YouTube megastar KSI has opened up about the racist abuse he receives and the fraught relationship with his family in a brand new documentary with Louis Theroux. KSI - aka Olajide Olatunji, known to friends as JJ - started his soaring career back in 2009 by posting gaming videos and pranks which often featured his brother and parents.
Since then Olatunji has amassed a massive 24 million subscribers and success in other avenues such as music, boxing and most recently the hugely popular Prime drinks which he set up with arch nemesis turned business partner, Logan Paul.
The brand new documentary produced by Amazon gives fans an intimate look into the superstars life as he juggles the spotlight. A documentary that promises to show Olatunji in a 'new light' it touches on topics such as the abuse he receives which a majority of is racially tinged.
Speaking about the abuse, he said: "It’s very hard to avoid. It’s just part of the internet culture, you can turn it off completely and not go on social media, and then you’ll avoid it to a certain degree. Obviously you might see racism in real life.
“I know that after a while I kind of just got used to it. And not that that’s a good thing but it’s one of the things that helped me get through it. I just stopped caring what people would say when they were being racist to me, or this and that.
“I wouldn’t care. I would just continue doing my thing. And I would just let my successes piss them off more. I don’t let it get to me. I like not giving people that power, power over words.”
Despite his staggering success, KSI faced issues with his loved ones. Speaking about the effect the documentary had on his family, he said: “It was, I guess, heartbreaking for my parents, to see I got upset in the film. And to see that, I know that definitely broke their heart.
“But I think they are happy now that everything is so much better than it was before the doc. It’s crazy. I could argue the doc helped me really open up my mind and made me go, ‘Oh, I need to sort this out’.
“Because it asked the crucial questions where I was like, ‘You know what, I’m not in the best place that I thought I was. I’ve got all these successes but what does that mean if I’m not happy within.”
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The documentary led to KSI having a heart-to-heart with his father. “I definitely wasn’t expecting it,” he said.
“At the start of the doc when I said yes to Amazon filming me I just went with the flow. I just went, ‘Okay, let’s just go with it’ and then it got deeper and deeper and deeper.
“I’m always going to be open and say how I truly feel, because it feels better for the soul and it just feels better in general. Throughout the time I realised that I’m broken. There’s a lot of things I need to fix.
“I’m not happy with myself, my situation, me and my family wasn’t great. Especially my parents, even my brother, we are still going through a few things.”
Speaking about his journey, KSI, who has always had full control of the videos he posts, said he 'hated' filming the documentary which was produced by Mindhouse, the production company co-founded by Louis Theroux. “If I’m being honest, especially at the beginning I hated it,” he said.
“It was quite annoying. I felt it was quite intrusive. It was a bit too much.”
Titled In Real Life, the documentary shows KSI on the eve of the release of his second album, All Over The Place, in July 2021. That record went to number one and saw KSI embark on a sell-out tour.
“I’m quite introverted so I love my alone time. Before I didn’t really understand that. But when I’m in public for a good amount of time I need time off, as in I need time to be in the house alone.
“Not even doing much. Just either playing games or scrolling on my phone, where it’s just me just being me. I definitely didn’t have a lot of that in previous years, and over time it started to really be quite destructive for me.”
In Real Life revisits his childhood in Watford, his struggles at school, the development of his online persona and the emergence of his steely determination to succeed. This drive has been his biggest gift, but has also come with pitfalls.
“I didn’t want it to be a fluff piece,” he explains. “I didn’t want it to just be like, ‘Oh, look how great I am’.
“I wanted to be open, to show that I am human. I told myself that when I was 25 I would retire. I got to 25 and I realised that if I retired now I would be so bored. I would just be doing nothing.”
Aged 29, KSI has already achieved so much. But what if he had been born 10 years earlier, before YouTube offered him a route to success?
“I would probably be working at McDonald’s or something like that, I don’t know, honestly I have no idea.”
KSI describes himself as an obsessive worker. "I really believe in manifestation,” he said.
"If you manifest that you are going to be whatever success you want.
“Let’s say if you want to be a millionaire. If you kept saying, ‘I’m going to be a millionaire, I’m going to be a millionaire’ eventually you are going to reach that point where you’re going to be a millionaire.”
But KSI says he is a much better place now and that therapy has helped him “tremendously”. Going into the future, he feels optimistic and ready.
“I definitely had to go back and repair,” he said. I had to go back and help fix that.”
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