Chef and OnlyFans model Chantal Fox admits she’s “a bad driver”, but she never imagined a driving act combined with her firey temper would see her blasted into media headlines and copping online abuse.
The 26-year-old Canberra woman was filmed in a foul-mouthed argument with anti-vaccinations protesters last month, which immediately went viral.
In the video Ms Fox was seen in a traffic dispute with another woman before ending up with her car mounting the other woman’s.
Now, she has revealed what led to the widely shared dispute, and the dramatic consequences that followed.
The viral traffic accident took place on a Saturday when thousands of protesters had descended on the capital, marching on federal parliament and camping in grounds nearby to complain about the government’s Covid-19 regulations.
The disruption saw a Lifeline fundraiser cancelled and local businesses were bobarded with damaging online reviews if they refused entry to unmasked patrons.
Ms Fox told news.com.au there had been a feeling of tension in Canberra that day.
“Initially it wasn’t too much of a hassle. But towards the end, things were strating to get tense. There was this sense of pressure,” she said.
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“More people were around, roads were shut – it put a lot of pressure on the amenities and local businesses.”
That pressure reached boiling point for Ms Fox when, she said, she was driving and got stuck behind cars filled with protesters.
She said a car in front of her had been driving around slowly and purposely stopping at green lights.
She said she started honking her horn at the car in front until a pair of women got out of the vehicle and started filming her, capturing the video that would soon be all over news sites and bulletins.
The women all screamed at each with Ms Fox hurling abuse at the women.
“What are you doing you f***ing bogan slut, get the f**k out of Canberra and go get a job and find something better to do,” she said at the time.
The tirade continued before Ms Fox attempted to pull away from the car in front of her, but instead ended up with her vehicle on top it.
“For the record, I’m a bad driver,” she told news.com.au.
“I was trying to get by her car and I kind of hit it. I had no idea that it would mount the car.”
Ms Fox said she slipped out of the driver’s side window and clambered off the woman’s bonnet before another argument began.
“By this point there were probably like eight or 10 people around us at this stage. A few protesters and then a few people who were on my side,” she said.
“One of the things that were most infuriating was that everyone was filming. No one called the police – finally someone did.
“When the police got there they did breath tests, took our stories. Really just did their job.”
The arrival of police mellowed the situation and they issued Ms Fox a fine for negligent driving.
The car she was driving — her mother’s — was pulled off the other vehicle and she was able to drive home.
“My mum wasn’t super surprised. As I’ve said – I’m a bad driver, I’ve been in accidents. She told me I wasn’t allowed to drive her car and a few other things,” she said.
Backlash begins
On the Saturday afternoon, Ms Fox still was unaware she was about to be catapulted in front of millions of people through their computers and smartphones.
She got the first idea of what was to come on Sunday morning.
Ms Fox had started getting random people sending her the video asking if it was her. The video was then shared on a local Canberra Facebook group where it caught fire and began to be widely shared.
It was picked up by mainstream news outlets and also by the anti-vaxxer movement on social media.
Ms Fox initially owned the attention, commenting on posts about it and in one instance boasting she had “parked my car on an anti-vaxxer”.
After it was shared among anti-vax groups and on platforms like Telegram, hundreds of messages started rolling into her Facebook and Instagram pages.
She was called a “dumb sl*t”, a “bogan” and “crazy”.
By Sunday afternoon she could barely use her phone because of the volume of messages hitting her inbox.
“Look, I had an idea that I may get some abuse. They had been filming the whole thing,” she said. “Two of my old employers contacted me and told me that they had been receiving threats – and people were asking them to fire me.
“The worst thing was getting messages from people I knew, old friends.”
At one point, almost a week after the incident she went to the local police station to complain about a particular person abusing her online.
Her mobile phone number was leaked, and some protesters suggested on Facebook they should find Ms Fox’s mother and “let her know” about her daughter.
OnlyFans offer: ‘$5 if they want to abuse me’
At this point, she hit back on social media, publishing a post saying if critics wanted to contact her they can do so through her OnlyFans where she sells explicit images and videos.
“I wanted to do some proactive. I figured if they found my address and phone number they would find my nudes too,” she said.
“I asked them to pay me $5 if they wanted to abuse me. No one yet.”
Explicit photos of her were shared without her consent online but she shrugged this off saying she understood this may happen by selling them on the internet.
“I ended up using my OnlyFans to raise money for Lifeline. The protesters had shut down their book fair so I wanted to help,” she said.
She donated $1000 to the charity and said there’s been a spike in her subscribers on OnlyFans since she went viral.
“I’ve actually had people pay for me to scream at them like in the video,” she said.
When speaking to news.com.au earlier this week she said it had been the longest she had gone since the event without receiving a phone call – about 12 hours.
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When asked to sum up the whole experience, she said it was largely ironic.
“I told my friends that was my word of the week. Like, these people want others to care about their views but they don’t care about anyone else’s views,” she said.
“If they wanted me to be apologetic and sorry – doxxing me was not the way to do it.”
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