined OnlyFans after anti-vaxxer comments cost her work

The Sopranos star Drea de Matteo said she joined OnlyFans last month because her stance on the COVID-19 vaccine cost her work.

Speaking to Fox News, the actress, who played Adriana La Cerva in the hit HBO series, opened up about the backlash she received for speaking out against the vaccine.

“My own industry thinks I’m, you know, a savage,” she said. De Matteo’s agent dropped her due to the controversy, leaving her out of work and nearly homeless, she explained. “I know some people have said some nasty things about me having joined OnlyFans. But, you know, the way we see it in this house is mommy’s a warrior, not accepting defeat.”

She added that her boyfriend, Robby Staebler from the band All Them Witches, and her children, who she shares with ex Shooter Jennings, support her OnlyFans work.

De Matteo regularly appeared in The Sopranos for its first five seasons and won an Emmy for Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her portrayal of Adriana La Cerva.

The Sopranos
Drea de Matteo (centre) with the cast of ‘The Sopranos’. Credit: HBO

In other Sopranos news, Michael Imperioli recently revealed that the scenes where his character had to be physically abusive to Adriana were the most challenging.

The most brutal, difficult stuff for me is when Christopher had to be physically abusive with Adriana, for obvious reasons,” he told The Guardian.

“On a technical level, you’re trying to be really careful so you don’t hurt the person. But having to get to that point of violence towards a woman, you have to go to some nasty places to get there. Sometimes it’s very immediate. Sometimes it’s something present in your life that you can tap into. Sometimes you have to go someplace from the past. And sometimes you have to go to someplace imaginary.

“It’s much easier shooting a mobster or shooting heroin. That stuff to me is not difficult. But that stuff with her was. Sometimes you’ll use stunt doubles, sometimes not. And even then, it’s one thing to choreograph and rehearse it, then when you act it full-tilt with all the emotion, it’s easy to not have as much control as in the rehearsal. So you really have to be quite careful.”

Speaking to Vulture in 2021, de Matteo said her co-star Imperioli struggled with the violent scenes between them.

“He had a hard time with a lot of the violence that season,” de Matteo said. “One time he had to grab me by my hair and drag me across the room using a harness. But the harness broke. I was sitting on the floor and crying, because I’m in the moment, and finally told him, ‘I’m not going to sit here and wait. You’re dragging me by my hair and you’re going to be ok with it.’ He said, ‘I can’t do that.’ And I said, ‘Yes, you can.’ And we did it.”

The Sopranos came to an end in 2007 after six seasons. A prequel film, The Many Saints Of Newark, was released in 2021.

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