Brian Davis was once a football content giant. Then one joke saw his world fall apart.

Many know the face, the rants about Newcastle United, or at least his internet tag: the True Geordie. What many do not know is his story of financial freedom and ruin, flash cars, mental health struggles, controversies, and his battle to recover his singed reputation. 

His is the tale of a working-class boy from the North East, whose father was in and out of prison, who built a YouTube empire against the odds. With a roguish persona belying a sensitive soul, he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Ian Wright, Alan Shearer, Tyson Fury, Jake Paul and KSI. Football and boxing were his playgrounds. 

Then, on November 7, 2022, Davis made the joke which changed his life. The firebrand YouTuber suggested to his more than two million followers that the controversial 'manosphere' influencer Andrew Tate should blow himself up to prove his apparent conversion to Islam. 

Almost immediately, Davis' major sponsors Gymshark and Poker abandoned him. Streaming platform Twitch banned him from broadcasting. His main YouTube co-presenters Laurence McKenna, Rory Jennings, Adam McKola and Lawrence Bury stopped working with him.

Davis made a tearful apology, but the damage - to him and his brand - was done. Many had been deeply hurt by his joke and forgiveness is hard to find on the internet at the best of times. This is the story of what happened to the True Geordie.

Those who knew Davis' content when he first burst into the broader consciousness will be surprised to see what his channel has become.  

While Davis still posts about Newcastle, with a particular strength of feeling against head coach Eddie Howe, he has found a new vein of content to mine. In recent years, Davis has churned out political content with a controversial, conspiratorial edge. Sir Keir Starmer and Gary Neville are cast as enemies of the working class. The Epstein files, the Southport killer and trans rights are pored over. The police are labelled 'woke' and 'corrupt'.

For some, this is a cynical shift to being a grifter, hoping to cash in on the fringe sects that occupy some of YouTube's darker corners with controversy driving his content. One Newcastle fan gives Daily Mail Sport a punchier description: 'He's a b***end.' 

Davis pushes back. 'I’m not driven by any political agenda or malice, I’ve called out the likes of Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Nigel Farage, Reform and the Conservatives,' he tells Daily Mail Sport.

'If I’m a right-wing grifter, I’m not doing a very good job of it. I definitely title things in an eye-catching way. I think given the way I look (tattooed, muscular, bald) people assume that I hold far more extreme views than I actually do.'

All the same, his viewership, though still sizeable, has plummeted. Prior to the Tate incident, 78 of Davis' videos passed the million-view barrier. His tally since then? Just five. Many videos place in the low-six-figures range. Still strong, but the demand for Davis' political content is trifling compared to his heyday.

His once-booming growth has slowed to a trickle. He had around two million YouTube subscribers in November 2022 for his principal channel, True Geordie. Nearly four years on, he is on 2.19m.

Brands have pulled out of contracts which he was banking on. No longer does he film in an expensive London studio, but back on Tyneside. Gone are the days of a 15-strong content crew and exclusive interviews with high-profile celebrities.

We understand this will not affect True Geordie's total output as his operation has already been scaled back during the two-year liquidation process. But how did one of the most prominent football content creators - with more than three million followers across his three channels - fall this far?

To understand Davis' world, you have to go back far to his childhood, growing up on a council estate in Newcastle. His father was often in prison, leaving his mother to look after him. The other kids on the estate were chaos - they once burned down the Davis family shed. At school, he was regularly in fights. 

'There's a cocktail in me that's a really weird mixture of a self-obsessed, arrogant showman - who was my dad,' he told Steven Bartlett's The Diary of a CEO podcast in 2021. 'Bodybuilder, hard man, went to prison, fighter. And then a woman who worked looking after people - very caring, compassionate, loving, charitable, generous, all the good things.'

He grew up to work as a diver on oil rigs, 'surrounded by military men who wanted to beat men up, f*** women, take drugs, and get drunk'. These were his role models and friends. 

There was a nagging sense that his life beckoned for more than that, to express who he was in front of the world. So he turned on the camera and began to speak, making his YouTube breakthrough in January 2013 with a rant about Newcastle striker Nile Ranger, who had criticised the club's fans. 

'He's actually f***ing useless,' Davis fumed. 'Every time I've seen him play he's never shown a f***ing sliver of quality. All he's done is brought shame on our club.'

That's pretty much the tone he has adopted ever since towards the club he supports. His football content is peripheral these days but he still takes a hyper-critical stance towards the club, and particularly Howe. Some feel that he capitalises on and even revels in the team's struggles. One Newcastle fan told Daily Mail Sport that he is regarded among the fanbase as a mere 'bigmouth'.

In a modern YouTube landscape dominated by content creators including the likes of Mark Goldbridge and iShowSpeed, such toxicity hardly registers these days. But back in 2013, the 'fuming football ranter' profile was something new.

In the years that followed, he would rack up millions of views hosting podcasts with some of sport's biggest names. The cash poured in like never before. 

In one 18-month period, he bought a £100,000 Audi R8 with cash, a convertible McLaren, and a Bentley GT. 'It was better than a drug, better than anything... it made you feel like a f***ing movie star,' he once reflected.

Then, in August 2019, his world came crashing down, or so it felt. In the space of one week, a seven-figure content deal with Ladbrokes fell apart while - entirely separately - a spate of sexually explicit messages involving Davis took the internet by storm. Those messages are too lewd to repeat here, but there was no suggestion of anything illegal. The mockery online was relentless. 

On top of that, the aborted Ladbrokes deal had huge financial consequences for Davis, who had signed a tenancy agreement on a flat and was then hit with a six-figure tax bill. Davis became depressed and started drinking himself to sleep.

'I literally wanted to kill myself,' he told Bartlett. 'It was just too much, even for me. It was awful. The level of abuse and ridicule I got online, and the financial mess I was in, it just felt that everything I'd been building too had been f***ed up.

'That left me in a really, really low place. I was thinking about suicide on a daily basis. It was an awful way of living. I don't know how I got through what I got through.'

This was more than three years before his Tate comment and his subsequent 'cancellation'. In the intervening years, Davis dusted himself off and continued doing what he does best: producing YouTube content, prolifically.

Interviews with Kieran Trippier, Tyson Fury, Jake Paul, KSI, Louis Theroux, Tony Bellew, Russell Brand and Jordan Peterson, among others, landed. He began training hard, embarking on a body transformation which continues today. Davis' trajectory only pointed upwards. 

But in the background, his feud with Tate was bubbling. He and the former kickboxing world champion had exchanged some back-and-forth comments since 2018, when Davis mentioned him in a video.  The acrimony heated up significantly in August 2022, when Davis criticised Tate for 'human trafficking' and for his misogyny on an episode of the Flagrant podcast. 'The way this guy talks about women is a f***ing joke,' he said. 

This is the context for the flashpoint in November of that year. On a football livestream with McKenna, Davis was asked by a viewer whether he would fight Tate. McKenna interjected to remind his friend that 'Andrew has God on his side now'. Then, the 20 seconds which knocked Davis' career off course.

'I would gladly blow myself up if I could take that f***ing s***bag with us,' he began - before McKenna told him that he was stereotyping. But Davis ploughed on, laughing: 'I'm just saying, if you really want to prove it (your conversion to Islam), do the right thing. Let's see how about that life you really are.'

Needless to say, his comment spread like wildfire online and his reputation was shattered. Davis lost his brand deals, his broadcasting friends, and tens of thousands of subscribers. McKenna was particularly hurt due to his wife and child being Muslim, though he actually stuck around the longest.

Jennings and McKola, understandably worried about the financial future of The Kick Off, the football watchalong show they co-hosted with Davis, severed ties within a couple of days. 

Davis sobbed in a 22-minute apology video. 'I made a joke in questioning that newfound faith of his, that conveniently comes at a time he needs as many supporters as he can get (Tate was the subject of a criminal investigation),' he said.  'It was a very stupid thing to say, it was an idiotic joke, and one I'm sorry for.'

One-time fans flood online forums to ask what has happened to him, after seeing his pivot towards provocative political content. But analysis of his output beyond the headline and thumbnails reveals a more moderate character than one would suspect.

His videos on women are clumsy at times, but he ultimately advocates for his young male followers to seek good personal qualities for a long-term relationship and to reciprocate them. 'Men, I'm expecting the same back from you, because it doesn't work one way,' he says. 

Davis also opens up delicately about the death of his mum, encouraging young men to love their mothers and treasure their times together. He tells Daily Mail Sport: 'What I hope is that when people listen and give me a chance, they will see I’m trying to be a good influence on the young men of today. 

'I’m not trying to sell young lads a course, my hope is to try to encourage them to be good family men who devote themselves to their kids, work hard and get their self worth from being good people rather than the car they drive. I take my impact on these lads seriously and know I’ve made a difference speaking about my mental health as often as I have. I’ve got a real connection with my audience and I hope when people look back at my career, for all I’m not perfect and have made mistakes, I’d be remembered as a force for good on this platform.'

It is puzzling that Davis packages his content in such a polemical way. He insists that he is not chasing views or money or fame, yet projects the self-image most likely to attract those. Why brand yourself like the manosphere if you're not part of it? Why opine on hot topics if you don't want to be associated with them? Why insist you are misunderstood, but fuel that misunderstanding with your output? 

That much remains a mystery. The only certainty is that, for as long as he can, Davis will keep on talking. 

For confidential support, call Samaritans on 116 123, visit samaritans.org or visit www.thecalmzone.net/get-support