KSI, the multi-millionaire YouTube sensation who went on to top the music charts and front the Prime drink brand which became a children's craze, has revealed he sees a therapist after he became depressed despite his huge success.
The man idolised by millions said despite becoming one of the UK's most successful gamers and creators earning a reported £25m a year, he started asking himself "Is this it?" - as he feared YouTube had become his life.
Now he has opened up about how he decided to take a break from the platform, but it was still several years before he turned to therapy - after previously believing it was a sign of weakness.
KSI, which stands for Knowledge, Strength, Integrity, said he still continues to book sessions whenever he feels he needs them, as they have helped him reach a point where he is now “so happy” with everything in his life.
Revealing he suffered a "sort of midlife crisis" – even though he was still in his early 20s - he said therapy made him realise a major cause of his problems stemmed from the pressure his parents had put him under to do well in life.
But he said the therapy enabled him to understand he was always trying to please his parents and other people, and it helped him to see his parents in a different light – eventually forging the close loving bond he now has with them.
His honesty about his struggles is likely to surprise many of his millions of fans, who know him only as the man with the Midas touch for whatever field he tries - be it social media with his Sidemen YouTube buddies, his music, or the boxing, where he became CEO of Misfits Boxing which pitted influencers against each other and saw him fight Tommy Fury and American YouTuber Logan Paul.
The figures tell the story of the scale of KSI’s wide-ranging achievements.
By October 2022, he had notched up over 41 million subscribers and over 10 billion video views across his three YouTube channels.
His debut studio album, Dissimulation, was released in 2020 and reached number two on the album chart, while his next album, All Over the Place, went to number one. He has also clocked up 14 top 40 singles.
Turning to business and marketing, when alongside Logan Paul he became the face of the Prime hydration drink brand, it became a must-have drink millions of children were desperate to get their hands on.
As many retailers hiked prices, parents were forking out £10-£20 for bottles, such was their desire to please their kids.
Born Olajide Olatunji, before taking the shortened name of “JJ” which he uses alongside his alter ego of KSI, he admitted he switches between the two personas to suit different parts of his life.
He said: “I feel like KSI is quite draining. So people see KSI whenever I'm doing music, boxing.
“My second YouTube channel is called JJ Olatunji, and it's just me just being me.
“You know, it's not like I'm going crazy all the time, but like it's a lot more real, a lot more human, where people can actually relate to it a lot more compared to how I was for example when I was fighting Tommy Fury. I was there like ‘I am the nightmare, KSI, like no-one can defeat me’.
“KSI is in your face.
“I'm happy just with my cats, with my girlfriend, with my family.”
But even though he can separate the two identities, he said he had to learn to enjoy what he does after he became a YouTube phenomenon.
He said: “Before I didn't. You know, you'd get depressed, you'd get sad. You wonder ‘Do I want to do this?’ or ‘Why am I doing this?’
“I've had a few times, I'd say 2017 was a time where I had like a six, seven month break on YouTube where I didn't post. I'd delete all my tweets, delete almost all my YouTube videos, delete all my Instagram photos.
“I was just like ‘I need to just leave the internet’. I had like a midlife crisis. I was like ‘Is this it? Is this my life? Am I just going to be doing this for the rest of my life?’
“This was before I was doing the music properly and this was before I was boxing.
“I was like ‘nah, f**k this, I'm out’. I kind of just went on holiday, travelled, enjoyed myself, tried to figure out what I wanted to do.
“And I was like ‘Alright, I kind of want to be a guy that is able to just do whatever I want and not be stuck in this lane of you're a YouTuber, you have to just do YouTube and that is it’.
“So I started doing music. The idea of a YouTuber being able to get a number one album or a top five, like no-one could even fathom it.
“And then I was like ‘Ok, boxing’.”
Speaking on the High-Performance podcast, when asked if the variety had stopped him from feeling disillusioned, he said: “Every now and then, it can happen. I can feel it's coming. And then I'd go see a therapist, talk it out, figure out what I need.”
He said now the issue can be that he’s not keeping up his training, or not spending enough time with his family and loved ones because he’s working too hard.
He said sometimes, one session with his therapist can put him straight, while other times, he may carry on with the visits for a few months.
“It's not like I see a therapist all the time, every week,” he said.
“It's like whenever I feel something is happening or I'm not in a good spot. Booking the session, work it all out. Sometimes it could take a few weeks, a few months - could take a week. Then I'm back to being me again.”
But he said it was at least three years after he started feeling down over what his future had in store before he first went to the therapist.
Now aged 31, he said: “In 2017, the idea of going to the therapist, I don't know - I felt weak, if that makes sense. So I didn't see a therapist in 2017. It was only around I think 2020, 2021.
“Something as simple as exercising can make such a difference. But then, even if that helps, it's not you know the real solution. Maybe sometimes you need to go into your past, figure out what your trauma is, and attack it head on.
“I feel like a lot of people get stuck in the past or have this victim mindset where (they go) ‘I'm in this position because of this person, or I'm in this position because of that person’, and they never let that go.
It was coming to terms with his past traumas which has made him stronger, he said.
Asked what he’d learned, he said: “With me, you know, having African parents, it's a lot of pressure - as the first born, pressure to be the best, to be a doctor, lawyer, etc, pressure to be the breadwinner of the family, pressure to just do well all the time.
“You get to a point where a lot of times I just hate life."
He added: “I’d be like ‘Ok, I'm saying yes to everything’. It was always just making sure I please everyone. I'd always want to try and please my parents.
“But then I was never making myself happy.
“But with the therapist I was able to really see my parents in a different light and see it from their point of view.
“They were in so much debt, but they were happy to put themselves in that amount of debt just to try and give us an opportunity, to try and get us into private school.
“I remember when I failed my A levels, they lost their shit.
“Looking at it from their point of view, they just put all this time and effort into getting me into this position - and for me to just toss it away.
“They were one of like nine kids, and their parents just hardly gave a s**t. At least my parents gave a s**t.
“I used to always have this like mini hatred towards my parents. Now that's all gone, I absolutely love my parents.
“I think, for me, the way to really resolve everything is just forgiveness.
“I guess if my parents were a different way maybe I wouldn’t be in this position. I’m happy with everything that has happened in my life, the ups and downs.
“I’m happy with how my life has gone, I’m happy my life wasn’t plain sailing.”
Asked by interviewer Jake Humphrey if the huge influence he has on his followers is important to him, KSI revealed: “I've got ‘Legacy’ tattooed on my back. And that is one of the most important words for me.
“Because, you know, when I die, I want to be remembered – ‘you know what, I used to watch him, and he made me laugh, maybe at times he made me cry, but f**k me, man, he made a difference (to) like how I felt, or how I thought, or just me in general. He made me believe in myself’.”
However, his primary goal in life now is family-orientated.
Asked what he still wants to do, he said: "I want to have kids. I want to get married. I kind of want to just live that life. I feel like that's the next step for me.
"I also want to release an album. Also, I still want to fight. I still want to do Sidemen videos, YouTube videos, et cetera. But l think for me personally. I think having kids and marriage and everything, I think that's for me the next step and that's something I really want to do."