Essex man Adam Brooks, 44, is known for wearing many different hats. But he’s probably best known as a controversial GB News panellist, or a right-leaning personality on X, formerly known as Twitter. He has 300,000 followers on the platform where he posts under the name @EssexPR.
But he’s also had a decades-long career as an Essex publican and made a successful recent move into the influencer boxing scene.
He’s been the target of social media outrage following his statements on niche communities such as puppy role players, as well as Covid-19, the decline of pub culture, Prince Harry, drugs, and Irish singer Róisín Murphy.
Aside from all his media activities he is still the proprietor of The Owl Public House in Loughton and The Three Colts in Buckhurst Hill, both in Essex.
Who is Adam Brooks?
Brooks says he was born in Bethnal Green, east London, before moving to Essex at the age of three.
He attended the Bancrofts School in Woodford, Woodford Green in Essex, which currently charges fees of £22,770 per annum.
Well before moving into the media, he had a brief career as a financial broker at a small firm called Tullett & Tokyo, as well as a “football consultant” at a company called “Roar Sport”, at least according to his LinkedIn profile.
Brooks claims that his father was murdered by Essex drug dealers while he was just 11, a week after he chucked them out of the pub. After his short career in the city, he spent most of his twenties and thirties in the hospitality industry, owning and managing pubs, after getting a £100,000 loan from his mother
Brooks said on a podcast with Dodge Woodall that he was then invited onto GB News by Dan Wootton, before becoming a regular feature on the channel.
Why is Adam Brooks controversial?
Brooks has been embroiled in numerous controversies since he started at GB News.
The pundit was criticised after calling for a subculture of people who enjoy animal role-play to be “put down”. Brooks was reacting to video footage of an event in Berlin involving a group of people who identify as dogs.
Though his co-host Wootton said they “obviously do not support violence against humans identifying as dogs”, that didn’t stop the attacks from some activists..
Thomas Willett, an LGBT activist, wrote at the time: “GB News and Adam Brooks are directly inciting violence against the LGBTQ+ community at a time when LGBTQ+ hostility is already high.”
Irish singer songwriter Róisín Murphy made a controversial set of comments in September 2023, where she called puberty blockers, which are used by trans teenagers, “absolutely desolate”.
Brooks said in a GB News interview: “Let’s be honest, 99 per cent of the public think what Róisín Murphy thinks or said on her private Facebook. It is my view that there aren’t such a thing as trans kids.”
Who has Adam Brooks boxed?
Both Brooks’s forays into the world of celebrity boxing have been successful. He fights at the weight of cruiserweight or 90kg.
He knocked out bare-knuckle fighter Bachir Fakhouri in his first bout in August 2023, getting a first-round KO.
More recently he knocked out ex-Gladiators UK star Rhino in a second round KO, after being behind on points throughout most of the fight.
Rhino, real name Mark Smith, was a popular member of the ITV sports entertainment show Gladiators from 1995 to 1999.
Brooks also claims to have fought in unlicensed fights as a teenager.
The GB News panellist fights for the British boxing promotion Misfits Boxing, founded by UK YouTube star KSI. The promotion is known for organising fights such as KSI vs Tommy Fury, which allegedly sold 1.3 million pay-per-views.
