| Updated:
KSI is pumped. We’re midway through a photoshoot at Dagenham & Redbridge football club and he’s standing in the centre circle, fists balled, roaring in mock ecstasy.
This slightly shabby stadium is an incongruous place to meet one of the UK’s most successful content creators; the walk from the station takes you through one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the capital, past peeling, unloved flats, gardens stacked with mattresses, and lamp posts strung with St George’s flags that hang lifeless in the baking sun.
But the Youtuber, boxer, musician, businessman and, now, football club owner has plans to put this place on the map. He recently bought a 20 per cent stake in the Daggers – currently playing their football in the sixth tier – and has dreams of taking them all the way to the Premier League. Usually you’d laugh at such a claim, but KSI has a habit of proving people wrong…
KSI – real name Olajide Olatunji, or “JJ” to his friends – started his career, quite literally, as a bedroom content creator, streaming videos from his Watford home of him and his brother playing FIFA. His strict Nigerian parents sent him to private school in the hopes he would become a lawyer or a doctor… No such luck.
Young Olajide decided to pursue streaming full-time after – so goes his origin story – realising his income as a content creator was already more than his teacher’s salary. He soon branched out to laddish comedy skits and internet challenges, building a Youtube empire that now boasts some 43m subscribers.
From here, his career is a roll-call of improbable events. He was among the first Youtuber-boxers, beating fellow streamer Logan Paul, and only narrowly losing to professional boxer Tommy Fury (much to the relief of the boxing hegemony).
Alongside Paul he launched the energy drink Prime, sparking chaos in classrooms on both sides of the Atlantic as teenage boys fought to get their hands on it. Scalpers began flogging it for 10 times face value and Vice claimed one entrepreneurial drug dealer added it to his menu, priced at three for £100.
Then there’s his music career: critics laughed when he began releasing earnest, bouncy pop-rap songs. But after nine top 10 singles and a number one album… Well, you godda hand it to him.
Next he took a seat beside Simon Cowell and Amanda Holden as a judge on Britain’s Got Talent, introducing brand KSI to a whole new audience. It’s quite a career for someone who’s only 32.
Even so, 2026 feels like a pivotal year, not only because he’s joined the ranks of celebrity football club owners – placing him in the company of Ed Sheeran (Ipswich), Snoop Dogg (Swansea), Stormzy (Croydon Athletic) and, most famously, Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac (Wrexham) – but because he’s leaving The Sidemen, a rag-tag group of internet-savvy kids who together became multi-millionaires (if you needed proof that KSI is a Big Deal, the story of his departure took the third slot on BBC News, behind only soaring oil prices and the war in Ukraine).
In real life, I’m pretty calm, collected and chill. I’m a guy that listens rather than speaks
KSI, it seems, is putting away childish things. His choice of interviews to promote his new role seems to back this up: only two print titles are invited to East London, this one and the Sunday Times. The day we meet, he’s been up since dawn, having already appeared on Chris Evans’ radio show, but he still bounces onto the turf, dressed in a khaki shacket and his trademark bandanna (he apparently brings a change of clothes for each meeting so everyone gets distinct photos; KSI is a pro).
As we take a seat in the dugout – a surreal place to conduct an interview – KSI transforms into a different person. He has a genial but unassuming energy, more thoughtful than you might expect, speaking slowly and choosing his words carefully, his publicist lingering within earshot, just in case.
He’s described himself as an introvert, which seems at odds with the larger than life character from his videos. “Whenever the cameras are on, I’m a heightened version of myself,” he says. “In real life, I’m pretty calm, collected and chill. I’m a guy that listens rather than speaks.”
What is KSI’s USP?
KSI’s biggest skill, I think, is a savant-like knack for staring into the endless tangle of the internet and discerning what the attention economy will demand next. He was doing challenge videos before everyone was doing challenge videos; he is largely responsible for creating the Youtuber-boxing phenomenon, setting in motion a bizarre chain of events that would end with MAGA-fanboy Jake Paul outboxing a 58-year-old Mike Tyson, then getting his jaw broken by Anthony Joshua.
He was part of the first wave of influencers who realised they could monetise their fame and reach without relying on traditional methods of promotion and distribution; his portfolio of products includes snack-foods, vodka and clothing as well as Prime.
“I just focused on things I was interested in, and then, before I knew it, I had this empire of stuff.” He says his talent lies in his ability to “bring things into my ecosystem,” leveraging the power of his followers.
So what does he bring to the Daggers? “Awareness,” he says without missing a beat. “That’s my USP, I’m able to let the whole world know about Dagenham & Redbridge, even compared to Championship teams or Premier League teams. I know I’m able to get bums on seats. Even if you don’t care about Dagenham & Redbridge, you’ll know about it.” Does the club know what it’s got itself into? “I don’t think anyone’s ready, including me.”
‘There’s things I definitely regret doing’
Things have not always been plain sailing for KSI. The day after our interview his name is splashed across the tabloids for a joke he made years ago on his Youtube channel about punching a pregnant woman. In the past, he’s apologised for using a racial slur – he visited a mosque as part of his penance – and calling women “sluts”. A running joke about his “rape face” has aged like milk in the Dagenham sun.
When I bring this up, he suddenly looks very tired. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he says: “There’s things that I definitely regret doing. I haven’t been perfect. But I don’t think anyone’s perfect. That’s why my audience likes me and appreciates me, because I’m not this perfect being that is unachievable. I’m 32 years of age now, I’ve gone through a lot in my life, made a lot of mistakes, but the thing with me is I learned from them and I never made the same mistake twice. I try to portray that to my audience: you’re human, you’re gonna make mistakes. It’s okay.”
Does he feel responsible for his fans? “I definitely see myself as a role model, and I try to be the best role model possible. Over the years, I think I’ve done a decent job.”
It’s a good answer. When called out for bad behaviour, people tend to go down one of two paths. The more common one, these days, is to double down, say something even more outrageous, retrench to your most zealous fans. This is how the Andrew Tates and the HSTikkyTokkys of the world are made. KSI says he’s chosen the other path: fessing up, owning your mistakes, trying to be better next time.
Speaking of Tate and HSTikkyTokky – KSI knows them both and has an ongoing feud with Tate – how does he feel about them today, especially in light of the recent Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere documentary?
I despise Andrew Tate. I think he’s a stupid, moronic individual
“I despise [Andrew Tate],” he says. “I think he’s a stupid, moronic individual,” adding that he wants nothing to do with the boxing promotion company he founded after Tate became involved. Of HSTikkyTokky – real name Harrison Sullivan – he says: “I don’t really care for him. I’m more focused on positivity and trying to be a great role model to the young generation. He has his ways and I have mine – and I prefer my ways. I don’t have any similarities with them. I cringe at a lot of their content.”
Attempting to lift the mood, I ask about KSI’s comedy influences. “I watch all types of comedians, from Ricky Gervais to Dave Chappelle. Sometimes they cross the line but, you know, they’re comedians. A lot of times what they say isn’t how they actually feel.”
He says you can’t afford to worry what might be inappropriate in a decade’s time, “otherwise you wouldn’t make anything – you’d literally be just the most boring person ever.” He tells me his goal is always to entertain and “if things are near the line, across the line, I rectify that.”
How much is KSI worth?
When I ask KSI – his name is a reference to the Halo 3 gaming clan Knowledge, Strength, Integrity – how much he’s worth he laughs, saying he has “no clue”. Twenty million? Fifty? “I think I’m broke,” he says, avoiding eye contact. That can’t be right, I press. After all, he just bought a football club. “I’m doing alright,” he concedes. I read somewhere that he owns at least 10 properties… “Yeah, I’ve got a few houses here and there, you know, I’ve got a few tenants renting. Some nice income.”
He’s being coy: a Sunday Times list from 2024 valued The Sidemen at a collective £50m, with KSI thought to make up the lion’s share. The highest estimate I can find places his personal fortune at £75m. I spot the outline of a chunky watch under his jacket – an Audemars? Perhaps a Hublot? He pulls up his sleeve to reveal a Garmin smartwatch worth less than £500.
He says most of his money is ploughed back into the business. “I don’t really spend on myself,” he says. “Maybe I’ll go on a weekend away to Soho Farmhouse.”
Despite that work ethic, does it sometimes feel like he’s playing life on easy mode? Most people don’t find his level of success once – he’s managed it time and again. “No, no, bro, if you saw what I do in the background… It’s not easy. I’ve done well to keep at this level and still have that passion and enjoyment, but it is very, very hard.”
A typical day in the life of KSI looks something like this: he rises around 7.30am, feeds his cats and goes for a run. Then it’s meetings and filming for one of his Youtube channels; yesterday he recorded an episode of Rate My Lookalike.
He’s too famous to lead what most of us would consider a ‘normal life’; when he signed the paperwork at Dagenham & Redbridge, he had to arrive under cover of night so he wouldn’t be recognised. He’s been doing this for almost 20 years now – I wonder if he even remembers what life was like before?
“Yeah, I remember. I guess it was just different, like, just walking around and no one knowing you.” Does he miss it? He holds his chin in his hand and thinks for a second. “I don’t think so. I’ve chosen this life, and I’m happy with this life.”
It must get tiring, though, being recognised wherever you go, having your past raked through for incriminating evidence, having your family feuds play out in public (a bitter spat with his brother Deji involved back-and-forth videos on Youtube), to be probed about your personal life by journalists like me…
It didn’t make sense to continue drinking – from the hangovers to how it would make me feel to how I would act with alcohol, I just felt like I needed to cut that out
“When I’m with my missus, it can be a bit difficult,” he admits. “When I’m trying to do things with her and people get in the way. She’s extremely private. You’d have to look really hard to find out who she is.”
He says he mostly leads a quiet life. He quit drinking a few years ago because it “didn’t make sense to continue – from the hangovers to how it would make me feel to how I would act with alcohol, I just felt like I needed to cut that out. So I did.”
For downtime, he loves watching Marriage at First Sight – “especially the Australian one” – and the animated series Invincible. He says he doesn’t have much time for video games these days – a little bit of Overwatch but nothing compared to the days when he’d sit for hours playing FIFA with his brother, recording their sessions and streaming to an audience of hundreds rather than millions.
Then again, he gets to play FIFA for real now, with his very own squad of players wearing the red and blue of Dagenham & Redbridge. It feels strangely fitting: is this what his career has always been building towards? “Maybe! Playing FIFA, I loved the euphoric feeling I had at the end of reaching division one with my team when it started in division 10.”
Doing the same with the Daggers would be the most unlikely triumph in a career littered with unlikely triumphs. Still, I wouldn’t bet against him.