Michael Doherty, the gay older brother of prank YouTuber Jack Doherty, has deleted his OnlyFans accounts after about five years, and his reasons sound more like a country song than a creator announcement: his garden, his chickens, finding love and a childhood dream of flying planes.
The 24-year-old, who co-hosted the podcast Twink Talk with his ex Danny E and once got pulled into Adam22’s infamous April Fools “gay scene” stunt, made the announcement on Instagram this week. He called the platform “a huge burden on my heart, soul and mind.”
He’s been hinting at this for more than two years.
And the pilot plan is further along than it sounds. He’s already flying.
The Other Doherty Brother
If the last name rings a bell, that was partly the plan. Jack, his younger brother, built a YouTube channel of more than 15 million subscribers on pranks and stunts, and became one of the internet’s most controversial streamers along the way. His livestreamed McLaren crash in Miami in 2024 didn’t help.
When Michael started his own channel, he was upfront about it. “I’m taking some brand recognition from my brother,” he told MatticusX, host of the Say It Slay It podcast, in March 2024. He also said he wanted to be “the better example” as the big brother.
He started later than Jack because he was still in the closet, he explained, and “not confident at the time.” He came out to his family at 18, and his parents weren’t thrilled at first but came around within about a month, Attitude reported.
He was building all of this while in the military. In that same 2024 interview, he said he had about a month left on his Army contract and had badly hurt his back.
Online, he made his name with vlogs, gay TikToks and stunts. In April 2024, he was the “scene partner” Adam22 tagged when the No Jumper host announced his “first ever gay scene” as an April Fools joke, a prank plenty of fans found tasteless, as HotNewHipHop noted.
That October, Michael and Danny, then his boyfriend, launched Twink Talk. Their own press release billed them as a “power couple” interviewing “the most famous (and notorious) gays from the net.” The two had met after creator StanChris put them in a group chat, and Michael slid into Danny’s DMs.
“Having Money But Not Feeling Real Success”
This week’s announcement came as a plain text post with the caption “On to a new chapter in life.” Michael wrote that he’d thought about the decision “a lot over the last few years,” and that he quit and deleted his accounts on the same day.
“It has distracted me and made me comfortable,” he wrote. “Having money but not feeling real success at the same time.”
Talking to the people closest to him helped him decide. What he wants to focus on now is “my friends, family, my gardening, my chickens, but most importantly my childhood dream of becoming a pilot, starting a family and finding love.”
The post passed 9,800 likes and 550 comments, almost all of them supportive. One commenter offered to talk him through life as a career pilot. Another had a more practical question: “Are you still posting thirst traps though?”
He’s Been Saying This Since 2024
The regret didn’t start this week. Asked by MatticusX what he’d do differently, Michael said: “I don’t like saying I regret anything but if I would have done anything differently probably would have been like making money in a more respectable way.”
People look at you differently when you do OF, he explained, and you start to look at yourself differently too. He also said he’d joined before his famous brother did, “so he can thank me for that,” and that Jack’s side of the business was managing other creators.
Later in the same conversation, he went further. He didn’t want to do it forever, he said, and “kind of already want to end it soon.” The money was good, “but you’ll never really feel amazing about yourself or that you accomplish anything.”
Two and a half years later, his goodbye post said almost exactly the same thing.
He was looking for other doors in the meantime: podcasting, real estate and, by April 2025, a liquor store in Fort Worth, Texas, he told The Wild Podcast.
The Pilot Dream Is Further Along Than You’d Think
Michael first flew a plane at 12. When MatticusX asked about a dream he still had, the answer came straight away: “to be a pilot and to have my own plane.” He’d already taken his boyfriend on a flight to a little island off the coast of New York.
In April 2025, he told The Wild Podcast he’d gotten his commercial pilot’s license. By January 2026, he was close to qualifying as a flight instructor and had flown twin-engine planes and Cessnas.
He laid out the rest of the route on that show. First the instructor rating, then the 1,500 flight hours airlines require. His target is to be a commercial pilot by about 25, and when the hosts asked which airline, he said: “Probably American.”
Single, And Already Thinking About Kids
The “finding love” part has its own backstory. In that January episode, Michael said he and Danny had split a little over a month earlier, after two and a half mostly long-distance years.
“Danny of course was a great guy,” he said, but “the distance is the reason we broke up.”
They had gone public in a big way. In one of Danny’s most-watched videos, from February 2024, he comes out to a friend by introducing Michael as his boyfriend, kiss included. It has more than 600,000 views.
Oddly enough, he said his subscriber numbers had gone up since the breakup. His goal for 2026 was to “get my money up and focus on myself,” along with his pilot’s licenses. Ten months later, he’s kept the second half and walked away from the first.
Kids have been on his list for a while. Back in 2024, he said he definitely wanted them, “realistically” around three, and that he wants to take care of his parents when they get older, the way they took care of him.
He’s 24, single and, for the first time in five years, not making his money on OF. What he does have is a pilot’s license and a goal he set at 12, plus the chickens.