KSI quits YouTube collective Sidemen after 13 years

“Over the last few years, I've felt myself being pulled in a lot more directions than ever before. I feel like I've been running at full speed, at 100mph”

KSI has announced that he is leaving the YouTube collective Sidemen after over a decade.

The YouTuber and entrepreneur – who is also a musician, former boxer and judge on Britain’s Got Talent – started making videos in 2008 and rose to fame as an online streamer, before going on to help form the collective in 2013.

They have 23million YouTube subscribers and regularly make comedy and challenge content. Videos include the “Sidemen Tinder” dating series, eating challenges, and planning holidays with different budgets, and the collective have also organised charity football matches that raised millions for charity.

Together they have also created multiple brands of their own food, drink and clothing, including fried chicken, cereal and alcohol.

KSI is the most widely recognised of the collective, and announced on YouTube that he was leaving after 13 years.

“I’ve gone back and forth on this decision for a very long time. I’ve spent months trying to figure out what the right thing to do is,” he said. “But after a lot of thought, I’ve decided that I will no longer be doing Sidemen videos. Today, May 31, will be my final Sidemen video.”

He went on to share that he never expected that “tens of millions of people were going to be watching” the channel when they made it, and said that he was grateful that they “built something that none of us ever thought was possible”.