Ian Bailey has said he is "getting by" on his new side hustle of sharing shoutouts on his TikTok channel.
Speaking to The Star, Mr Bailey revealed that fans are paying up to €15 a pop for a fifteen-second video by the journalist.
Bailey, who has always denied any involvement in the 1996 murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, said he feels like an "antihero" amid the "adulation" shown by his "army of fans".
The 64-year-old revealed that in the last week alone he had recorded 20 TikTok shoutouts over the last week, and that the revenue earned is helping him get by, though he admitted: "it's very small potatoes."
@ianbailey66Birthday Shout out for Sam of Innishanon♬ original sound - Ian Bailey621
Ian Bailey currently has close to 3,500 followers and has accumulated 12,900 likes on the platform.
Opening up on how it works, Mr Bailey said: “I’m using my journalistic background to do little 15-second or 30-second little shout-outs. I get as much information as I can about the person, what it’s about and I write a little script and I do a piece to camera."
It's not the first time Bailey has used his entrepreneurial skills to make additional cash. The Manchester native previously launched his own clothing line where he sold branded t-shirts for €20 a piece on social media.
Sophie Toscan du Plantier Cold Case Review
In June 2022, Ian Bailey said he would fully cooperate with a cold case review into the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier.
The new Garda inquiry comes more than 25 years after the French filmmaker was found dead near Schull in west Cork.
Mr Bailey, with an address at The Prairie in Schull, was arrested twice but never charged with the crime in Ireland.
He was convicted of murder in his absence by a court in Paris in May 2019. He had no legal representation for the case and did not attend the court.
In October 2020, the High Court rejected an attempt by French authorities to extradite Mr Bailey for the murder.
The former journalist told Newstalk radio at the time that he hoped the new review finally clears his name.
"I hope there will be [a successful outcome] and if I can give any assistance, I will be doing that," Mr Bailey said.
"I would hope there would there be an acknowledgement – if not the discovery of who was the murderer of Madame Sophie Toscan du Plantier – an acknowledgement that it wasn't me.
"That's my hope ... and any assistance I can give to An Garda Síochána, I will be giving".
Ms Toscan du Plantier’s son, Pierre Louis Baudey-Vignaud told The Irish Times he was pleased to learn that the cold case review was going ahead.
“I must say I am very happy there is to be a full cold case review and I have big expectations that hopefully the next few months will see developments which, for all of us, Ireland, France and my mother’s family, will finalise this story in a way that will finally get justice for my mother,” he said.#
On Wednesday, gardaí said while the case has remained open and active, it will now be reviewed in its entirety.
According to The Irish Times, the review team will begin its examination next month while based at Bantry Garda station.
It is expected that a key part of the review will focus on forensic evidence gathered at the postmortem and from a technical search of the crime scene.
However, what new material the team is likely to uncover is not immediately obvious as it will be the fourth investigation into the murder following the original investigation, the McNally Review in 2002 and the McAndrew Review in 2005.
Responding to a question on the case in the Dáil earlier this month, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said Ms Toscan du Plantier’s murder had been met with “shock and horror by the people of the country”.
