King Kenny: Celebrity Traitors star’s rise to fame and why he retired from boxing

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Celebrity Traitors

At the start of Celebrity Traitors season two there are a number of names you could’ve predicted were going to play a large part in the season, but few fans of the show could have predicted how pivotal King Kenny was going to be.

Last time round Niko Omilana was the first to be banished, something he would later jokingly blame on the fact that he was a YouTuber, but it started genuine discussions online about how online creators were treated different to ‘regular celebrities’ on reality TV shows.

Angry Ginge appears to have broken that curse though with his Celebrity Big Brother win as Kenny has not only made it through the early stages of the game unscathed but ended up being picked as a traitor after he helped lead the faithful in banishing Hannah Fry.

Many Celebrity Traitors fans (unless you’re a quite online person of a certain age like I am) probably didn’t know too much about Kenny going into this season, or how he went from a poor family to becoming the focal point of the nation’s biggest show.

Kenny spoke about becoming a YouTuber after ‘growing up so poor’ alongside his 13 siblings

Kenny, whose real name is Kenny Oghenovo Ojuederie, is 29 and grew up in Watford. He started YouTube when he was just 16 with vlogs, pranks, and skits, but faced a speed-bump in his career when his camera (borrowed from his mum) died. This led to him working jobs at McDonald’s and ASDA to buy a new one.

Appearing on The Good Enough podcast in 2024, he said that he came from a rough upbringing as he was ‘so poor’, recalling counting pennies to go and buy bread.

He continued working at ASDA until 2017 when he said he had already started making more money from YouTube than he was at the supermarket, but was afraid of quitting as he wasn’t sure how sustainable content creation was as a career.

Kenny was arrested for a prank in which he pretended to be a clown with a chainsaw on Brunel university campus, releasing a statement apologising and saying he had simply been 'chasing his friends'. His YouTube career has been quite varied, covering pranks, skits, boxing, vlogging, even now-unlisted music videos.

His career really took off when he helped form Beta Squad, a YouTube content creation group with Niko Omilana, Chunkz, AJ Shabeel, and Sharky, who is appearing on this year’s Celebrity Big Brother. The group of five all lived together and filmed content together, arguably becoming the second biggest YouTube group in the UK after the Sidemen.

Kenny was one of the key names in YouTube boxing but retired earlier this year at 29

Kenny was a key part of the early days of YouTube boxing when KSI, Jake Paul, Logan Paul, and Joe Weller’s boxing fights led to an explosion of interest in influencer boxing.

His first fight saw him take on Faze Temperrr, a YouTuber who had years of combat sport experience, with Kenny initially being given the win. This was overturned however after a controversial rescore.

At his peak he said he trained two to three times a day, six times a week, and took part in six professional fights for a record of 3-3. His exhibition record saw him go 2-1 for an overall record of 5-4.

In an interview earlier this year with Eze Talks Sports he revealed that he was retired from the sport after suffering a nasty rib injury in sparring.

Kenny overcame the ‘Niko Omilana curse’ on Celebrity Traitors

Kenny has spoken about how last season he initially stopped watching when Niko was booted out early doors, but when he found out he was going on he decided he had to ‘avenge’ his friend.

Beta Squad have since posted a graphic joking that they have booted out Kenny after ‘discovering’ that he was a traitor, with Niko taking to his story to call his fellow group member ‘his goat’.

He said: “This man pretended to be horror, the worst player, at Mafia (a similar game of social deception) for years just so when he went on The Traitors he could pull off this generational performance. I cannot believe what I’m seeing.”

Speaking about the decision to go on the show with the BBC Kenny said: “I’ve done my homework and watched every single season, completed the first series of The Celebrity Traitors this time which was a really good show and here I am.

"I think as I start playing, the more I’ll get into it, the more invested I’m actually going to get. Also, I'm competitive as well."