Racy star Belle Delphine lastly will get £70k used bathwater cash after 5 years

The bathwater-selling sensation Belle Delphine has finally got her hands on her profits from the viral 2019 venture.

Belle, 24, from Cape Town, South Africa, bagged herself a cool $90,000 (£71,000) by flogging jars of her used bathwater five years ago. But in a dramatic twist revealed on X (formerly Twitter), the internet celeb shared that PayPal had initially swiped her earnings without warning.

“PayPal, without any warning closed my account and took the $90,000 that I earned from selling my bathwater,” she said in her post, calling it the “biggest L I’ve ever taken”.

READ MORE: Racy model who sells bathwater reveals eye-watering earnings from first sex scene

Check out more real life stories here

In an unexpected turn of events, PayPal has now backtracked, refunding the full amount from the bathwater sales to Belle after five years.

Belle, whose real name is Mary-Belle Kirschner, launched the notorious GamerGirl bathwater on her website, pricing each jar at $30 (£24) at the time. The stunt was a hit, with hundreds of jars being bought within three days.

However, she never got her hands on the cash at the time.

“I knew it would be a better news story to say that I made ‘so much money’ from selling my bathwater so I just kept this secret,” Delphine dished out on X. “Ultimately I’m still glad I did since it was a really funny time on the internet when it happened.”

To add insult to injury, Belle also disclosed that PayPal slapped her with a hefty fine of $2,500 (£2,000) for every breach of their policies tallying up to each sold jar of bathwater.

After Belle aired her PayPal woes online, the platform coughed up the $90,000. She told Business Insider: “If I didn’t have any [social media] following, they wouldn’t have given my money back,” adding, “Which is so s**tty because what are all the normal non-social media users meant to do in this situation? I followed all the normal protocols and was roadblocked and gave up.”

She was gobsmacked by the response to her Twitter vent, saying: “The Twitter post I made about it had SO many comments of people saying PayPal did the exact same thing to them. It was shocking, to be honest.”

PayPal’s policy on adult and sexual content will allow sales of physical goods like DVDs or magazines (or bathwater jars), but only for transactions within the US, whereas Belle is based in the UK.

A PayPal spokesperson told Business Insider that they could not comment on individual accounts. However, it said that PayPal dropped its policy on the $2,500 fines about a year ago.

It seems that because of that rule change, PayPal decided to release Belle’s funds and return the money to her. But that didn’t happen automatically — it was only once Belle, who has 2 million followers on X, posted about the situation earlier this month and the tweet went viral.

PayPal has been contacted for comment.

The news follows Belle’s previous reveal that her gig as a content creator allowed her to buy a house. However, she said her dad was seething once he found out how she raked in the cash.

Want all the biggest Lifestyle news straight to your inbox? Sign up for our free Daily Star Hot Topics newsletter