KSI has dismissed potentially damaging social media posts in which he is seen joking about rape and violent assault against women as teenage ‘mistakes’.
The London based influencer, boxer and TV personality, real name Olajide Olayinka Williams Olatunji, has enjoyed enormous mainstream success since launching his YouTube career under his former username, JideJunior, in 2008.
Such is his popularity that Simon Cowell was encouraged to sign him as the latest addition to the Britain’s Got Talent judging panel in 2025, giving him a primetime platform and a new legion of young fans.
But distasteful clips of the 32-year-old cracking misogynistic jokes about rape and claiming he would rather ‘punch the baby’ than practice safe sex have undermined his reputation and threatened his current role on Saturday night TV.
Playing down the furore during an interview with The Times, KSI claimed the offending posts, recorded between 2012 and 2017, were the result of naivety.
‘A lot of my old, old content was very, very cringe,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know what the internet was going to be, I was young and I was living in my own little bubble.
KSI has dismissed potentially damaging social media posts in which he is seen joking about rape and violent assault against women as teenage ‘mistakes’
‘Throughout my life I’ve made mistakes, but as long as you learn from them you can become better.’
Away from the gloss of reality TV and social media, KSI – an acronym, standing for Knowledge, Strength, Integrity – has established himself as an astute businessman, launching the Prime energy drink brand with Logan Paul in 2022.
Sports promotion company Misfits Boxing, a partnership with his long-term manager Mams Taylor and promoters Kalle and Nisse Sauerland, has also raised his profile across boxing and mixed martial arts.
In March, KSI purchased a minority stake in struggling football club Dagenham & Redbridge, currently plying their trade in the semi-professional National League South, with a view to replicating the success of Welsh side Wrexham by monetising his takeover in a documentary series.
And it is this willingness to learn from his initial notoriety that KSI believes has set him apart from other young male influencers, notably Harrison Sullivan, aka HSTikkyTokky – the subject of Louis Theroux’s recent Netflix documentary about the manosphere.
‘Someone like HS, he just doesn’t care. For him it’s all about the money,’ he said of the influencer, who he has known for years.
‘I know what I can do to get a ton of views but I don’t need to do that. There’s the low-hanging fruit but I don’t go for it because I realised that if you’re just yourself, that’s enough.
‘If you bring positivity you might not get the initial views, but you’re building a foundation that can grow, and as opposed to doing the short-term thing, I feel like my route is a lot more fruitful.’
He added: ‘I can’t look in the mirror, doing crazy stuff like you saw HS doing, and feel good about myself. I’ve got a backbone, I’ve got limits.
‘Because the older I’ve got, the more I’ve understood how influential I am. My audience see me as a role model, so I have to set a good example.’
Distasteful clips of the 32-year-old cracking misogynistic jokes about rape and claiming he would rather ‘punch the baby’ than practice safe sex have undermined his reputation
KSI believes a willingness to learn from his mistakes has set him apart from other young male influencers, notably Harrison Sullivan, aka HSTikkyTokky (pictured)
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KSI, whose real name is Olajide Olayinka Williams Olatunji, has suffered backlash for comments made during a tribute to his mother Yinka Olatunji on her 60th birthday in 2012.
In the since deleted video he tells followers he wanted to ‘smack’ a female character ‘in the face so hard’ before referring to her as a ‘dumb b****’, adding: ‘If she gets raped I’m not even going to feel sorry for her.’
Lucy Duckworth of rape support organisation The Survivors Trust, said: ‘Trivialising rape creates violence and leads to loss of life. We can’t justify it. You can’t joke about somebody else’s lived experience of being victimised.
‘Unless you’ve experienced it yourself, then you shouldn’t be commenting on it at all.’
KSI made his joke about ‘punching woman’ in another deleted YouTube video from 2017.
After his mother reminded him to always use a condom, KSI, who boasts 17 million YouTube subscribers, said: ‘If she gets pregnant I’ll just punch the baby.’
A spokesperson for Women’s Aid said: ‘Comments like this are never acceptable to make, even if it is meant as a joke. It’s a sad truth that pregnant women are even more likely than other women to experience domestic abuse.
‘Such “jokes” make this kind of criminal behaviour, which women do experience, seem less serious, and indeed life-threatening, than it is.’
Meanwhile a source close to KSI told the publication: ‘The video dates back nearly a decade and like many people – as they have grown older – KSI looks back on that time with deep regret and recognises his language was both stupid and wrong.’
