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Jake Paul is a well-known name in the influencer industry but is he a positive influence?
The YouTuber-turned-boxer has been involved in several controversies and his notoriety has more often than not been the driving force behind his fame and fortune. Although it's known to many that he was fired from Disney Channel in 2017, Jake Paul has more than 20 million subscribers on his YouTube channel and has managed to successfully market his 'bad-guy' image.
Jake Paul has now been making waves in the combat sports industry as well, since defeating former NBA ace Nate Robinson in an exhibition match on November 28. Paul's KO of Robinson made people notice him and Jake has been linked with many high-profile matchups since.
However, Paul himself has been trying to book a matchup with UFC star Conor McGregor. The MMA community has severely criticized Paul's distasteful callouts of McGregor, but he's managed to garner a lot of attention with his antics. The Irish power puncher is yet to respond, however.
Let's take a look at some of the most infamous controversies that Jake Paul has been involved in.
1) Getting fired from the Disney Channel series "Bizaardvark" following complaints lodged by neighbors
Jake Paul played Dirk, a character who resembles his real-life online persona in the Disney series "Bizaardvark". Paul first appeared on the show in 2015 but in 2017, Disney announced the Youtuber's exit from the series. Paul later revealed that he was fired.
Explaining what led to his exit from the series, Paul claimed that there was a local TV news segment about his YouTube channel. The channel visited the West Hollywood neighborhood in Los Angeles where Paul was living and spoke to his neighbors about his YouTube stunts. The neighbors were irate at Paul for his antics in the neighborhood.
Jake Paul regularly filmed pranks and stunts in his neighborhood. He even started a massive fire in his backyard once and built a waterslide to shoot people into his pool. His neighbors referred to Jake's place as a "war zone."
They had seen enough of the notorious Youtuber when he leaked his own address online and fans showed up at Beverly Grove. Paul's neighbors initiated a class-action public nuisance lawsuit against him and he got sued for $2.5 million by the company that owned his house.
2) Jake Paul's bizarre paid wedding Livestream
Paul has infamously faked two marriages and even compared the practice to the WWE which shows choreographed wrestling matches. Paul's first fake wedding was with his ex-girlfriend Erika Costell while the second one was to Tana Mongeau. The wedding saga and the breakup thereafter were apparently worth a staggering $600 million in media value.
However, following the "divorce" of a wedding that wasn't legally binding in the first place, Mongeau described the wedding night as "hell". She revealed that while she had to deal with a family emergency the next day, Paul was partying with a group of scantily clad women at the couple's honeymoon destination.
3) Throwing a party during COVID-19 and claiming that the pandemic is a "hoax"
Jake Paul was strongly criticized for throwing a massive party for his music video shoot in July during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. During the time, there was an alarming rise in COVID-19 cases in California, and videos from the party showed influencers without masks, paying no heed whatsoever to COVID-induced protocols in the state.
Jake's outrageous antics drew the ire of the mayor of Calabasas, Alicia Weintraub who condemned the incident and threatened the Youtuber with dire consequences if he attempted to throw another party that disregarded local public health orders.
"The City of Calabasas will be enforcing a zero-tolerance [policy] for large gatherings that defy local public health order," she said.
Ahead of his fight against Nate Robinson, in an outrageous interview with The Daily Beast, Jake Paul claimed that COVID-19 was a hoax. After receiving massive criticism for his reckless comments, Paul claimed in another interview that his quotes regarding the pandemic were taken "out of context".
In response, The Daily Beast's Marlow Stern shared the full audio clip of Jake Paul's interview.
"There are people losing jobs, there are small businesses who are going bankrupt, there are millions of people who are unemployed right now, people are turning to alcohol and drugs to cope with everything that's going on. This is the most detrimental thing to our society. COVID cases are at less than 1 percent, and I think the disease is a hoax," were his exact words.
Jake Paul later claimed that he had lost someone very close to him due to the coronavirus disease.
4) Being charged with criminal trespassing in Arizona during the Black Lives Matter movement
Jake Paul was charged with criminal trespassing and unlawful assembly after a video surfaced of him lighting fireworks at a mall. It was the site of a Black Lives Matter protest that was already being overrun by vandalism and destruction of property.
Paul had earlier posted videos of himself on social media where he was seen at the Scottsdale Fashion Square shopping mall in Scottsdale, Arizona - the site in question.
On being charged, Jake Paul claimed that he was peacefully protesting and just wanted to show the people the looting and vandalism that took place in the mall after it was closed to the public.
5) Insulting Conor McGregor's longtime girlfriend Dee Devlin
Jake Paul's callouts of Conor McGregor have been nothing short of utterly disrespectful. Attempting to elicit a reaction from the former two-division UFC champion, Jake resorted to insulting the Irishman's fiancee Dee Devlin.
In a video he posted on Twitter, Jake Paul was seen challenging McGregor to a boxing match. In the video, he insulted Devlin, saying she is "four out of ten" and that McGregor could do much better than her. Jake's comments drew widespread flak from the MMA community with several fighters offering to lay a beating on the Youtuber inside the boxing ring.
Jake Paul later defended his comments by claiming that he gave the Irishman his own medicine, referring to McGregor's trash talk with Khabib Nurmagomedov ahead of the pair's fight at UFC 229 in October 2018.
“He (Conor McGregor) spoke on Khabib’s (Nurmagomedov) wife. He said Khabib’s wife looks like a towel. So now he’s getting a taste of his own medicine. And now all of a sudden, people are b**thurt (and saying that) I’m going too far. F**k off. This is the fight game. Like why are people being b****es now all of a sudden. You know, same with Dillon Danis. They’ve said f***ed up sh** about religion, Khabib’s religion; F**k those guys.” (*H/T Sportskeeda for the transcription)
