KSI announces he is leaving Sidemen after 13 years

KSI said his final Sidemen video would also be his last as a member of the group he helped turn into one of Britain’s most durable creator brands. The 31 May 2026 announcement lands with business consequences far beyond one personality: the Sidemen’s audience, content pipeline and commercial reach have long depended on seven names, not one.

Olajide Olayinka Williams Olatunji, whose online persona made him one of the group’s most recognisable faces, said the decision was “completely my own” and that he had been pulled in too many directions. He said he had been “running at full speed at 100 miles an hour” and wanted to refocus on health, family, his partner and a better work-life balance. He also told viewers the Sidemen “deserve somebody who can give 100%.”

The Sidemen responded that JJ had decided not to continue, but stressed that the rest of the group would carry on. That matters because the collective, created on 19 October 2013, is now built around a sprawling media operation that includes Sidemen, MoreSidemen, SidemenReacts, SidemenShorts and Sidemen en Español. What began as a group of British creators has become a multi-channel entertainment machine with a large, loyal audience and a business model that reaches well beyond gaming clips.

The group now includes Simon Minter, Joshua Bradley, Tobi Brown, Ethan Payne, Vikram Barn and Harry Lewis alongside KSI. Its annual football match has raised millions for charity, while the brand has expanded into books, documentary work and other ventures. The Sidemen have said they have sold out arenas and stadiums and made Netflix shows, underscoring how far the operation has moved from its early YouTube roots.

KSI’s exit also reopened an old question about permanence in creator collectives. This was not his first public departure announcement. He made a similar statement in August 2017 during the Sidemen beef, a split later revisited in The Sidemen Story, the Netflix documentary released on 14 February 2024. In that film-era interview, KSI said YouTube remained the “core” and “heart” of everything he did because it supported his boxing and music careers.

The reaction online was immediate, and some fans treated the announcement with suspicion, speculating it might be a prank tied to Arsenal’s loss to PSG in the 2026 Champions League final. But the language from KSI and the Sidemen pointed in the opposite direction: a real handoff, not a stunt, from one of the group’s defining figures.