Survivorship bias. You often hear only about the top earners and not the poor person doing onlyfans and working another job. Or two. I'd expect the majority of performers not to live in large, nice houses.

Majority of performers aren’t really serious about it either. Due to morality constraints, very few people find it easy to buckle down and work 8 hours a day at that job… whereas if they were to pick a body damaging job like construction they would have social support to help them get through the day.