Mary-Belle Kirschner (born 23 October 1999), better known as Belle Delphine, is a South African-born British social media personality, pornographic actress, model, and YouTuber.
In mid-2019, Delphine gained notoriety through creating a satirical Pornhub account and selling her "GamerGirl Bath Water" product through her online store.
[9] In her adolescence, she was "an avid watcher of the anti-political correctness genre of YouTubers like iDubbbz" and also enjoyed watching the parody character Filthy Frank online.
[14] In 2018, Delphine began to regularly upload pictures of her modelling on Instagram, using accessories such as pink wigs, thigh-high stockings, and cat ears to help create what she described as a "weird elf kitty girl" aesthetic.
[14] Rolling Stone noted that her style in this second video is more in-line with that of the one she later adopted during her rise to prominence, which they described as "alien Disney princess porn star".
[7] Delphine's image was subsequently spread around 4chan and Reddit, where users praised her "ironic approach to online thotting" as "genius" and "brilliant performance art".
In January 2019, adult content creator Indigo White alleged that, while underage, Delphine passed off the photos of other sex workers as her own.
"[28][29] She announced the product on her Instagram account, where she posted an image of herself in a bathtub, with the caption "bath water for all you thirsty gamer boys.
[24][29][31] Two days after the bath water product sold out, a website was created attempting to capitalize on its success, selling "GamerGirl Pee" for just under $10,000; this was confirmed not to be associated with Delphine.
[32] @BakeRises, a since-banned Twitter user, fabricated a headline alleging that Delphine's product caused a herpes outbreak,[24] which was debunked.
[34] Patricia Hernandez of Polygon opined "What's curious about Delphine's side hustle here is that it seems to be a mixture of business and next-level performance art.
[28] In late August, Delphine became inactive on her social media platforms,[41] making many Patreon supporters believe they were being scammed out of previously promised upcoming content.
[42][43] Online publications and users questioned the authenticity of her claims,[42] while the Metropolitan Police stated they were "unable to disclose any information" regarding the arrest due to the Data Protection Act.
[7] In June 2020, Delphine returned to social media with a YouTube music video parodying the song "Gooba" by American rapper 6ix9ine.
[47][48] This termination occurred almost immediately after Delphine's "Plushie Gun" video was removed for violating the platform's sexual content guidelines.
[51] In January 2021, Delphine posted images of a staged-kidnapping fantasy shoot on Twitter, which led to several users accusing her of promoting rape.
[3] During a 2024 interview with Louis Theroux, Delphine recounted that in an attempt to hype the 2021 OnlyFans video as much as possible, she made several appearances on podcasts.
Various outlets, including Business Insider, The Cut, Kotaku, and Polygon have described her as a "troll", and several instances of her activity online as "stunts".
[15] Writing for Vice, Kitty Guo described Delphine's humour as "tongue-in-cheek and deliberately gross-out", and commented that her modelling shots have a "slick glamour".
[7] Bishop wrote that Delphine "has successfully tapped into an online subculture by creating content that exists somewhere between Internet pranks and erotic modelling.
[56] Writing for Kotaku, Joshua Rivera opined that the overt sexuality in Delphine's content was presented satirically, "given her long list of stunts that all tend to subvert or toy with well-established fetish tropes".
Originating in 1990s Japanese manga, the ahegao facial expression was specifically cited by media outlets for its frequency and prominence in Delphine's imagery.
[8][57] Business Insider stated Delphine was "most famous" for her ahegao photos,[12] while The Spectator referred to her replication of the facial expression as her "break-out" online.
[58] Kitty Guo of Vice also noted that over time, Delphine "moulded herself into the platonic ideal of an e-girl," as her content began leaning more into "a carefully crafted pastel-fairy-princess-anime aesthetic".
On her polarising social media presence, London Evening Standard wrote that Delphine "has sparked a flurry of debate online, with fans branding her everything from a master manipulator to a harmful sexist stereotype of gamer girls".
[31] Madeleine Aggeler of The Cut concurred, commenting: Delphine herself has become something of an online Rorschach test, a figure in whom people see either a brilliant performance artist making a scathing commentary on the expectations of women online or someone cravenly taking advantage of misogynistic tropes of women gamers and appropriating Japanese cosplay culture.
[24] Lela London, writing for The Telegraph, opined that "for women to truly escape gaming's gendered grip, we need to raise more non-fetishised Gamer Girls to the top.
[56] Rolling Stones's EJ Dickson described Delphine's posts as being more "bizarre" and "ridiculous", rather than "overtly sexual", and opined that "Such content appears to indicate that Delphine is leaning into—if not overtly parodying—the perception of the ideal girl as a hot, innocent young thing whose desire to play Fortnite is only eclipsed by her desire for nerdy gamer boy dick".