Meet Body Builder-Turned-Fitness Influencer Olivia Bentley
“I wanted to lift, but it wasn’t necessarily the fashionable thing to do for girls. I was the only female that joined my lifting team in high school.”
Presented by Nick Kasmik
In high school, Olivia Bentley didn’t know women could be bodybuilders. Even after she saw a book about women weightlifters, she never thought it was something she could do with her life. Bentley took the traditional route many young women do: getting married, having children, and being a stay-at-home mom. There’s nothing wrong with that. Until you find yourself divorced without a job history.
Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch in Nevada, asked Bentley to help him with a documentary series he was filming about his business. Initially, she was skeptical, but decided to give it a try.
“Dennis Hof invited me to come out and be on his HBO show,” Bentley says. “I decided to hide behind the cameras, but I would let him put me in certain things like billboards or event posters.”
Having worked in Nevada, where licensed brothels and escort services are legal in many counties, Bentley can speak articulately about why prostitution should be legalized everywhere. It simply works in that state as well as in some European countries.
Women who work at brothels are safe, healthy and make very good money. The involvement with Hof gave her a lot of experience to use in the job market. In the industry, working girls always say, “If you can do this, you can do anything.”
Bentley got her masters in education earning straight As and became an educator. She also went on to become VP of Business Growth at an active wealth management firm. She returned to the adult industry and created a presence for herself online. She started making money with content creation. A fitness competitor, she’s always kept herself fit and in shape to have a healthy body to match her healthy mind.
Bentley has never forgotten the book she found one afternoon after high school when she was hanging out with friends at Barnes and Noble. “I came across a bodybuilder book about a woman’s journey and her training program. I was like, wow, I’ve never seen a lady with a body like this before,” she says. “What is this? What is this lady about? I wanted to lift, but it wasn’t necessarily the fashionable thing to do for girls. I was the only female that joined my lifting team in high school.”
Bentley persisted, she has always used it as therapy for strength and stress relief. She’s a functional lifter aiming for her max strength. As an attractive woman in the entertainment business—or pretty much in any public-facing business—Bentley has to keep herself in shape more than a man might have to. That’s what gave her the idea of adding “fitness influencer” to her creative online content. She sees this as a way for her to not only expand her audience and her reach, but also to help others who know they need to work on their own health and fitness but aren’t sure how to do that.
Bentley enjoys being on social media and other online platforms, creating content to entertain and inform viewers. Online influencers are an important part of people’s daily information and news networking. Advertising has always been designed to sell things to viewers and comes across as less than trustworthy, while influencers are seen as authentic almost-friends. Their followers trust them because the creators have spent a substantial amount of time and energy creating their personal brands and catering to their followers.
Critics of influencers accuse them of being lazy or having a soft life. But this job is like any in the wide entertainment field, where it can be a struggle to maintain creativity and stay in a positive mental state for your audience. Bentley doesn’t worry about critics, instead focusing on her followers and working to recruit more of them in her new fitness influencer role.
“I just need to have a creative day of content making,” Bentley says matter-of-factly. “ I really love connecting with people through my expressive work. I manage most aspects of my business while training for competitions, it’s a lot! It’s very rewarding and I’m proud of the lives I’ve changed and positively impacted.”