• With 20 million subscribers, Jake Paul is one of the most infamous YouTubers of his generation.
• He has used a series of controversies to stay in the public eye, even during his boxing career.
• Paul has been charged with criminal trespass and accused of sexual assault, among other scandals.

At 27, Jake Paul is one of the biggest and most notorious names in the influencer industry.

But Paul’s many controversies and scandals are what continue to propel the YouTuber to fame and fortune. More than 20 million subscribers tune in to watch his antics, and while he was booted from the Disney Channel in 2017, Paul has leveraged his bad reputation to stay relevant.

Now the creator is making a name for himself in the boxing world. That’s him defeated Nate RobinsonBen Askren, Tyron Woodley and Anderson Silva, among others. Paul is set to fight Mike Tyson on Friday in the biggest settlement of his career (and a big test for Netflix’s new live strategy).

Tyson said so at a press conference in 2020 content creators like Paul benefit the boxing industry. “Now we have these YouTubers, 20 million subscribers? Boxing is coming back thanks to these YouTube boxers,” Tyson said. “I think the more someone boxes, the better it is. Boxing has taken a bit of a beating since the UFC has been around.”

In one interview with Business Insider that same year, Paul said that “boxing is just different” with him, as opposed to YouTube, acting and music. “I wake up every day with a fire in my stomach,” Paul said. “That’s exactly where the passion, hard work and dedication comes from.”

This is how Paul simultaneously became one of the most popular and most hated YouTubers, starting with his rise to notoriety on the short video platform Vine in 2013.

Kat Tenbarge, Rachel E. Greenspan, and Kieran Press-Reynolds contributed to an earlier version of this article.