'Professional Cuddler' Earns $100K A Year After Leaving Behind Her 'Stressful' Teaching Job
Miljan Zivkovic | ShutterstockAs rewarding as teaching is, the profession is going through a rough patch. 51-year-old Ella Love said she'd had enough of the stress and left it all behind. Now, she's making six figures as a professional cuddler.
After doing a bit of research on the importance of physical touch on mental and physical health, it wasn't a hard sell to consider a career change. Love took an online course and, nearly a decade later, works a whopping 3 hours a day and earns $150 an hour.
A former teacher quit her job to become a professional cuddler and earns $100K a year.
In an interview with the NY Post, Love explained that she had spent 13 years teaching in various New York public schools before deciding she'd had enough. With the overwhelming class sizes, a shortage of funds, and discipline problems among students, Love knew she was dangerously close to burning out.
"The stress came from large class sizes, not having time for anything, discipline problems, limited funds for materials," Love told the publication, “It’s extremely different in America."
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Leaving an established teaching career for professional cuddling might seem unconventional, but Love was literally at her wits' end. Despite teachers' pay increasing over the last couple of years, educators are still reporting higher levels of stress. In 2025, 62% of teachers reported frequent job-related stress, compared to 33% of similar working adults.
In 2017, Love read an article about professional cuddling, paid $300 for an online course, and tried it as a side hustle while still teaching. Within six months, she left her teaching job and never looked back. Now, Love charges $150 an hour and earns anywhere between $60,000 to $100,000 a year.
Being a 'professional cuddler' is more than just cuddling with a stranger.
When people hear that Love cuddles people for a living, they automatically think it's inappropriate. But Love insisted that a lot actually happens during these cuddling sessions besides providing someone with physical touch.
"People think they’re just paying for a hug, but that’s not what happens. The touch activates suppressed emotions. They suddenly start remembering things, opening up, telling me things they’ve never said out loud before. It becomes a very intense therapeutic experience," Love shared.
Her clients are predominantly middle-aged married men who have a good professional life but are struggling in their personal lives. Many of them aren't getting much love at home. "They don’t want to cheat or leave their partner, but there’s no intimacy. They’ve grown apart, there are communication problems, and they feel completely disconnected."
Love makes sure to interview every single client, and not everyone who wants her services gets picked. The boundaries are made clear from the very start. But there is still a stigma around the profession, and many of her clients never tell anyone about their visits.
"There’s still a stigma around it, which is a shame," she said. Her personal life has also been impacted by this job. The emotional intimacy of her work has complicated more than a few of her own relationships. "It takes a very confident and trusting partner to date me."
Love's work sounds a whole lot like therapy combined with hugging, and for anyone who feels bereft, it's a wonderful resource. In the midst of a loneliness epidemic when people feel more disconnected than ever, professional cuddling is certainly a career path that can't be replaced with AI.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
