Robert Fripp has gone nude to announce that he has joined OnlyFans – but not really.
Yesterday (April 1) – also known as April Fool’s Day – Fripp took to YouTube and social media to share a new video. In the video, Fripp appears nude, with nothing but his guitar to cover his lower half. As he sits on stairs, Fripp caresses the neck of his Gibson Les Paul and licks his lips suggestively, before a link to his OnlyFans page is shown onscreen.
A description for his OnlyFans page reads: “Robert has officially joined OnlyFans! Subscribe now for exclusive, jaw-dropping content you never knew you needed…”
Upon clicking the link, you’re taken to a broken page, suggesting that Fripp has indeed not joined OnlyFans, and that it was all a ruse in the name of April’s Fools.
Since Fripp posted the video, reactions online have ranged from some fans finding the April Fool’s joke funny, while some have seemed to miss the joke entirely. “This will no doubt upset all the King Crimson purists,” one fan wrote on YouTube with laughing emojis, while another wrote, “WTF!!!! Robert’s lost it! Get the doctor!”.
On X (formerly Twitter), users seem to be taking the joke better, with some calling it the best prank they’ve seen this year. One fan even used the cover of King Crimson’s ‘In The Court Of The Crimson King’ to convey his reaction to the joke.
My sincere reaction to this post pic.twitter.com/czOOLUxOOE
— Станіслав Польськой (@polskoi_st) April 1, 2024
Later this year, Fripp and Toyah Willcox are set to embark on a string of string of live dates during the holidays following the success of their Sunday Lunch YouTube series and their critically acclaimed Tour of ’23.
The couple will kick off the shows on December 16 at the Queens Hall in Edinburgh. From there, they will make their way to Sunderland, Bath, and London before wrapping up the dates on December 22 at the Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton. Tickets are on sale now. Visit here to purchase tickets.
Last year, the pair brought their viral lockdown concept to the live stage at Glastonbury, where they performed David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’. They also looked back at the success of their series backstage with NME, sharing that the response “did surprise us”.
“We were going for about eight months and it was growing and growing and growing,” Willcox said. “It started with one very simple post: 28 seconds of us jiving. Within five minutes it got about 100,000 replies from across the world. At that point, we realised that we’d posted something that basically cheered people up who were alone in lockdown.”