US model Kaylen Ward sends naked selfies for Australia fires charity fund... and raises more than $700,000

An American Instagram model is raising money for Australia by selling nude photos
Getty Images/Twitter/@lilearthangelk
Bronwen Weatherby6 January 2020

An Instagram model has raised more than half a million dollars by sending naked selfies in return for a donation to the Australian wildfire crisis fund.

Kaylen Ward, who has dubbed herself "The Naked Philanthropist" on social media, has reportedly raised more than $700,000 in just two days after she asked fans to give $10 to charity pot in exchange for an x-rated photograph.

The 20-year-old model from Los Angeles said she had seen the horrific images emerging from the bushfires and did not think different funds were receiving enough international attention.

Ms Ward already has a business selling naked photographs of herself online and decided she would temporarily turn her talents to charity.

Kaylen Ward is selling nude photos for donations
Twitter/@lilearthangelk

Her tweet went viral and now has more than 71.2K retweets and 166K likes.

Hundreds of people sent their confirmation receipts to prove they had donated while Ms Ward struggled to keep up.

Instagram later deactivated her account, but she set up a new one while she tried to get the original one reinstated. Both Instagram accounts have now been disabled, she said on Monday.

Despite this, Ms Ward claims she has raised more than half a million dollars, writing in one post: "We have hit and estimated $500k...... guys I am crying.... this is f***ing crazy."

She later said: "An estimated $700K has been raised for the Australian Bush Fires in response to my tweet.... is this real life?"

Australia Wildfires & Heatwave: December 2019 - In pictures

1/23

Donators were asked to give directly to the NSW Rural Fire Service, Victorian Country Fire Service, Red Cross and certain koala hospitals across the nation.

It comes as Australia’s government said it is willing to pay “whatever it takes” to help communities recover from deadly wildfires that have ravaged the country.

A smoldering log is pictured in the Wingello State Forest
Getty Images

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the government was committing an extra two billion Australian dollars (£1 billion) towards the recovery effort in addition to the tens of millions of dollars that have already been promised.

“The fires are still burning. And they’ll be burning for months to come,” Mr Morrison said.

“And so that’s why I outlined today that this is an initial, an additional, investment of two billion dollars. If more is needed and the cost is higher, then more will be provided.”

Mr Morrison’s announcement of the funds, which will go towards rebuilding towns and infrastructure destroyed by the fires, came as the death toll from the disaster rose with the discovery of a body in a remote part of New South Wales.

The body is believed to be that of a 71-year-old man who was last seen on New Year’s Eve moving equipment on his property on the state’s south coast, police said.​

Nationwide, at least 25 people have been killed and 2,000 homes destroyed by the blazes.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in