Table of Biography
KSI is an English YouTuber, internet personality, rapper, comedian, actor, and boxer. KSI is also a member and co-founder of the British YouTube group Sidemen.
Early Life and Childhood
He is 30 years old. His real name is Olajide William Olatunji Jr. He was born on 19 June 1993 in London, England, United Kingdom, under the astrological sign Gemini. Likewise, his father’s name is Olajide Ademola Olatunji, Sr. His father is recognized as Jide Olatunji and has been the cameraman for his son’s videos. And his mother’s name is Olayinka Atinuke Olatunji who is known as Yinka Olatunji.
Similarly, his parents are of Nigerian roots. He also has a younger brother named Deji Olatunji. He along with his brothers ranked first and second respectively as the “UK’s Most Influential YouTube Creators” in 2015. Likewise, he along with his family relocated to Watford. Moving toward his educational background, he attended the fee-paying independent Berkhamsted School.
Caption: KSI on childhood photo with his brother (Source: Reddit)
Professional Life
YouTube
On 24 April 2008, he created a YouTube channel named ‘JideJunior’. On 24 July 2009, he founded his current YouTube account. In this channel, he created a video about the FIFA video game franchise. His biggest inspiration from Weepeler and Hjerpseth was to begin his own YouTube career he mentioned on his website. His main channel earlier concentrated on association football and FIFA. He also performed other games such as Grand Theft Auto V.
Likewise, his secondary channel includes videos of him playing horror, arcade, and casual games. In 2012, he became the center of a controversy following his actions at a Eurogamer event. In February 2013, he made an appearance in the video “KSI VS FIFA // The Record Slam” made by Wrong. His name was even recorded in the Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition in 2013. In October 2013, he signed a contract with Maker Studios’ sub-network.
Sidemen
Later, on 19 October 2013, he along with his four other British YouTubers made the entertainment collective Ultimate Sidemen, shortened to just Sidemen. Since 2014, the group included seven British YouTubers: Simon Minter (Miniminter), Ethan Payne (Benzinga), Vikram Barn (Vikkstar123), Josh Bradley (ZerkaaHD), Tobi Brown (TBJZL), Harry Lewis (W2S), and KSI. The group creates online videos, most often including challenges, sketches, and video-game commentary, as well as selling exclusive Sidemen merchandise.
On 4 August 2017, he tweeted that he would be dropping the Sidemen, citing conflicts with fellow member, Ethan Payne. Shortly thereafter, he published several diss track videos criticizing members of his then-former group, to which most maximum of the members responded with their own.
Later, he stopped uploading videos in early 2017 but later he released a video in July. Later on 15 August, he published a video in which he claimed that he was being exiled from the United States for holding an incorrect visa. In November 2017, he posted a video addressing the issue of whether his supposed fight with the Sidemen was real or fake, with him saying that “the drama wasn’t entirely real, but wasn’t entirely fake either.”
Other…
Just in his twenties, he became one of the most popular superstars of digital media in the UK. As of June 2020, he has gained more than 21.5 million people to subscribe to his main YouTube channel. He has become so successful playing the FIFA video game that he receives the chance to meet real-life football players which is the dream of every youngster in England. Likewise, he also got an invitation from the former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand to play the FIFA video game with him at his restaurant to support a YouTube channel. He has also played the FIFA video game with Wojciech Szczesny, Kieran Gibbs of Arsenal, and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
As an actor, he has also featured in the British comedy film Laid in America (2016), and became the subject of KSI: Can’t Lose (2018), a documentary film following the build-up to his first amateur boxing fight.
Caption: KSI on his YouTube video (Source: YouTube)
Music
He wrote and produced comedy rap songs in his early YouTube career. He has since recorded more serious releases, achieving six top 40 singles on the UK Singles Chart—two of which reached the top 10.
As a rapper, he made his debut in music in 2011. He alongside his fellow YouTuber Randolph released “Heskey Time”, a rap song about footballer Emile Heskey on Christmas 2011. Likewise, he even started making a segment on his channel called “Football Rap Battles.” He made appearances in music videos with Droideka, directing and performing in his music video for his song Get Hyper. Also, he collaborated with British rapper Sway for which he released two tracks.
On 23 March 2015, he published his first single as a solo artist named ‘Lamborghini’. Also, on 29 October 2015, he announced his debut EP named ’Keep Up.’ It was released on 8 January 2016. On 28 October 2016, he issued his second EP named ‘Jump Around’. On 30 June 2017, he issued his third EP named ‘Space’.
2020
Likewise, he released the album’s second single, “Wake Up Call”, featuring American rapper and singer Trippie Redd. On 31 January 2020. The song peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart, making it his third highest-charting single in the UK to date. Further, his other album “Poppin” released on 27 March 2020 charted at number 43 on the UK Singles Chart, and “Houdini” released as the fourth single from the album on 24 April 2020 charted at number 6 on the UK Singles Chart.
He made his debut in the music industry through the studio album Dissimulation. Released on 22 May 2020, debuted at number 2 on the UK Albums Chart, and reached the charts of 13 other countries. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart. His album’s fifth single, “Cap”, featuring American rapper Offset charted at number 24 on the UK Singles Chart.
Moreover, he even programmed to perform at various music festivals throughout 2020, including Parklife, Reading, Longitude and Leeds, and Weekender Jersey, but all of these festivals got canceled or postponed due to the global outbreak of COVID-19.
Amateur Boxing Career
Apart from his social media presence, he has also been involved in three high-profile boxing bouts. The first two were amateur white-collar events, and the third was a professional bout. He won the first, against British YouTuber Joe Weller through technical knockout and drew a live online audience of over 1.6 million. His second fight, versus American YouTuber Logan Paul, was completed in a majority draw.
Likewise, this match was marked “the largest event in YouTube history.” In the following rematch, he won against Logan Paul by a split decision. In 2016 he obtained the Vlogger of the Year award in the NME Award.
Caption: KSI posing with his winning wrestling belt (Source: Instagram)
KSI – Net Worth 2024
Olajide William Olatunji a.k.a KSI, is an English YouTube personality, rapper, comedian, and actor who has earned a decent sum of money through his social media fame. As of 2023, his estimated net worth is around $20 million. The Times estimated his earnings to be £12 million a year.
Rapidly, he bagged a huge sum of money. In 2014, he reportedly earned $1.12 million, and in 2015, Forbes estimated a net worth of over $4.5 million, ranking him as the fifth-highest-paid YouTuber in the world. Within two years, his wealth more than doubled and his net worth reached $11 Million in 2017.
In 2018, Esquire magazine reported he made up to £250,000 in advertising revenue from one video and that product advertisements on his social media cost around £75,000. In an interview with Men’s Health, he confirmed that he also owns over ten properties “all around England” with a mixed worth of over $10 million.
Business Insider reported that his first fight against Logan Paul that year made about $11 million (£8.5 million) from just pay-per-view revenue alone, including more live gate revenue of over £2.7 million ($3.5 million) from ticket sales. Some estimates calculated he earned £30 million to £40 million each from a fight. According to the Mirror, he made a fortune of $900,000 from his second fight against Logan Paul, although his final cheque from the fight was proclaimed to be in millions.
At a such young age, he is an independent and proud owner of two very expensive cars, one of which is an orange-colored Lamborghini which can be seen parked in front of his residence in Kent.
Personal Life
Everyone wonders about this famous and generous YouTube personality KSI’s love life. As of now, he is single. He is enjoying a single life with an extravagant life. He has not much talked about his love life on the web.
However, he was about Seana Cuthbert previously. She is a fellow YouTube vlogger. She is famous online by the pseudonym “Seanyy”. Unfortunately, their relationship ended after two years because she didn’t get enough attention as he was too busy with his YouTube channel and career. This duo was very young in their first meeting at the age of 17.
Caption: KSI on his YouTube video along with ex-girlfriend (Source: YouTube)
Controversy
He grew immense popularity on social media facing lots of controversies way back in his career. Previously, people strongly criticized him because of his actions during the ‘Eurogamer event in 2012. He got accusations of sexually harassing the female attendees. The authorities even banned him from attending any ‘Eurogamer’ event in the future and the controversy became difficult involving many parties.
His manager issued an apology later citing his inexperience and young age though people still doubt that he has not learned any lesson from the incident. Though this controversy has embarrassed his image forever, there seems to be no dearth of firms lining up to sign him up. Currently, he is controversy-free and has maintained a good profile.
KSI – Body Measurements
This good-looking YouTube personality stands a height of 5 feet 10 inches tall (1.83 m) and weighs around 72 kg. He has a maintained fit and healthy body. Likewise, his chest size is 42 inches, waist size is 30 inches, and biceps size is 16 inches. He wears a shoe size 10 [UK]. He has broth dark brown hair and eye color.
KSI – Social Media
Being a web personality, he is active on different social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. On Instagram, he goes by the handle @ksi with more than 8.5 million fan followers. Likewise, he has garnered over 2.5 million followers on his Facebook account. Additionally, he owns two YouTube channels. His main YouTube channel has garnered 21.5 million subscribers and his secondary YouTube channel JJ Olatunji with more than 9.23 million subscribers.