Sydney Lima on shattering cultural boundaries from OnlyFans to cults “Don’t wait for permission”

Sydney Lima isn’t afraid to go where most wouldn’t dare tread. The London born-and-bred journalist can toggle from OnlyFans-induced feminist debate and child beauty pageants to Russian espionage and satanic cults – all topics she’s delved into during her colourful journalism career. 

You’ve probably seen her dimple-pierced facial features fronting gritty Channel 4 and VICE Media documentaries (RIP), or heard her casual London twang on the Spotify podcast Sex, Lies & DM Slides. Or perhaps you’ve read one of her many articles, either in print or on Substack. Regardless, you just know a wine-fuelled girls night out with her would be a total blast. 

“Growing up in Central London, I would stay out really late and go to parties all the time, and I think it served me as a means to meet people that I probably wouldn’t have met otherwise,” the creative tells me from her home in St Leonards-on-Sea. “Much to my mother’s horror, loads of opportunities came from these connections that were being made at 5am.”

After several gigs working as a runner on various film sets, Sydney started modelling full-time. She has that cool-girl rawness to her that British models tend to have, not a lick of makeup in sight and her inky dark hair loosely threaded into two thick, doll-like plaits, secured with matching pale pink satin scrunchies. “I ended up modelling full time because there isn’t much money in documentaries, so I took the fashion dollar for a bit. Then documentaries came back into my life because I didn’t really like modelling. I remember getting fired for having short legs and eye bags because I was so stressed about the job. I wouldn’t be able to sleep the night before. I was getting such bad anxiety from modelling and realised that I needed to have a career that I had more control over because as a model, you’re at the mercy of someone else saying what you’re worth.”

Luckily, as she was ready to bow out of the famously toxic industry, an opportunity at VICE arose – the now-folded, youth-focused media company that spotlighted controversial subcultural topics via boots-on-the-ground journalism. Given the inevitable exposure to the highs and lows of working in the fashion industry, the model-turned journo trajectory makes perfect sense. “Working in fashion, you get used to working with so many different types of people. You’re always performing aren’t you? You’re always making people feel comfortable and safe, and that really translates well to documentaries,” the multi-hyphenate notes, curled up on the sitting room floor swaddled in an oversized plain black hoodie.

No subject is off bounds here. One of Sydney’s latest onscreen endeavours centred Findom, AKA financial domination, a BDSM-related fetish where a submissive person (often known as a ‘finsub’) derives sexual or psychological pleasure from yielding to a dominant counterpart. The misogynists didn’t approve. “As with anything online that shows women making money off men, and men being vulnerable, there was a huge backlash from angry male keyboard warriors,” Sydney says coolly. “Looking back, I do think we should have covered Findoms that didn’t just involve women. I’ve had a lot of messages from very young, aspiring finsubs since. It’s like a humiliation ritual – boys wanted to send me money after the documentary. I had to step away from it because it was a bit problematic.”

Yet, the project she felt most passionate about was a documentary highlighting the dark side of image modelling – a social media-based branch of modelling, known colloquially as ‘yachting,’ that blurs the lines between traditional modelling and sex work. “Someone messaged me when I was about 17 asking me to go to a charity gala somewhere, I can’t remember where it was, it might have been in Ibiza, but it was a big event. I then started getting messages from lots of image modelling agencies. They really target young girls. I couldn’t let this idea go – it took about 10 years of me pitching it. I’m working on a long form ‘thing’ about it at the moment…” she trails off allusively. “The amount of dodgy situations [girls] can put themselves into to achieve a certain image is concerning and the more I’ve dug into it the more worried I’ve become. I’ve had girls reach out to me since my first documentary aired saying ‘I didn’t go on a trip because of this.’ So, don’t go on trips if someone messages you on Instagram!”

Any journalist who has ventured into the world of investigative work will understand the frustrations that come with it (cue the clips of Louis Theroux bickering with ‘alleged’ Scientologists and Ruby Wax trying to level with Donald Trump.) For Sydney, it’s hard to distil a nuanced topic into a set amount of screen time: “With a lot of these things, you just scratch the surface. The problem is I then become really obsessed with what I’m looking into but the documentary is finished – but life has just started.” 

Then again, things can get tricky when you’re in over your head. I jokingly recount the time I went for lunch with a supposed cult leader while working at a newspaper, as part of an investigative piece about London-based cults. It ended up being scrapped by my editor due to safety concerns. 

“When I was younger I got a tattoo on my leg which was something to do with a pagan symbol,” the It-Brit jests, sharing my enthusiasm for the subject. “I wanted to join a secret society but I got into a rabbit hole and applied for some sort of satanic church. Luckily my email bounced.” She suggests I make a documentary about the topic. “It’s very witchy around here,” she says, laxly gesturing to her coastal surroundings which are apparently dotted with busts of occultist Aleister Crowley. The only snapshot I can glimpse of her East Sussex bearings over Zoom however is a selection of framed Talking Heads posters, a Marshall amp and an ironically dehydrated cactus. It seems that she couldn’t help but bring a touch of Soho grunge to St Leonards, despite admitting she’s keen to leave the hoi polloi of London life behind (“I want to be on a farm in the middle of nowhere.”)

Alongside free-falling into worlds unknown to most, Sydney has also cultivated quite the roster of celebrity profiles. Harris Dickinson, Finneas, The Libertines, Joe Alwyn, James Norton, Adwoa Aboah and Archie Madekwe to name a modest few. While her aforementioned podcast run alongside chef Gizzi Irskine was fairly short-lived, she still managed to lock down prolific figures including Hollywood actress and Harvey Weinstein whistleblower Rose McGowan and Lily Allen, who had then-recently launched her Womanizer vibrator (“There was a DM exchange going on for about a year with me trying to get a vibrator off Lily Allen.”) 

Did her experience being a female journalist, not to mention a pretty one at that, stunt or enable her career growth at all? “I think it’s been helpful in some documentaries,” she reflects, referencing a documentary she made about alleged art fraudster Yves Bouvier. “I got in the car and was separated from my cameraman and director for a bit. We were travelling between locations and he was on the phone to someone saying ‘Don’t worry about her, she’s just a pretty blonde’ in French. I thought ‘Now I see why I’m being used for this doc because it’s disarming.’ It probably served itself in that way. It’s a shame that it has but…” she shrugs.

It’s easy to see why some might mistakenly assume that Sydney’s impish charm softens her edge – but beneath it lies an unflinching resolve. Then again, consider her upbringing. She attended a school sandwiched between two strip clubs (“you’d be greeted by two strippers either side of your primary school in the morning”). A self-professed indie kid who was “obsessed with Pete Doherty and Patrick Wolf,” and the only child of an actress mother and filmmaker father (who made obscure films about “killer spaghetti”), Sydney probably wasn’t destined for a 9-5 office job in the city. 

Yet it was these unorthodox rumblings that inspired her latest venture. Set to launch in March, Rich Parents Club is a mentorship scheme that pairs underprivileged creatives with successful mentors in the industry, acting as their ‘rich parents.’ While the writer remains rather hush hush about the project, she hints at a planned series of pop-up panels across the UK featuring BAFTA-nominated directors and Oscar winners. “I grew up with a very creative household, but my parents didn’t necessarily ‘make it,’” she says matter-of-factly. “Now I’m on a talent board and I think I’m the only one who doesn’t have rich parents – it’s a really hard industry to operate in when you come from a less privileged background.” She continues playfully: “We were going to have Harris [Dickinson] launch it but he’s busy working on the Beatles film, so I’m a bit upset.” 

It’s at this point that Sydney’s postman interrupts our effervescent conversation about Rose Gray, singer and fiancée of the East London born actor set to play John Lennon. Cussing loudly (a woman of my own heart) she sprints to the door. Prior to the conversation, I was curious as to how a journalist-on-journalist conversation would unfold, thinking it was either going to be a spectacular meshing of like-mindedness or totally awkward. Thankfully, it couldn’t have been further from the latter.

“I can’t do being interviewed, I’m born to interview!” she says returning to the conversation, which by this point has spiralled into a lively exploration of R-rated avant-garde themes. “Actors are very good at being interviewed,” she continues, referencing her own experience canvassing others. “There have been some harder [interviews]…sometimes writers are not as used to being the face of things but usually you do find something to talk about – or just ply them with wine.”

As for what’s in the pipeline? Penning the odd newsletter when she has time, taking care of her staffie-poodle puppy that has taken over her life in the best way possible – “she’s honestly the love of my life, I haven’t seen my friends since I got her” – and keeping up with the whirring carousel that is the freelancer life: “I burn out a lot. I’ll have a manic few weeks where I can’t switch off and then I’ll have an emotional comedown and be bedridden for two days. I’m learning to ride with it – my friend calls them my ‘goblin-mode’ days.” 

With the media’s shift away from traditional pen-to-paper storytelling and journalists being nudged towards social platforms, many writers remain in a perpetual state of flummox – or duck out of the industry altogether. I’m curious what Sydney’s advice for budding journalists would be. “Don’t wait for permission. I really regret waiting for streamers and channels to give me the okay and commission an idea when you actually have the ability to like to film something and put it on YouTube.”

There may even be a sliver of hope for aspiring documentary filmmakers still locked in a tug-of-war with influencers for the rare hosting gig. “I feel that if you write a piece that you’re really attached to, people then go for the journalist behind the piece, especially if you have uncovered a subculture.” Back to wining and dining cult leaders, I guess.

While her Instagram feed is a hard lesson in after-hours glam, saturated with evening events including exclusive Dior pop-ups, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy parties, DJ gigs and fashion week frolickings, Sydney is far from your average FROW-seated influencer. Despite the polka dotted Valentino gowns housed in her wardrobe and razor-sharp cheekbones that could have been chiselled by Michaelengo himself, she refuses to sanitise her life for the sake of clicks or falling in line with the silver-spooned style set. 

But she wouldn’t have it any other way. From masquerading as a teenage boy while investigating OnlyFans managers to visiting the world’s most expensive rehab clinic in the name of kitten heeled boots on the ground journalism, the star continues to lift the lid on society’s underbelly – and her curiosity isn’t slowing for anyone.