- Jake Paul is a 23-year-old YouTube star who got his start on video-sharing app Vine.
- The former Disney Channel actor has nearly 20 million subscribers on YouTube, where he posts vlogs and pranks.
- Paul appeared to marry fellow YouTuber Tana Mongeau in 2019, but it was later revealed that the marriage was fake.
- The FBI raided Paul’s Calabasas, California mansion on Wednesday as part of an ongoing investigation into unspecified “criminal acts” regarding Paul’s May visit to a Scottsdale, Arizona, mall, an agency spokesperson said.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Jake Paul, 23, is one-half of the Paul brothers, two of the most recognizable and controversial YouTube stars. Paul garnered online fame on Vine before even graduating high school, and found early notoriety as a star on Disney Channel.
Since then, Paul has gained millions of followers across social media who watch his outlandish pranks and vlogs, often featuring his many friends and collaborators in his Calabasas, California, mansion.
Forbes estimated in 2017 that he was worth $11.5 million. But his career has also been marked by a string of controversies.
Most recently, Paul’s mansion was raided by the FBI as part of an ongoing investigation related to his presence at an Arizona mall in May that was looted and vandalized. Law enforcement officers seized several guns from the property, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department confirmed to Insider.
Here's everything you need to know about YouTube star Jake Paul:
Jake Paul was born on January 17, 1997, and grew up in a suburb of Cleveland with his parents and older brother (and fellow YouTuber), Logan.
Source: Cleveland Plain-Dealer
The two brothers started making videos as children after their father gave them a video camera one year for Christmas.
Jake, who was 10 at the time, said he and his brother would film "comedic bits" around the house.
"We were posting them to YouTube and just generally having a good time, and the people at school thought we were funny," he told the Cleveland Plain-Dealer in 2016.
As a sophomore in high school, Jake Paul joined the wrestling team. He got "really serious" about it, and video making with his brother took a back seat.
Source: Cleveland Plain-Dealer
However, that changed when the video-sharing app Vine came out in 2012.
Paul said he downloaded it "the first day it came out," and he gradually rose in popularity on the app. By the time Vine shut down in early 2017, Paul had 5.3 million followers and nearly 2 billion video plays.
Source: Insider, Cleveland Plain-Dealer
"We didn't care what people thought. We were the loud brothers from Cleveland, kind of crazy, and that made us relatable," Paul said in a 2016 interview. "We were in the right place at the right time, and we were making more money than our parents before we knew it."
Source: Cleveland Plain-Dealer
When it came time for his senior year of high school, the younger Paul brother decided to finish his diploma online and move to Los Angeles with his older brother.
"We knew we had to move to Los Angeles if we wanted to pursue this as a full-time thing," Jake Paul said. "We immediately started taking acting and improv classes and making connections, while still doing the video thing."
Source: Cleveland Plain-Dealer
Paul's first film role came thanks to YouTube: He was cast in "Dance Camp," a movie the platform debuted on its paid streaming subscription service, YouTube Red.
He also scored small roles in films like "Mono" and "Airplane Mode," in which his brother was the main character.
Source: Mashable, Cleveland Plain-Dealer
Paul entered the mainstream when he was cast in 2015 as the main character in a Disney Channel show called "Bizaardvark."
Paul said his character, Dirk Mann, was "a perfect fit" for him. In the show, Dirk was an online video star that hosted a channel where he performed crazy stunts and challenges.
Source: Cleveland Plain-Dealer
As his acting career took off, Paul formed Team 10, a group of social media influencers that he essentially took under his wing to make content with and groom into even bigger stars.
The earliest members of Team 10 members included social media stars like Alissa Violet, and Lucas and Marcus Dobre. Team 10 moved into an $18,000-a-month rented house in Los Angeles' Beverly Grove neighborhood in August 2016.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Alongside acting, Paul continued to create content on YouTube, where his channel now has over 20 million subscribers.
His channel hosts videos of over-the-top stunts, wild vlogs, and Jackass-style challenges.
One of his earliest attention-grabbing stunts took place when he was invited to the White House in January 2017 for a social media event, along with other online stars.
Paul proceeded to sneak away from the crowd, hideout for hours in the White House bathroom, and sneak out in the middle of the night without being caught by security.
Source: The Sun
That same month, on his 20th birthday, Paul officially unveiled TeamDom, a creative talent agency aimed at helping influencers grow their audience and secure brand deals.
Paul announced TeamDom had raised $1 million in venture capital, and Team 10 as the agency's talent roster.
Source: TechCrunch
It didn't take long before Team 10 started to get more attention — but not the positive kind.
Team 10 member Alissa Violet was kicked out of the squad's house in early 2017 after Paul publicly accused her of cheating on him, and a feud between the former couple ensued across social media.
Source: Seventeen
In July 2017, neighbors living around the Team 10 house complained that Paul had turned their quiet community into a "living hell" and "war zone," and that it was frequently invaded by screaming teenage fans because Paul publicized his address online.
Source: KTLA
Neighbors were debating whether to file a class-action public nuisance lawsuit against him, but Paul and Team 10 had moved out of the neighborhood and into a new home in Calabasas by October 2017 (pictured below).
That didn't stop the landlord of the former Team 10 house from filing a $2.5 million lawsuit against the YouTuber in 2018 for allegedly trashing the rented house.
Source: KTLA, Tubefilter
Paul felt the fallout from the incident with the Team 10 house and its neighbors. Disney announced that Paul would not return to his role on "Bizaardvark" for the second season.
"At this point in time I am wanting to focus more on my personal brand, my YouTube channel, business ventures, growing Team 10, and working on more adult acting roles," Paul wrote on Twitter.
Source: Variety
Beyond Team 10, Paul has also ventured into music and has released a flurry of songs over the years. One the music videos for his song called "It's Everyday Bro" is the third-most-disliked video on YouTube, with over 4.4 million thumbs downvotes.
Source: Business Insider
Paul's music has also been a source of controversy.
In a video leaked in January 2018, Paul dropped the n-word twice while freestyle rapping. A source told TMZ at the time that Paul had "matured a lot" since the video was recorded.
Source: TMZ
Around this time, Paul started dating YouTuber and model Erika Costell.
Costell was briefly Team 10's chief operating officer after the former COO left in May 2018. The couple broke up at the end of 2018, and Costell also departed from Team 10.
Source: Crunchbase, Famous Birthdays
Team 10 is no longer the influencer collective it once was.
Over the years, members have come and gone amid controversial management, relationships, and drama. Two transgender YouTubers said they were kicked out of the Team 10 house after a video editor told them they weren't "real girls."
The YouTube channel and Instagram page for Team 10 have not been active since September 2019. The group's Instagram bio reads: "who will leave next? stay tuned!!!!!!!"
Paul drew negative attention in 2019 for actions both on and off of YouTube.
Paul was criticized for advertising "mystery boxes" on his channel derided as scams, and was reportedly the subject of a police investigation related to allegations that a woman was drugged at a party held at Paul's Team 10 house in May 2019.
Source: Insider, Business Insider
In 2019, fans followed Paul along his wild ride of a relationship with fellow YouTuber, Tana Mongeau.
The couple started dating in May 2019 in what many speculated was a joke. The couple maintained that their love was real.
Source: Insider
The following month, Paul proposed to Mongeau on her 21st birthday. He also bought her a car worth more than $120,000 to celebrate.
The sudden engagement sparked even further rumors that the relationship was inauthentic.
Source: Business Insider
Paul and Mongeau got married in July 2019 in a Las Vegas wedding that reportedly cost $500,000.
Photos of the wedding showed Paul, Mongeau, and their friends flying in on a private jet, a brawl breaking out seconds after the couple was pronounced husband and wife, and Paul cutting the wedding cake with a "Game of Thrones" replica sword.
Source: Business Insider
It's since come out that Paul and Mongeau's marriage isn't legally binding on paper, but they insisted that the love between them was real. Paul later revealed that the couple was "open."
"Any wedding I have, if I have three more f---ing weddings, I really wouldn't want to do it on paper because I think that legally binding yourself to someone takes away the love," Mongeau said.
Mongeau released a YouTube video on December 29 where she hinted that her and Paul's relationship had gone downhill since their wedding night — which she called "just hell."
Days later, the couple announced they were "taking a break" from their relationship "to focus on our own very crazy lives." In an Instagram post, Paul wrote: "This is bitter sweet but it's what's best for us right now."
The two remain close friends.
Source: Insider
Paul has continued to fight in boxing matches.
Paul, who wrestled in high school, has followed in his older brother's footsteps by participating in various boxing boxes. He is currently preparing for a match against Nate Robinson, a former NBA player, in September.
Paul was charged in May with unlawful assembly and trespassing after video showed him at a mall that was being looted and vandalized in Scottsdale, Arizona.
In May, Paul was charged with criminal trespassing and unlawful assembly after he and his videographer Andrew Blue had both posted footage on Instagram that showed chaos and vandalism at the Scottsdale Fashion Square mall in Arizona.
Paul denied the allegations on Twitter.
"For context, we spent the day doing our part to peacefully protest one of the most horrid injustices our country has ever seen, which led us to being tear-gassed for filming the events and brutality that were unfolding in Arizona," he said in a May 31 tweet.
Paul came under fire for partying during the COVID-19 pandemic — and even drew ire from the city of Calabasas' mayor.
As cases of the novel coronavirus continued to spike throughout Los Angeles, many influencers and creators - including Paul himself - continued to party and flout social-distancing guidelines.
Paul hosted a day-long party at his Calabasas home in July as he filmed a new music video. Guests of the massive party documented their day on Instagram, showing many of them without face coverings both inside and outside of the home. Bryce Hall, Mongeau, and Arman 'Armani' Izadi were among the guests.
Calabasas Mayor Alicia Weintraub told local Fox affiliate network Fox 11 that she was outraged by the event. "They're having this large party, no social distancing, no masks, it's just a big, huge disregard for everything that everybody is trying to do to get things back to functioning," she said.
In an interview with Insider, Paul said he wasn't sure if he would give up partying during the pandemic.
After his party stirred up controversy, Paul told Insider's Kat Tenbarge in a phone call on July 31 that "everything is cool" with the Calabasas mayor.
"I don't know what to think of it, to be honest. I don't think anyone really does," Paul said of the pandemic. "No one has answers, our leadership is failing us, and everyone kind of just doesn't know what to do. But I personally am not the type of person who's gonna sit around and not live my life."
On Aug. 5, Paul's Calabasas mansion was searched by the FBI as part of an ongoing investigation related to the Scottsdale mall incident, a spokesperson for the agency's Phoenix field office told Insider.
The search was an execution of a federal search warrant. Los Angeles Sheriff's Department officers assisted the FBI's search, a spokesperson said, transporting several guns from the property. The FBI could not comment on whether the guns were being used as evidence in the investigation because of the sealed affidavit.
Agents in Las Vegas also searched the mansion of 'Armani' Izadi, Paul's longtime friend and collaborator who also officiated his faux wedding with Mongeau in 2019.
Soon after the raid on his home, Izadi posted Instagram story videos with several bikini-clad women at the hot-pink mansion.
Izadi is an accused pimp who has pleaded guilty to attempted battery with substantial bodily harm, The Daily Beast reported in 2018.
In 2013, Izadi was indicted on 20 counts of pimping, robbery, battery, and kidnapping. Investigators described a "prostitution ring" that Izadi would lure women into under false pretenses. "Izadi lured women to his prostitution ring with promises of immense wealth, his companionship, and most of all, his protection," the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in 2013 after reviewing police records.
Izadi took a plea deal, pleading guilty to one count of pandering, the legal term for pimping, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
In an interview with the YouTube drama reporter Daniel Keem (a.k.a. Keemstar), Adam Quinn, a former manager of Izadi and Paul's YouTuber collective Team 10, said that he left his job because of Izadi's allegedly nefarious behavior.
