The Rise, The Fall & The Rebuild Of True Geordie
Guests: True Geordie
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
§01Transcript — part 1
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I feel like I'm struggling to breathe. It blew my mind. I don't know whose dick I've got to suck to get respect around here. True Geordie went through incredible adversity to get to where he is today. Depression, anxiety, and he's one of the few people that's willing to tell you about it.
My ego was just going crazy. I'm the man. All the worst parts of me were amplified. It was better than a drug. It was better than anything. It was like, wow. I would have carried on doing that probably if I hadn't had a moment of boom. It just felt like everything I'd been building up to had been really messed up. I knew I needed to be humbled, but it was brutal. I literally wanted to kill myself. I really, really did.
When you love someone more than anything else in this world, that matters more than anything. And where others would have capitalized on a sob story, she was far too precious for me to share. She was mine. She wasn't there for anyone else. She was just my mom. And I miss her every day, bro. But once you give it, there's no taking it back. The day I don't need money anymore, that's going to be a scary day for the rest of the internet. I don't want to let the fans down, and I don't want to stop doing what they love me for.
True Geordie, Brian. He's one of the real pioneers in the YouTube space. He runs one of the biggest football shows, the biggest podcast, the biggest boxing shows, and much, much more. But he is at heart, not the guy you see on screen. He is a gentle giant, one born in a council estate who went through incredible adversity to get to where he is today. Billions of views. His conversations seem to sway cultural conversation.
But he's still not getting what he deserves, in his opinion and in mine. When you see True Geordie, what you see is this big 6'5" guy with tattoos and huge muscles. But when you peel the layers back, you find the total opposite. You find a small kid in there, one that's still living in the council estate in his mind, and one that's missing his mother after her tragic death a few years ago.
He's been to rock bottom. Depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation. And he's one of the few people that's willing to tell you about it and tell you about it with full honesty and vulnerability. I've known Brian a long time, and I've been so fascinated by him because he appears to be this contradiction. He appears to be someone that does not give a fuck, but at the same time, he's incredibly, incredibly sensitive.
To me, he's the ultimate reminder that we are all a contradiction and that you should never judge a book by its cover. What you're going to hear today are some stories that Brian has never told. Stories that will move you, some that might move you to tears, but also stories that will inspire you and teach you some important life lessons about what it really is to be a human being, scars and all. Without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.
How would you define and describe the rise of True Geordie? And when I say that, I'm talking about taking me back to the early days. The stuff that made you who you are today.
I'm an opportunistic person. When I see a tiny little thing, I just blow it open straight away. So, the first thing that happened to me was I made a random rant about a footballer that went viral. I didn't really do YouTube at all, just boom. And then loads of people seeing it in the Northeast. It was like look at this crazy son of a bitch, because no one really did stuff like that then. I was one of the first guys to do a football rant.
I want to go back further. I want to know about the insecure kid on the council estate.
Kind of sensitive inside, but had to act tough because if you didn't, you would be messed up on the estate. Like my shed once got burned down, set on fire just by some kids just because it was a shed and it was there. You had to carry yourself in a certain way because all of our dads were in prison. All of our dads. It was weird. So we were sort of raising each other.
I was like a milk kid at school just because I could drink extra milk at dinner time and stuff. I was smart, obviously, I'm a smart guy, but I was looked upon as a nightmare. When I was 10 years old, my teacher told my mother at parents' evening, "You can just tell when some of them are destined for prison, can't you?" She worded it like that. My mom was like, "I know exactly what you're saying."
It was because I hated her. She didn't understand me, didn't get me. She talked down to me. Being talked down to really pisses me off, even at a 10-year-old age. I didn't like that. You can win me over and I'll be brilliant for you, but just respect me. Ask me, don't tell me. I know that's a naive way to look at the world, but I was 10 and I just had a chip on my shoulder.
Yeah, I didn't like authority. I always was quite a little bit competitive. I remember there were a couple of kids, just little random memories I have of fighting all the time. I remember I always thought of myself as one of the smarter lads and there was this thing about some sort of school day where they selected the brightest boys and the brightest girls, and I wasn't selected. I remember thinking, "I'm smarter than them," but I couldn't prove it. I was in detention a lot. I got thrown out of school multiple times, once for pissing on the school teacher's lounge window and telling them all to fuck off when I was 8 years old. One for fighting. Just rebellious, but with a brain. I just needed to find something.
What caused you to be that rebellious eight-year-old kid?
I think it's genetic a little bit. My dad was a rebellious man, very much so. My mom, not at all. My mom was loving, caring, and kind. Mother Teresa. My dad, like a punk rocker who did mad shit when he was at school. He took the whole school on strike once just because he didn't like a teacher. He was known for being thrown out of schools for beating teachers up and stuff like that. When he was like 14, violence was his life.
Do you actually think it's genetic?
I think part of what makes me aggressive is my genetics. Even the look I get on my face when I'm about to fight is identical to the look my dad gets. It's that switch. I'm lucky that I've got it diluted with the kindness of my mother, and I finally managed to channel the aggression later on in life into focus, into drive, into the good stuff. But at the time, I was overwhelmed with whatever was going on in my head. I didn't really know what the hell it was.
I had Joe Wicks sat here, you know the Body Coach guy. He told me about his mom and his dad. His mom was very caring and compassionate, and his dad would punch holes in the door every day and was violent and abusive. Joe Wicks has come out as really, really compassionate and kind. I don't know if you know him personally.
No, no.
Even during the lockdown, people saw him doing PE with Joe and dancing and doing PE in his room and stuff. But he was crying and he was deeply upset that there was a lockdown because it would hurt other people. He is one of the most compassionate people I've ever met. And his dad was, from his account, very aggressive. I've always wondered about these generational cycles.
I think it's different for different people. Personally, I believe that there's a cocktail in me that's a real weird mixture of a self-obsessed arrogant showman, who was my dad—bodybuilder, hard man, went to prison, fighter—and then a woman who worked looking after people. Very caring, compassionate, loving, charitable, generous, all the good things. I'm not saying my dad can't be good in any way, but they were just two very polar opposite people. For me, I see that come out in me. I believe in both genetic and the sociology side of it as well.
Any brothers or sisters?
I've got a half-sister from my dad's side.
Do you think it makes a difference being an only child of sorts?
Yeah, definitely. Me and Lawrence have had a few conversations about this. He's an only child too. And I think it does make you just live in your own head a little bit. It makes you, like I have times where if I spend too much time around people I'm like, "I need a fucking break from this." I want to be on my own and just listen to music for a bit.
I heard you say this thing. I heard you say that people who live in their own heads and think the most, struggle the most.
They're the ones who are most susceptible to depression, I would say.
So take me through the rise. So we know, everyone—it’s well documented how you became to be a YouTuber.
Yeah, apologies, I'm just used to rehearsing it. You tell the story a lot that it just rolls off the tongue and it loses its emotion because I've said it that many times.
So you rose as a YouTuber. I want to get to the point where money starts coming in. Because for me, 23, 24 years old, when money started coming in, I was going to every nightclub on the weekend and getting five bottles of Dom Perignon. I was trying to fill some kind of gap in me. From what I saw in your videos, you did a similar thing.
Well, I'd had a bit of money before YouTube because I was working offshore on the oil rigs doing my deep-sea diving. So that was good money. I was earning about £10,000 a month doing that. And that was a bit of a wild lifestyle because I was young, I was working class, I was surrounded by men who were military men who wanted to go out, beat men up, and fuck women and take drugs and get drunk. So I was surrounded—they were my male role models. So it was a crazy lifestyle, that. That was kind of partly me getting raised by these men around me.
And then obviously, when I found YouTube, it was like a rebirth of "Oh, I went into a bit of depression coming out of diving and not knowing what the fuck I wanted to do with my life." Because I knew I didn't want to be a diver anymore, I knew I was done with that. When I found YouTube, it felt like a little window of hope and then obviously that took off.
Once I started getting money, yeah, it was like okay, I made it. Because I basically gave up on money. I chose YouTube as a path to happiness. That was the idea. It was give up the money, forget that, you're not happy doing that job. I'd rather make minimum wage doing videos than make six figures doing diving. So I went on that path and then it dawned on me, "Oh, I'm going to make more money doing this, actually."
Once I was in the thousands a month, it was a bit of an "Oh fuck, okay, how do I handle this?" And I thought I had a good handle on it. It was little stuff at first: new car, move house, better place and all that. And then once I came to London, that was when it really went tits up to be honest with you. I just started spending money like crazy. I bought three new cars in the space of about 18 months. Not all together, one after the other sort of thing. I was able to get things that I never dreamed possible. And that was the moment of "Oh, I can have this? My favorite car ever? Wow."
Bought an Audi R8 first. That went fast. Nice blue Audi R8, beautiful. Then I swapped that for a McLaren, which they had the convertible, the roof come down. I thought I was the dog's bollocks in that. Especially a guy like me. What the fuck am I doing in a McLaren? It looked ridiculous because I'm so huge in that. And then I swapped that for a Bentley, GT 6-liter, the Continental. Lovely white leather interior, gorgeous. All black wheels, black, everything else. Black and white.
There’s this bit where you talked about when you leave diving and you kind of lose your orientation. And that gives you minor depression, which seems to be so common in people when they lose their purpose. I mean, I had Tom Blomfield sat here as well and it was very similar. They lose their sense of purpose in life, their direction, they feel that disorientation, they feel the depression. Then you went after something that you thought would give you intrinsic internal joy. And then it becomes a career.
I read this study which I found fascinating that in psychology, if they give someone a game that they enjoy and they play it, they enjoy it. And then if they then give them the same game and pay them to do it, they lose joy. So when you start paying someone to do something that they once did for the sheer fun of it, they lose the fulfillment they're getting from it.
I’ve seen it in boxing and stuff like that a lot. The passion goes once it becomes monetary and obligatory, like you have to do it. It's not "I'm getting up and doing this passion now." But I have never lost the passion for video making. That's still there. I love it. But yeah, I lost my way. This whole thing of doing something for the right reasons, because I'd never experienced that kind of money before.
I remember driving that Audi, the first one, the Audi R8 when I drove that off the parking lot, that was a moment of "What the fuck?" Like, it just blew my mind. The fact that I was able to drive a car worth £100,000 and I paid for it in cash.
You didn't. Really?
Boom. Yeah. I was like, honestly, I don't regret it because even though it was a complete waste of fucking money and I wasted even more money swapping it for the other two cars, it was a real healthy lesson to learn and get out of my system. But it was like a drug. It was better than a drug. It was better than anything. It was like, "Wow, this is—" Like for me, I don't know what it is about fast cars and the way they look nice and the way you feel when you're in them just makes you feel like a fucking movie star or something. Especially coming from a place where people set fire to your shed because there was a shed. Nobody had a nice car where I came from. People didn't even have a Mercedes or a BMW, let alone a supercar. So that was mind-blowing. And it was too much for us. It just was. And I—my ego was just going crazy. Like, "I'm the man." All the worst parts of me just amplified.
There must be a reason why you traded it in so many times, though, right?
I was addicted to that feeling. The new shit. That was the, "Oh, but what if?" And then I seen the McLaren. I remember driving it into this supercar place and I looked at the McLaren, I looked back at my Audi. I was like, "I don't really—" And then I just kept looking at the McLaren going, "That's the new shit. That's the new hotness." And it was ridiculous. Just absolutely idiotic.
Never ends.
Yeah. I would have carried on. I would have carried on doing that probably if I hadn't had a moment of like—boom. "What are you doing, mate?" Life's good at that. Give you a good slap round the head when you need it. And I really needed it. Because everything that a man does when he's from nothing, like all these rappers, I was doing the same thing. Spunk money up the wall, buy pointless jewelry, clothes, bullshit like that. Treating people the wrong way, treating myself the wrong way, not looking after myself, I piled the weight on. I think I just skipped the good years to Elvis at the end. I just went full throttle.
You said boom.
Oh yeah, so I had a bit of a moment where everything just came crashing down. A lot of people know there was the DMs, but also in the same week, there was the loss of a huge deal. For anybody that doesn't know, the DMs—somebody leaked some DMs that I had sent, some sexual DMs that were out there. And me being the crazy wild bastard that I was at that moment, drinking a lot, just doing all sorts of—just fucking lost my way. And then in the same week, I also had a deal that was on the table that was pretty much negotiated, done, signed, sealed, delivered, which would have secured my financial future for the next two years with a huge company, a big betting company. Multi-million-pound deal. It wasn't just one. It was *the* deal.
And they had hired a new guy who thought he knew better than the last guy. And he, I think he just didn't like me. He also—I think it was partly like, "You don't want to carry on the work of the guy who used to have your job." So he was trying to find any reason he could to fuck it up. He did what he did. We got to a point where I was like, "Are you going to do the deal or not, mate?" There were some things asked of me which were just outrageous and we couldn't move on basically. I'm very glad I didn't because otherwise everything I now have might not have ended up that way. When you're put in a position where do you want to keep your ownership of things or not? So, but yeah, that was a devastating blow. And then obviously having people laughing at you for sexual DMs and stuff when, it was—I was drunk as fuck at the time and it was just a stupid moment. But regardless, knowing that there's just such little compassion out there for you when you're having an awful time, it really took me from as high as I was, it took us as low as possible in that moment of like, "No one cares. Everything you've worked hard for, you now don't have."
I'd literally agreed a tenancy agreement on my flat for two years on the basis that this was all going to be signed. So I'm like, "What the fuck do I do now?" And then I was hit with a tax bill that was way more than I could handle as well because in my head it's like, "Got the cash coming in and got the tax bill paid off, don't worry about it." So everything that could go wrong went wrong. And I know I needed humbled, but it was brutal. I know it might sound to some people out there like, "Oh, poor pitiful white boy problems and shit like that," but I literally wanted to kill myself. I really, really did. Because it was just too much, even for me, and I'm a pretty tough person. It was just—it was awful. The level of abuse and ridicule I got online and the financial mess I was in, it just felt like everything I'd been building up to had been really fucked up. Even just talking about it now is hard to say. Because it was bad. It was awful. So that left me in a really, really low place.
The people online would have had no idea. Because I remember watching that play out from afar and it was just online, it was just kind of jokes.
Well, what you have to remember is they didn't know I'd lost the multi-million-pound deal that week. They didn't know I had a six-figure tax bill to pay. So that's happening behind the scenes. And that happened before the DMs. So then the DMs happened as well. The icing on the cake was the DMs. If it was just one or the other, you could say maybe, but when you're financially fucked and you're also trending on Twitter being called—I'm not even going to say the words—but you know, the things people say about gay people that are to hurt them. The things people say like, "You should go and do this, you should do that." People love to kick people on the way down, but what they especially love, and this is the difference, is if you're a vulnerable person publicly, you're seen to be in some sort of subculture that people view in a way that's like, "Oh poor them, I hope they're all right." I'm a big, strong alpha male. I look tough. I look like I can handle all the ridicule in the world. I'm brash, cocky. So they—people probably didn't think, and also when you're a man, you don't get sympathy the way women get sympathy when they go through revenge porn or anything like that. It's not looked upon the same. And I just had to sort of think about it and take it and go, "Yeah, this isn't fair, but life isn't fair." So what the fuck do you expect, Brian? So I drank a lot of whiskey and smoked a lot of weed that week if I'm honest with you.
Do you know what's so funny is I remember seeing it trending and I thought, "I'll go on Brian's account and see what he's said about it." Nothing. Silence. And that for me was really surprising.
Oh yeah. I think a lot of people thought that actually, but I, even in the chaos, I act quite cerebrally. I can be quite reptilian when I need to be to get myself out of a—you see in diving, for example, in the moment of panic, in that moment of like "I could fucking die here," I've been in those situations. If I don't act smart, I'm in a shit situation here. I've got to use, I've got to pull my knife out, cut this rope, do this—I'm used to thinking in that way. So I just thought, "I'm going to—I'm just going to say nothing. I'm going to have a night to think about this, just think about how I react." I felt awful, don't get us wrong, but I knew I wasn't going to give up. But even though I wanted to kill myself, I also thought the weirdly, I think all the shit, it gave me something to resist. Because I'm a fighter in my heart. So I was like, "Nah, fuck you."
So within a day, I was like, "Okay, this is how we're going to do this. I'm going to get the two best piss-takers I know and I'm going to get them to rip the piss out of me. Make everyone feel like it's over and done with now." Because the minute you acknowledge it, laugh it off, and show that you're not frightened, people will get bored and move on to something else and they'll scratch the itch of seeing—because what they really want me to do is self-destruct. But if I show I'm brave, they'll respect that and then move on. What they don't realize is I was pretty fucking drunk during that whole episode. We were recording at 11:00 AM, I was on the whiskey. I'd had like two massive glasses full of whiskey straight and then I was like, "Right, let's do this." Because I knew they were going to be brutal, but I said, "You have to be. You have to just say every worst thing because then people will leave me the fuck alone and then I'll really get on with my depression then." So that's how I was like, kind of sensible in planning out my own self-destruction. Very weird.
And I've spoken to other people about this when they've been in similar situations. Like when Logan went through his thing and he was like, "Yeah, same. I just drank a lot and smoked a lot." That was what we both did. So yeah, after that happened, I then had to—okay, where do we go from here then? And I had a production company who were partnered with us at the time who agreed that they would carry the costs of The Kick Off while we were looking for another sponsor. So that was very kind of them. Shout out to Formidable. And we—don't get me wrong, those costs had to be paid back at some point. So every show is X amount of money, every single fee. And this is the thing that people forget: I've probably got the biggest crew on YouTube, really. So there's like 15 people every show who need paid and every single time we do a Kick Off show, that cost was building. My tax wasn't going anywhere. I needed a sponsor big time. So that was a bad time, a lot of pressure. I felt it from every angle.
How does that impact other areas of your life? I've heard you talk about the impact it had on your sleep, which I think is something people don't think about enough. Because I think sleep is probably the foundation of your mood, how you make decisions and everything in between.
Probably. I still haven't quite mastered that. I think part of it is because when you have your own business, there's not enough hours in the day, so you're always like late night being like, "What else can we do? What else can we do?" So I'm shit at sleeping. And as soon as I wake up, by the time I've made it to the toilet for a piss, I'm thinking about what we need to do. It's so—that's part of it. But yeah, I drank myself to sleep to a point where I was more collapsing rather than sleeping. And it was awful.
I'm going to play—just because these are the questions that come to my mind. You're drinking yourself to sleep, but you're a smart guy. You know that that's not good.
Oh yeah, yeah. But at that point, I cared more about—it was almost like a mathematical equation, like what is more important right now? Me being—like, I didn't care about myself. I just thought, "Get through the days." My mom died, right? This is totally a side thing previously to that. And I remembered when I got through that, I did a similar thing where I just drank myself to sleep for about a month at least. And I knew if I could just get a few weeks under my belt, no matter how I got through it, it would be easier. So I just had to get to that point. And I'm not recommending this, by the way. But few people will go through the kind of week I went through, so luckily it won't be necessary. But sometimes you've just got to put distance between you and the event and daylight will slowly become visible. I'm not saying it was a good idea.
It sounds like kind of look good on the movie.
I can imagine, yeah.
For me it—because if those issues aren't ever properly addressed, then they kind of re-emerge or they sit there.
They were—so I hear you. But there's a time and a place. And right in the aftermath isn't always the best time to go and go, "Right, let's figure out what went wrong here." It was emotionally so distressing, I just thought, "I am going to—" Every waking moment was the whole thing: the finances, the Twitter, all this bullshit. I couldn't address it at that point. I couldn't think about it at that point. I couldn't work out what had gone wrong or all of that. I just thought, "Get a fucking sponsor. Keep doing the shows. Drink yourself to sleep if you have to. Just get a fucking sponsor. Keep the money coming in." Because right now, without money, you're fucked. So fucked. Like, I'm homeless. The amount of bills that were accruing and the amount of money I had, I was going to end up—I was like, "I might end up fucking wherever." So it really wasn't about "Oh, let's go and work through my problems." It was like, "Let's put some fucking money in the bank here."
Was there one day through that period which you remember as being the most agonizing? One particular day?
Every single day was just as bad as the other. It was like when my mom died. That was what it reminded me of. It was like I had died almost. Every day I'd wake up—so when my mom died, I remember when I'd wake up, I'd go, "Oh." And it was that first moment when your eyes wake up and you go, "Oh, it's real. It's actually happened." And that's the moment where when my life had ended, it was that moment of when I'd first wake up, I'd go, "Oh, it's real. It's real." And then I'd have to get up and face the day and just try and block it out. When I'd go outside, I wore a cap, I'd try everything I could to hide who I was because I felt ashamed that I was the DM guy or—I used to think of myself as like a great podcaster, someone who had changed his life, brought himself out from—and now I was being like shamed, laughed at, all of that shit. So I just felt so humiliated. I just didn't feel like me anymore.
When you say you woke up and you the first couple of seconds you thought, "It's real." Does that mean that your sleep was a place of peace? A place of escapism?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm asking this question because Tom Blomfield from Monzo sat there and he talks about being anxious and depressed for about two years. And he literally said, he was here last week, he said, "When I woke up, for two or three seconds I didn't know who I was or where I was, and those were the best [seconds]," and then it would just come crashing back down.
No, so the best time was when I was drunk before I went to sleep. That was the point where I really enjoyed it because I was like, "Oh, it's like I'm not even here." So that was the best time because then nothing felt—I couldn't feel anything. That was ideal. That's why I kept going back there every night. But I wasn't an alcoholic or anything. It was that feeling that I was chasing, the "I don't feel pain" numbness. That was the good bit.
When your mother passed away, you didn't talk about it.
No, no. I mean, YouTube's a shitty place, isn't it? It's a horror—like as I found out the hard way. And also, she's just precious to me, so I keep it to myself always. I keep her to myself always. I've only talked about her once online and that was the Rebuild.
And even in that video, which I watched twice, I still had no idea when it had happened. Because I was trying to pinpoint if there was like a change in you or if it was during your YouTube career, at the height of your YouTube career, before. And I thought it was just—for a guy that does really pour it out on the internet—and I've seen you, when the Logan Paul incident happened, I watched that video and you were pouring out your heart in a way that was just remarkably vulnerable. And that was just a secret.
Yeah, but it's like—it's like what I said earlier, I can be quite cerebral when I have to be and I can make decisions when I have to be for my own sake. And here's the thing: when you love someone more than anything else in this world, that matters more than anything. And where others would have capitalized on a sob story, she was far too precious for me to share with anyone. It wasn't about her being public. She was mine. She wasn't there for anyone else. She was just my mom.
And that's the way I plan to keep it. I've explained what she meant to us in that video and how much I love her. I always will. And I miss her every day, bro. But it's just one of those things where I think to myself, "Certain things, I think you draw the line online." You have to—there has to be some stuff that's for you. And even if I say, "Yeah, my mom died and I loved her and she meant the world to us," and I did try and give some ins and outs of what my relationship was like with her so that people could feel how much—feel the love. I didn't want to give everything because I don't know, it's just too special for me to give everything like that. And I think that's one thing that some creators could do with learning as well is what is—how much value does something have if you'll just share it with everyone? And I do think you've got to pick and choose carefully. Because once you give it, there's no taking it back. And that's the problem, isn't it, with YouTube? It's like once it's out there, it's out there.
In that video you say when you—I think you've just been fighting with Vidal's dad. And you've gone like 12 rounds with him or something and you fall over on your back and you get emotional because—and he says, "That's what boxing does, it brings all those emotions out." And you said a line, you said, "I'm just a guy that misses his mom." Have you ever processed that?
A lot. A lot. I've truly faced—I know everything about me that's good, bad. I really face up to everything in my life. I know where I've gone wrong. I really face things head-on. And with my mom, I faced it more than anything because it was a constant in my—losing a parent if you're, especially if you're an only child and there's only one parent, it's so severe. It's like—I tried to describe it to someone. It was like one day I went outside and the whole world was full of water and people are swimming around in their scuba gear or whatever going, "What? Everything's normal, Brian." I'm like, "No, no, you don't understand."
The constants in my life have been like: the sun comes up in the morning, I breathe air, the moon comes out at night, my mom loves me. Those four things are this—this is reality. So to remove one of those components, it blew my fucking mind that she couldn't be here anymore. I was like, "It doesn't make sense to me." So I had to face it and I really have processed it. And I think that's why I never felt the need to share it either because I was like, "I'm at peace with that." As hard as it is, it's just part of my life now. And I feel like she's there. I don't need anything from anyone to make me feel better because when a mother loves a son the way my mother loved me, there's nothing anyone can tell me in this world about her, about me, about us. So I don't need to share it.
You said you had one parent then.
Well, my dad was around sort of, but in and out. He's like—he's an old-school guy, my dad. Fucking shagged around, went to prison, just a wild man. But I'm okay with my dad now. I've just reached a place of understanding that my dad's got bipolar disorder. He's never going to be quote-unquote normal. He's just that guy. And you know, he recently had a suicide attempt which I had to phone the ambulance for and that—it's like what the fuck? What the fucking hell is this? You're panicking, hoping he's going to be all right. He then got sectioned again, which this was this year.
You had to phone the ambulance.
Yeah, yeah. He text me basically a message that let me know what was going down. So instantly got on the ambulance and then you're panicking because the ambulance—they're like, "Oh COVID, COVID." I'm like, "You fucking just get there. Like, are you shitting me?" Two hours it took them to get there. And it was like a full-blown suicide attempt. The pills were already gone. So yeah, just like—it's stressful when you go through that. And I did a podcast about it because you don't really know what to do. Last time my dad was sectioned I was a fucking child. So I'm now his next of kin. I'm his parent now in this situation. So he's mentally unstable. They're coming to me asking me for the answers. I'm trying to run a company and do my YouTube videos. "Hey everyone, welcome back!" It's fucking mental. And that's one of the weird things about being a YouTuber is I know that people rely on me for their escape. But sometimes that's why—you messaged me to do a podcast around that time and I said, "Mate, I ain't doing a fucking podcast right now. I'm not in a—" And I didn't because I just said I'll just be fucking miserable. I mean, great start anyway, we're talking about sad stuff. No, but yeah, I just knew I couldn't do it. But yeah, it's been—me and my dad are all right. Like he sometimes he just sees things from a different angle because he's got bipolar, so it's challenging to get him to see where I'm coming from sometimes.
It's so difficult when a kid has to kind of forgive their parents and start parenting their parents. It's even kind of happened to me in a strange way because I think my mom—I think my mom has bipolar.
Dude, your mom's such a character. I've heard stories and I'm like, "Yeah."
Yeah. I remember being young and being told—the first one I wrote in my book is when she came to the school in her lingerie when I was like four or five years old because she wanted to put on a show. And then the other instance that sticks in my mind is there's one where she chased my dad through the house with a knife. And the third one I remember is being told that she had been locked up because they had come to repossess her restaurant and she was stood in the street with a knife and she was smashing up her own shop and there was police in the street and everything. And I didn't see that, but we'll have to set them up for a date and make a great couple. No, but there is—you get to a point where you realize that I'm not going to have the perfect family that I see in the films, and I'm going to have to forgive these people who were meant to be my idols and guardians for their own flaws.
Yeah, it's—I've made—I've sort of made peace with my dad's mistakes in life. It's difficult though. It's a really long process of "Why don't you love me? Why won't you be like this? Why aren't you doing that? Why—" and as the years go by, you realize other people's parents are also fucked up. How many people can actually say they've got two parents who love each other in a great marriage and have been great parents? Most people I know don't have that situation. Even if their parents are together, it's a fucking shit show. So yeah, people aren't perfect and I think just accepting that is a good start in life.
Anxiety is a really interesting topic. I've been involved in this mental health company for some time now, Atai, and I've just got really fascinated about the concept of anxiety.
Oh, it's fucking horrible.
Just—and I've experienced it as well.
Oh yeah, been there.
Tell me about your experience with anxiety. And was it later in your life that you first—?
I think the first time I'd had anxiety was after my mom died. In the immediate, I didn't know what was going on. I just remember being in the room and saying to my mates, "My chest is getting really tight, I feel like I'm struggling to breathe." And I was like—and then you know, the doctors threw us some Valium and fucking I think I had that with some alcohol at the same time, and that was when the drinking myself to sleep sort of started. But as I got older, I realized through the YouTube thing just like being known is a really weird thing. Particularly obviously around that time with the Fall of True Geordie, as I called it on the video. Lots of anxiety and depression. And it is just such a horrible feeling to go through because it feels very serious at the time. But it is in your head, really.
You've been very open about your depression and suicidal ideation. And one thing that I haven't quite managed to get over in your head is what you said earlier where you said one of the things that actually made you hang in there was that people didn't want you to hang in there. And that's the fire in you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like—I sort of—there was a tweet that was tweeted at me, such a weird little confession, where a guy went, "I've heard about your financial issues," or whatever he said in his tweet, "and it couldn't have happened to a better guy." And I've got like a dark sense of humor and I sort of smirked at it and went, "Heh." And I thought in my head, I thought, "I know I am not beaten. Like I just know it and I know I'm going to be rich and I know shit's going to come back around." So I just screenshotted the tweet and I remember thinking, "I'm going to use that as like an air freshener on a Ferrari or something."
You know what I mean? Like I have this—I don't know, you know what I mean? Like I want to prove people wrong. And I think that drive at the start was a lot of that was like when I started YouTube so many people were like, "What the fuck is this idiot doing, shouting on his camera and all that?" So then all of a sudden there was that negativity came in droves, fucking thousands of tweets. And yeah, it was sort of a weird like, "Oh, it's like starting the game again but like on a different level." So I'm like, "Okay, now I'm fucked, but I've been fucked worse before, so it's kind of like a—all right, let's use this a bit." So but to sort of—yeah, the depression, it's like it's awful and it's so negative and you think about like—I was thinking about suicide on a daily basis at one point. I was, you know—I'm sorry if this is bringing people down when they're listening to this, but you know, I was really seriously contemplating it in a way of "Here's what I would do."
And when the anxiety attacks were coming over me, it was just an awful way of living and I honestly don't know how I got through what I got through. Looking back at it, it was fucking mental.
I've never been to that point. So when I hear people talking about it, it just—it's like incomprehensible to me that you could get to the point where you think the best route is to end your life.
So yeah, I mean looking at it at the time, I thought I had what was like situational depression where I'm in this horrible situation and that's why I'm depressed, which was partly true obviously. But I was also chemically depressed as well. Like there was—what I now realize is through that, my mom dying, other trauma in my life, I definitely had chemical depression. Like I needed medication. But I sort of didn't believe in it, didn't want to do it, didn't think it would work for me. And also, like when you're a guy who's—lives in his head and thinks, "I'm a smart guy, yada yada yada," you sort of—you're worried it's going to change the way you think and make you a bit—what if it makes me dumber? Or you hear about other people's bad experiences on it, like fucks your libido, all of this sort of weird shit. Puts weight on you. There's all sorts of little fears.
So it had to get so bad before I would try medication. But like one day it got bad enough where I was like—I realized I thought, "I'm definitely going to do it soon, otherwise I'm going to have to—" I was like frightened, almost like as a friend of me, if that makes sense. I was frightened for me because I was like, "You're really going to fucking do this here soon." Like the way I was thinking and the way my life was going and the way I was feeling about small things that really are like—you know when people sort of push your buttons a little bit, the way that was making me feel was awful. Like I was shouting at my friends and my crew, and when someone was challenging me in any way, the fear and the anxiety was bubbling underneath. It was just overwhelming. And I had like really bad nightmares and I'd wake up in the morning, and I remember just waking up one morning just being like, "Oh, I really don't want to live anymore." And that was when I was like on the phone to the doctor and I was like, "Give us whatever the fuck you've got because I'm willing to try anything now." And thank fuck, you know? So they prescribed us some antidepressants and I'm really fucking glad I tried them, mate. Honestly.
You called the doctor for yourself. One night, one morning?
It was in the morning. I just knew I thought I'm like a liability to myself here. And it was like the fear of "Oh fuck, you're getting dangerously close." Like thoughts become things, right? So like we know that because when we channel our brains in an ambitious way, we can make magic happen. But also if I'm thinking negatively, I can go to the worst possible place. And I really knew I was like almost manifesting it because it—I was spending so many—there were so many times it would pass through my head, "Oh well, I'll just kill myself. Oh well, I'll just kill myself. Oh well—" like if this doesn't happen, if this doesn't happen, if this doesn't happen. It was becoming an answer, it was becoming a solution to all of the problems that felt like they were mounting on my shoulders and stuff like that. So yeah, and when I took the medication that was when it really dawned on me like, "Oh, that wasn't just because of what I've been through or it was a—yeah, post-traumatic stress disorder and all sorts of other shit, but it was also like a chemical imbalance probably in the brain where my serotonin levels were real low." And you know, I was desperate, so I'm glad I took them.
I never see you meditate, go on holiday, relax, chill out. I was in the jungle and you messaged me and said, "Oh I need a little bit of that."
Yeah, I mean you looked like you were having a whale of a fucking time. Yeah, but I am on like a treadmill, you know what I mean? Like and I'm not quite at that point of financial—what I want from life financially. I haven't quite clinched that moment of—
Will you ever? You think so?
Yeah, I will. I will. Because I don't think I have.
No, but we're at different points sort of like—financially speaking, I'm nearly there. I think I'm getting there. I've got a really good organized team now, money is sorting itself out, and it's like if I just carry on the way I'm going, we'll be okay and then I can have those moments where I go, "Now I'm going to rest, I'm going to enjoy myself." But yeah, I don't—I don't meditate. I don't—you know.
How do you relax?
Glass of wine and a—I say a glass, a bottle of wine. But you know.
Were you ever taught how to relax?
No, not really. I feel like I don't really relax. Like the minute I put out something I'm really happy with, I get this feeling of like content, like I'm like, "Oh, that's class that, that's a really good piece of work that, I'm really happy with that." But then like 10 minutes will go by and that'll be when I'm like, "Okay, what are we doing next then?" You know what I mean? And I think like, you know, we have that in common for sure. And I no doubt that when I hit that point where I'm financially secure, I'll still carry on being a bastard. But I will chill out more. I will chill out more. And I'm already chilling out more since I started the antidepressants actually, like in terms of the way I behave. Like all of those—I'm so much more in control of myself now. My anger, my ups and downs, like you know, they are—everything's a lot more relaxed and I communicate in a way that's not as—like you know, those times where people would piss me off and I would just not even look at them because I would be so frustrated that when I'd tell them, I wouldn't even be able to look at them because I'd be like, "I want to punch you right now so I'm not even going to look at you." Like I'd just exude anger even when I was trying to hold it back. It was there, obvious.
And I don't want people who work with me to feel like they're working with a fucking lunatic, you know what I mean? So the antidepressants have been a godsend and that's really helped me communicating now. Now if I have an issue, I just sit down and I'm just honest and calm and I just go, "Here's what's gone wrong, here's what I think we should do better. If you want to hear—tell me what I need to do better, I'm all ears." And it's like I'm a different—a better person now. I'm still not the finished article by any means, got lots of work to do, but it's just made me realize like my—and it goes back ironically to the trolls, you know, even—even the trolls who gave me all that shit. It's like when you're really unhappy within yourself, it comes out everywhere. And that was really what was happening to me. I was like—and part of it actually made my YouTube videos good because the pain that—like that Fall of True Geordie video, I just said to Lawrence, "You need to fucking sit down and I need to sit down because I've got so much shit I want to say right now and if I don't get this out there, I'm going to fucking explode. So we're doing this." It wasn't thought out or anything. But it brings—sometimes it's like that struggling artist thing, isn't it? People like that a little bit to feel like they're battling something, so it makes the videos better. So it worked in my favor a little bit.
I’ve just come to realize happiness is in fact finding peace today irrespective of uncompleted goals.
That's definitely in my head as well. Peace. That word. Peace today. Yeah, like even in the last month actually, I remember thinking, "I only want to be around people who make me feel peaceful." If you bring drama, if you bring agro, stress, you can fuck off because I'm trying to turn over a new leaf now and not deal—and I think a lot of people just did not realize like while they were heaping stuff onto my plate, because I'm the mountain of a man who can handle anything apparently, that I was at fucking breaking point and I just wasn't saying it, you know? Whereas now I'm saying it. I'm like, "No, I'm not doing that." Like you know, the other day one of the lads in the team said to us—it was about research or something, like you know for graphic design and stuff. And my mate went to us—it would help if you had a look. And I said, "Would Joe Rogan's team tell him to do that one?" Or "Do your own research, Joe." And now I'm just very much like, "Here's the standards, this is what we do," and you know.
And are you still attached—do you think you're still attaching some happiness to the future attainment of some goal? And this is scary.
No, but it's healthy in a way because it's like I'm not under the illusion that the minute I hit the big number that all of a sudden I'm going to—that will make me happy. But the freedom that that number will then give me is what I'm looking for.
Freedom from what?
Freedom of choice, freedom to do whatever I want with my life. Right now I'm a slave to the game. The game for me right now is I've got all these shows, all these brands that I'm trying to build. I'm doing the fighting, I've got The Kick Off football brand, I've got the podcast, and other things I'm working on as well like my poker and stuff and Twitch. I am on a treadmill where every single week I have to do—I'm contracted to do this show, this show, this show. I'm the most consistent YouTuber in the UK. Just nobody really realizes it because it's kind of always been that way. I've always been that guy. Like even though I slowed the podcast down, in terms of like the amount of videos I've been putting out, it's been insane for years now. So I have to do them because I'm not at a point of financial freedom. And even when I am, I might still carry on, but it would be nice to have the option to go, "Yeah, I'm going to do this" and "Yeah, I'm going to interview that guy." Hey, if I want to interview a guy in America, I can stop The Kick Off because I just don't want to do it this week, or let my other boys do it, and I'm going to go to LA and interview Joe Rogan. I'd love to have the ability—I can't do that. I'm chained to my content. And I love my content, fortunately, and I love the people I'm around. But if I didn't, it would be really hard.
I've been thinking a ton about this. It's actually, again, the last chapter in the book I was writing and I think my conclusion was—
My book's actually quite similar to yours, it’s called *Happy Sexy Geordie*.
Is it? Where'd you get the name from? No, it's just that last bit. I thought so much about ambition and my conclusive point was when you realize that you are enough and you actually don't need more money or you don't need more external validation, that foundation is such a contradiction, right? That when you realize that you're actually—you've got everything you need, then you—then the result is true ambition. Not ambition to impress girls with a Lamborghini, not ambition to prove everyone wrong, but you go after the things that you actually genuinely give a shit about. And when you get to the point where you know that you're enough, then you start to go for things just for the sake of the intrinsic internal feeling.
And that's what I'm talking about, bro. That's where I am. It's like I know I want to get there, but I'm not there yet. And when I get that big fuck off deal that's insane, then I can be like—I mean unfortunately that will mean more work—but I'll have the money to then have that—bring the plane in to land eventually and go, "Okay, now what do I want to do?" Ultimately, the funny thing is I'm doing what I want to do now, I'm just doing a lot more of it than probably physically I should be. It would be nice to have a bit more—a bigger team is really what I'd like to do is put—invest more into the team and have more people to help me because me and the boys we do a lot.
It's funny because it feels like the snowball then gets bigger as it's rolling down the hill. Add five more people, then that means more brand obligations to pay for them.
Do you know what it is though? It would make me so fucking happy to be—I know this is like—I get why this is bullshit, but it's also like it's enough for me. Even people from Newcastle have like underestimated me. Even people who should be championing me and supporting me are telling me I ain't shit. So just to like go beyond what anyone could even imagine, it would be such a fucking ride and ultimately that's all I want to do at the end is look back and go, "Fuck me, I showed those cunts, didn't I?" Like and have a good laugh and spend time with my friends, make great videos. That's what I want to do.
What are your ambitions now then? I don't think you've, you know, you've signed this deal with obviously Gymshark, which is great, and you've done a deal with Beats, which is great. You're over on Twitch now.
PokerStars as well. Shout out to PokerStars, love PokerStars.
What is the big—when you talk about that big vision that you have in your mind of where you will be in 5, 10 years from now, what is that?
I feel like I'm in a bit of a unique situation in that I want to kind of be the king of multiple different things. And it's going to be interesting to see how that goes. I think I'm the best podcaster currently about, aside from Joe Rogan. No offense to your good self.
It’s fine, we’re just starting out. I think you’re very good.
And you know, I want to kill the podcast game. But that's been something that I've had to—in the past, when that shit happened, I kind of had to put that back and go, "Where's the money going to come from?" And sports is a lot easier to make money out of, so I went full steam ahead with The Kick Off. I think I've got something really special with The Kick Off. That to me is the future of football in terms of how people will consume it in the UK. That show, the brand The Kick Off, the personalities I've got there—I'm working on rebranding it right now. You know, Gillette Soccer Saturday's dying a death. I seen it coming a mile off. Soccer AM is so fucked. They've all—what's happening in that space right now, there's so many YouTube channels they're faking their views. I know them all. They've got all the big brands. Budweiser, you're getting robbed. I'm just saying that right now. You want to check the fucking—why have certain YouTube channels switched the likes off, switched the views, switched the comments off? Because they're fucking buying views and stuff like that.
What we've got is so authentic and real. My studio, we've spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on the equipment in there. We've got something special there. So it's just about watering it and letting it grow. And if I build the team right, I think we could—no one can fuck with us. Everyone's copying us. Everyone's copying The Kick Off. No one can copy The Kick Off. They're all wasting their time. All they do is make us look better. Their shit attempts at The Kick Off make us look 10 times stronger. So with that one, I think we've got something really special there. And I'm surprised a huge brand has not seen that yet. Like an Amazon or a Google or whoever the fuck, you know. Because, all right, we swear on there, but we are killing it. And credit to Twitch, they did see it. And you know, I'm proud of that. But the potential for that brand I just think is enormous. I just—like I say, I've been through so many financial struggles while keeping that going. I haven't really been in a position to put it in third gear yet. But we're getting there.
And then there's the fighting. I feel like thanks to Logan Paul and KSI, they've put me in a really particular position where I really know fighting but I also know the entertainment side of fighting. And as boxing moves towards that direction and MMA as well, and my history of loving boxing and UFC, I can really nail down a special place in that where you know, livestream-wise, we're number one on fighting and football. How weird is it that there's one guy in the world who does a livestream on football and he's got the number one audience and fighting? You know, that alone puts me in a really unique position without having to talk about the podcast where it's Ricky Gervais one week, it could be Kamaru Usman UFC champion the next, Tyson Fury, Logan Paul.
Do you think you’ve got the credit you deserve?
I definitely don't, no.
Why?
I don't know. I don't know. I think, you know, I just did an interview for example with Kamaru Usman and the older I get and the wiser I get and the better I get at questioning and the better I get as an interviewer and leading the guest and taking them on that journey. My emotional compassionate side is really another gear that I have that other interviewers are just—you know. I've always aspired to be like Joe Rogan, but Joe Rogan has things I don't and I have things he doesn't. He knows everything about everything. This guy can talk to anyone. I don't have that. But my emotional compassionate side, my empathy, I think gives me something else. And on that interview, I got so many comments because it was one of the first interviews I've done which was the same guest Joe Rogan had.
I saw the comments. People were saying you did a lot better.
Loads of people were going, "You fucking outdid Joe Rogan with that one." And I knew I did. And I don't mean that as a disrespect because he's like a god to me. But on that one, it really showed because I just did a totally different interview. And I'm—Joe is always going to be the GOAT to me, but sometimes even the GOAT can be got, and I can get him every now and then. And I'm—he is who I aspire to be on every podcast, you know. So maybe—I don't know. I don't know what the fuck it's going to take, bro. I feel like I've got to move a fucking mountain.
I don't know if it's because I'm—I feel like it's because I'm working class and I don't necessarily—some people just get credit thrown at them. Like MrBeast, "Wow, he spent loads of money on a video." *Claps.* What's the other fucker who's always surprising his friends with cars? I don't give a shit. Like, with all due respect, you don't impress me. None of you—like your creativity's bang average. You know, like I could turn up with fucking money and buy a car for a friend. You know what I mean? So I'm trying to tell stories like with *The Fall of True Geordie*, with the *Rebuild*, with the podcasts. Those—that content is like I poured my heart and soul into it. I edited it with my editor, Geo—shout out to him, amazing editor. We sat together and did frame by frame. I do the grade. I fucking—everything. Like every minute detail I care about. Why does my podcast look different from everyone else's? Because I care. And I will literally go and go, "Right, we're going to do the grade, we're going to do the—" the sound, "That doesn't sound right," and I every fucking detail I care about. So it frustrates me that I'm not where I think I should be because the numbers are there, the deals are there, but the critical acclaim for whatever reason isn't there.
And I guess it's because I swear and I'm not like mainstream worthy. Like I'm never—I'm never going to be the kid who Jonathan Ross invites on or you know, I'm not that—and I don't want to. I don't give a fuck about being well known on telly. I don't want to go on it particularly, and it's not because there's anything wrong with it. It's just I'm happy where I am, you know. But I don't know what it's going to take, bro. I feel like I've got to move a fucking mountain.
No, I know. I was just thinking about it then because I agree with everything you said in terms of the influence you have. And I also agree that you are the best podcaster in this country. And really you are one of the real pioneers of a certain style of podcasting but also on *The Kick Off*, right? You're a real pioneer there. But from what I've learned about company valuations and even how brands do deals, it's the way it is packaged.
Yeah. Branding. And look, I'm not greasing the wheels of these companies and that's definitely a thing I need to do better. Because you talk about certain YouTube channels—branded. Yeah. Certain YouTube channels will take people out for dinner, they'll schmooze, they'll do all of that shit. And I'm clearly not doing that. But like credit to the companies who have invested in me, because I've just went, "Look, I'm the best," and you know—I learned how to do decks myself. I was—I done decks, I do all my own decks.
You shouldn't be.
Well, I've just hired a guy, so he's going to do them from now on. But the point is is like I got—I done all right, you know. I done well. I done well. But I'm going to say it: you're not getting the credit you deserve. And you're not getting the money you deserve either. It's fucking frustrating, bro. I don't know what money you're getting, but I know it's not what you deserve. No, you—trust me, bro. It ain't what I—no, I'm credit to the partners we've got, because they've looked after us, particularly Gymshark and PokerStars and Twitch. I'm grateful for those people to be partnered with us. But yeah, I definitely feel like where—where I am is not reflected. But yeah, I need to do the—the schmoozing bullshit a lot better and—the deck side of things we've built that out and we're packaging it up in branding-wise. I need to be a bit more—there's a lot of rich old white dudes who sign the fucking checks who I need to be more friendly towards. I—and I get that.
I don't even think you do. I think you need a bunch of rich old white dudes to be friendly with the rich old white dudes. And I think you should probably call your company like True Entertainment. You put it all under there. So people when they look at something, if they value it as a YouTube channel, you're getting paid X. If they value you as a media company, a BuzzFeed or a Vice—
Which I am.
Yeah, you are. But you're not packaged like that. You're packaged as a YouTube channel. Vice is worth, I don't know, it was 1.5 billion. Like if you think about the influence and reach, you're probably up there with Vice. But you're branded differently. You're branded as a YouTube channel.
And I've done all this on a shoestring as well, bro. This isn't—I've been in—like I've been in debt with the taxman, I got that rug pulled out from under me with the deal, I've had to scramble to get other deals, I had to pay off the production company all the money I owed them—you know that one who kept us going after the deal? I had to pay them off and then I went solo and got my own production company set up. So we are beginning, which is the—obviously the concept, we're the promotion, we're the distribution. We are a fucking media company. It's just fucking frustrating because I don't know whose dick I've got to suck to get respect around here. But I should be a multi-fucking-millionaire right now.
Not balling out of control, we learned.
I mean, I should be going back down to the fucking Audi garage. No. Yeah, I'm pissed off and I think that chip on my shoulder is a healthy thing in a way because it'll just keep driving me to get that respect I deserve and ultimately to get the money to look after the people I care about and that—that's the goal. It ain't about like—ultimately, yes, I've got an ego. Yes, I want to be respected. Yes, but I could quit all that as long as I get the money to secure everyone who—all my team, all of that, you know what I mean?
And you 100% own your formats.
Absolutely. I pulled up on Heineken because they used The Kick Off trademark and said, "I want my fucking money."
Really?
Yeah, shout out to Heineken, they paid me off. Oh, did they? Yeah, they used The Kick Off and it was like "The Kick Off, the European Champions League night on with Heineken." And I'm like, "What the fuck?" Tweeted them and yeah, I had everyone fucking, "Oh, can we make this go away?" But to be fair, the gaffer at Heineken was cool as fuck. He better have been. He should sponsor the fucking Kick Off.
Do you think you're happy now?
I want to answer this honestly. I'm really—really going there. No, I wouldn't say happy is the right word. But I'm closer to being in the middle than I have been in a long time. You know what I mean? Like that neutral point of like, I'm not really happy, but I'm also not low. I'm—I'm heading up to like okay. You know what I mean? I have more okay days than I have had in a long time since I started taking my antidepressants and stuff. That's really helped me sort of level out a bit. So yeah, I'm definitely a bit better, but I wouldn't say happy would be the right word. And also I don't want—I'm not striving to be happy either. I think I'm striving for peace and content and just—yeah, you have your happy days, you also going to have your bad days. But it's like I want to get to a place where I ride the storm and enjoy the good bits and appreciate them and know that there will be hard times again, but that I'm mentally equipped to deal with them and that if I do have a—a bad moment, that I don't want to kill myself or anything. That's sort of what I'm looking for.
Do you know what it’s going to take—what work it takes to get there? Do you have any idea what it’s going to take to get to that day?
Yeah, I think so. But also I'm kind of think I'm one of those people that I'm not anticipating an easy ride in life. I'd be a fool after everything I've been through to think, "But now it's going to go great," you know? So it's like that's kind of why I search for money because I think money does solve a lot of problems and it can make life a lot easier. And it's not like—money isn't the answer, but that can help a lot, you know.
The freedom it gives you.
Yeah. I'm still super scared/conscious about my relationship with money because I know that there's nothing you can do to take that kid out of me. Oh yeah, it will never leave me. There's still bits of me, man, that I see a fast car and I'm like, "Oh fuck me, I could really go for one of them right now." Bitcoin was taking off and I'm like, "Oh, should I—should I get on the train?" You know what I mean? Once every three months I'll send my friends, one of them's over there and my manager and my PA, a picture of a Rolls Royce and I'll just be like, "Should I do it?" Phantom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'll do it five times a year. I'll never buy it, but it's that kid showing up again being like, "Get fucking show them."
And this—all I've tried to do in my life is just be way more conscious of that kid in me. But—but this is the thing is like, at this point for you, everyone thinks you're way more loaded than you probably are anyway. So it's gone to a point where it's like for you there's nothing left to prove, you've proven it, you know what I mean? Like you—and I guess, yeah, bro. Credit to you, by the way, you've done a fucking good job.
Oh, thank you. You’re right, I’m proud of you. Thank you, bro. I appreciate that. I hope you're proud of yourself as well. I am. And you're right, I don't feel like I've got a ton left to prove to people, and that's what I was—that's what I was kind of referring to, and that for me has been a really good place to actually realize what I care about in life. Because before it was all trying to get played, trying to get girls, trying to get respect, trying to get followers, trying to get whatever. And when I was doing that, I reached—I was making myself unhappy, but I was self-destructive. When you finally get to the point where you realize that you are actually never going to be internally worth more, you're never actually going to be more valuable as a human being no matter how much money I have, my value doesn't change.
But insecurity is—is—it's a gift and a curse, isn't it? It's like rocket fuel. It's like before when I was talking about my podcast and how I'm underrated, you see the way I talk, like the passion. Whereas Joe Rogan ain't fucking talking like that. He is content, he is the king, like he has nothing to—and also I kind of envy it because he's never been that way, he's never been—he's never come across as "I need validation." And I know that's in me, you know what I mean? And it's not a healthy thing.
Do you think it’s a good thing?
It certainly driven us, so I can't—I can't hate it all. But it's like controlling it. It's like the—the beast inside you, isn't it? It's like mastering it, you know, knowing when to let it go. And like it's that same thing that will make me obsess over the quality of the content or you know the detail or the research or—and it's the same thing that when people let me down in a work situation, I get fucking frustrated because I'm like, "Why the fuck don't you want this as bad as I do?" You know what I mean? But if they did, they'd be me. You know what I mean? I'm—I'm me, they're them. But it just drives us fucking insane sometimes, you know?
I think it’s about balancing that thing and as you say, trying to master it because you're definitely right, it was like the fucking rocket ship that took you here. But at some point, I think probably to fly you've got to let go. And I genuinely think—I've thought this from just watching from afar and seeing the similarities in me and you—I've thought to myself, "The day that Brian reaches his full potential will be the day that he no longer gives a fuck about proving himself to people." Because I think then—I think then how you operate becomes a lot more healthy and more productive and more effective. You're not being driven by these external forces who clearly, you know, that don't want your best interest. You can be in control. Because you're not in control if—if there's that driving you, right? You're not actually. And I'm the same.
As I said, I'm on the treadmill, bro. And—and the day I don't need money anymore, that's going to be a scary day for the rest of the internet because the content's going to fucking change. I don't know what the fuck I'll do, but it'll probably—one—I don't know. I don't want to let the fans down and I don't want to stop doing what they—they love me for. But I—I am a person who evolves constantly and I'm always thinking and re-evaluating and what—you know, "What is this? What am I doing? Why am I here?" All of that. And it'll be interesting to see what happens then. I'm—I'm excited to see if that get—if that happens, you know what I mean? Like what I would say, what I will do.
You’re relentless, like Eddie Hearn.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s one of the most relentless characters I've ever met. And he told me, you know, he's just working for that day to sell his—to sell Matchroom. And I asked him why he wants to sell Matchroom if it's making him happy and he goes, "Well, we were never supposed to be here." And it sounds a lot like what you say to me. And then he goes, "What I'm going to do is I'm going to sell Matchroom for 5 billion, then I'm going to go to the beach and smoke my cigar." And I said, "Eddie, no you’re not."
Nah, but—yeah, I'm—I'm not trying to do that. I—I get that I love what I do. And but like take Matchroom, for example, right? This is me going on a rant again. I look at DAZN, I look at what Matchroom are doing, I'm like, "You guys are fucking geniuses, this is great." Why are you not coming for me? Why? What—what you waiting for? UFC, Joe Rogan, I've got a fucking huge podcast audience. Every video I do about fighting gets loads of views. My production quality, my shows—you know, they've tried to copy my shows, no offense, but I know—I mean I can see the way they try to get a round table going, they got Joe Weller in there and stuff like that. I see what they're doing. Good—good on them, like you know, it looked all right. But just come for the real McCoy, pay us the money, and I'll fucking—I'll make you guys—I'll help you out. You know what I mean?
There might be an issue of being dependent then on you, right? For brands. Because if you're the main event, one day if you decide to cut the brand—
Yeah, but look at what Joe Rogan did with the UFC. It—it was a perfect marriage. His podcast had the fighters on, he told the stories for the fighters, he helped promote them, they then go back into the UFC, they're now more relevant, they get more pay-per-view buys, and it's this—it's a symbiotic relationship there. Where you give me the fight—you give me Anthony Joshua, the new Anthony Joshua, you need to build him up, and I tell the story better than he could himself. I help make a documentary on him better than he could himself. I'm king of content and I help you out in that. Like I don't know, I just feel like I've got all these fucking skills and I'm sitting here making my own stuff but like with a budget. Imagine what—I made the *Rebuild*, me and two other guys made the *Rebuild*. Like it was good, but imagine if I actually had a fucking Netflix budget, you know what I mean? Like.
Why don't you take investment then?
I—I would consider it, but it would have to be from the right person who understood what the goal was and actually back me. But unfortunately because I've had those previous issues where companies have tried to get me to sign over my IP for fucking peanuts, putting a gun to my head and shit like that—and I've had multiple people try and do that. It's made me very wary, you know. It would have to be a big amount of money and a—a good—a good long-term partner.
You fancy it? No, I—I genuinely—I've always looked at what you do, and you know this anyway, and I've always thought that you had been undervalued. And I tend to believe that, and because you do, you've been the king of what you do for a long time. I'm not blowing smoke up your ass, you know this anyway. I appreciate that. No, but you know it's true. And other people who aren't as good because they're packaged as these big media companies, they're getting the big seven, eight-figure contract. It fucking destroys us, man. It destroys us. When I hear—I'm just going to fucking say it. When I hear [CENSORED] fucking got a massive fucking deal with Budweiser or anyone. We'll bleep that, bleep [CENSORED] because they'll fucking take me to court.
No, they won't. It destroys us because I'm just like, "You guys are putting out shit content, you don't get any views." You randomly—your video—the one video's got 10,000 views, the next video's got 5 million, no one asks anything. No one at Budweiser double-checking that like? I didn't—nah. And—and I'm sure there's some back-scratching going on behind closed doors where someone went to Eaton with his other fucking mate and I'm not invited to these business dinners. But if you actually want to sell some shit and you actually want to make a fucking buzz and you want to kick ass on the next World Cup or whatever, we—we do the content. We are—it pisses us off. I can tell you, yeah, you've had this—it's because me and my team work so hard. It's not just me either, you know what I mean? We're all like grafting constantly. My editor, for example, this kid works till like 4:00 in the morning fucking regularly, you know, to give everything. And—and that's someone's got to pay for that one day. Like I got to get my end result from that, you know? We do. Because it won't—I'm very loyal to them and I want—we all deserve that. You know what I mean? That moment of look at what we've built.
You know, when I see Spotify signing—they've just signed the girl in—in America, *Call Her Daddy*. Yeah. They give her a fucking huge contract. I'm like, look at her views, look what the fuck am I doing over here like? I don't know what it is, man. I don't know what it is. But—
Do you think I'm right when I say it's because you've not packaged yourself as a media company that you're not getting those—?
Well, I think *Call Her Daddy* had a lot of help from Barstool. Oh yeah. And obviously Barstool being a huge company in America, they packaged her well and put her on the map and stuff. And we've had to do everything—like you, when you met me I was in a fucking bomb shelter, bro. I—I paid a toothless Russian man £50 a day for a sweaty bomb shelter because that's all I could afford when—when I met you in 2017 because a company had sacked me. A company had let me go because they quote-unquote "I am not brandable" and they couldn't make money out of me because they couldn't sell me properly because of the way I was. And I was on 50 quid a day paying rent for the studio and that studio was fucking horrible. But now PokerStars, Beats by Dre, Gymshark, and Twitch apparently think I'm marketable. So I proved that fucker wrong, didn't I? Sometimes it does feel good to prove people wrong, Steve. You know what I mean?
But that's not the goal. The goal's the bank balance, but proving him wrong when he said I wasn't sellable. Ah. I've competed with a company before when I was in the bomb shelter for—for a sponsorship, which was a six-figure sponsorship deal and they were a £20 million company and I beat them. You know what I mean? So to say I've come up from nothing is the understatement of the fucking century and I just—I need to get to that point where I'm content like yourself.
I just hope and pray, and I think this is what I keep—you can hear me keep coming back back to it, is I just hope that you don't believe too much in you getting there and finally being completely happy and content.
I don't. I don't. I'm aware of what you're saying. And I've had plenty of money before and I've—I've had the—the adrenaline dump of bloody driving a fast car and all that. You—you can live anywhere in the world, you can drive any car in the world, if the people around you aren't who you want to be around, if you yourself aren't content, it doesn't matter. Because I wanted to kill myself in—in a—in a situation where many people would have felt like it was the best thing and all of that. And I'm aware of what you're saying. I just want it all. I want the content, peaceful, happiness, nice people around me, and I want the money. And it's—life's a good ride and I might as well go for it.
I think it’s possible. Do you know something that's funny? Do you know during that—that week of hell I had, I remember—I was just sat there. I was like—I think I was having a whiskey at the time. And—and this is what like a dark sense of humor I've got, I remember thinking, "Hire this, this is so fucked, isn't it? But what a ride." Like there was just a bit of me that was like, "This is a fucking story, isn't it? Jesus." Sometimes—you know what I mean? You just got to laugh and go, "Hey, my life is not fucking boring." If anything, like, you know. Got to laugh at it sometimes, haven't you?
Your fitness stuff at the moment. I've been getting very into health and fitness over the last few months.
Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah, you're looking shredded.
Thank you, bro. Thank you. Yeah, I'm on your—I am on his friends on his close friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see—I see the stories other people don't see.
Is that getting cut as well?
How has that—how has that impacted your life? Just having, you know, you've started boxing and you've started working out a lot and you're looking good. Thank you, not bad. How's that had an impact on your mental health? Be honest with me.
It's—it's great in terms of like making you feel better and—and you have a great workout and you get the endorphins and stuff. But also weirdly, there's the—if I have a bad week, I feel worse about it. Like if I have like a week where I haven't trained or I've put weight on and stuff like that, it makes me go, "Ah fuck, I'm letting myself down here." You know what I mean? I'm supposed to be a Gymshark athlete, you know what I mean? Like. So now there's more pressure on it if anything, but—
Are you going to fight? You've got to fight. I don't know who because you're massive.
I think I might do something like a charity boxing match at some point. Something that isn't like what the YouTubers do. I'd rather—I'm—I'm sparring quite a lot now and I'm getting some like heavyweight sparring in with like—I'm going to get some pros to spar with me and stuff like that and really push myself. I feel like what a lot of these YouTuber boys do is they call someone out and then learn how to fight. Whereas I'm actually just learning how to fight first. Because I enjoy it and—and also because I'm dedicated to what I do. Like if you look at my analysis on fighting three, four years ago when I did Logan Paul KSI 1 or Joe Weller KSI, and then look at what I can do now when I break a fight down, it is fucking so much better now.
And I think a lot of the—to be fair, a lot of the boxing and MMA fans, although they—they always disagree with you, I think a lot of them are recognizing like, "This guy's getting punched in the head just to learn fighting so he can do better videos." And that's real dedication. So that's my actual goal: to be better on camera. But I do love fighting for whatever reason. It just brings out this—all the things about me that I've probably showed in this podcast are—they come out in the—in the ring when you're being challenged and wanting to quit but keeping going anyway. Like I think every entrepreneur has that in them really. They're all fighters, they're just doing it in a different way. But when you're in a boxing ring, it really brings that out of you. And it gives you some sort of self-worth and self-esteem. Because I—I got that when I was at my lowest point really, my depression. Like all of a sudden it was like, "Yeah, I am tough. I'm not just a big lad, I'm hard as fuck as nails me." You know, and it gave me a lot—gave me a good thing in—in a time I really needed it. So if I was to do a fight, it would probably—I'd rather do it at like a social club where everyone's getting pissed drinking pints and I livestream it on my own channel or something and donate everything to charity rather than making it a like—spectacle. Yeah, I—and I'd rather fight a real amateur fighter who I respect, he respects, no trash talk. Shake hands, we'll have a pint together afterwards and you know, just something like that really.
You—when you were going through that depressive period and you started boxing, I noticed that you stopped podcasting as much. And you talked about how that was to do with money, but I—I want to know if it was also mental health.
Yeah, it was also mental health, yeah. It's hard to do a two-hour podcast, even now. I'm—I'm in a much better place now, but it's still—it comes out, we talk about it because it was my state of mind, and obviously this is a podcast about my life. But when you're really rock bottom—I could get on and we do these comedy videos for those who haven't seen, called *True News*, where we basically look at the news and we just rip the piss out of it. And you know, people like Piers Morgan and the like they get—they get a lot of stick off us. And I can do that because we can edit it down, it's—it's me and Lawrence we're laughing and joking. And then afterwards, you know, you switch off and you go back to being normal. When you're podcasting, there's really no way to hide. And that's what I love about podcasts is like you really do get a good idea of who someone is if they podcast regularly. It's hard to hide, it's hard to pretend, you know.
And that's why I didn't do it because I knew I couldn't lie to the—I didn't want to lie to the audience. I didn't want to—I'd rather come out and do like a month later when I'm feeling up to it and tell them what I've been going through. So for example when—like I say, like when my mom died I never mentioned it or when—when my dad went through his suicide attempt, I only did a podcast on it once I knew he was all right and once that moment had been and gone. It's difficult when you're a podcaster and you're living a life to—to pretend like this isn't happening to you.
You also turned off all the comments on your social media channels. I was just thinking then, I was like, I realized I can't respond to your tweets anymore or I can't reply to Instagram.
You know what, that's an interesting one, isn't it? Because it's something no YouTuber ever does because it's bad for engagement. And I did that on a couple of YouTube videos as well, and they still trended in the top 10 in the world. And I realized, well, that's bollocks then. "Oh, you need—you need comments for engagement." No, you don't actually. And you know, when you're watching something on Netflix, you're not like, "I need to comment on this." So why—why is the comment such a big deal? But mainly, I got to a point where mentally I realized this wasn't helping me. And for all I get lovely comments and shout out to the fans, you know, they make us who we are, the negative ones were so nasty at times it made me just think, "I don't need any of these."
And there's that old fucking poem, is it Rudyard Kipling, "Treat these two impostors just the same," you know? Treat—treat people who—who praise you and people who criticize you—I just thought, you can all keep your comments because I'm going to do what I'm going to do regardless to be honest with you. You—the numbers, you're watching it? Cool. But for my own mental health, I don't want to hear it. Watch it, enjoy it. Don't watch it, don't enjoy it. Vote with your feet. I don't need to read this stuff right now because it ain't helping me.
So, a lot of people, even people on my team were like, "Oh you know, you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that." And I was like, "Bro, if you're going to sit and troll through—troll through these comments and delete them all I was there the other night? Cool. But if you're not, I'm turning them off." And it's—it's really helped me that. Because it's—because it's like I put a tweet out, I put an Instagram post out, I put—and I'm not going, "What are the comments saying? Are they good? Are they bad?" I just go, "Fuck it." You know what I mean? Like the video is the video.
And that's who I really am because I truly—I don't want to sound like—it's a weird thing to say I don't give a fuck, but like I do give a fuck in a way, if that makes sense? Like I want you to enjoy it, but if you don't enjoy it, cool. But if you're then going to try and insult me for it or say anything bad about me, I'm not interested. You know what I mean? Because I know I'm a good person, I know I look after the people around me, I know I've got a lot of good qualities and I don't need you guys tearing me down right now. So that's sort of the way I look at it, just—
§02Transcript — part 2
It’s so—it's so surprising. One would say it was—it's not surprising to me because I think I've—I've spent a long time talking to people on this topic, but it would be surprising to someone viewing in thinking, "True Geordie, big man, you know, says he doesn't give a fuck, swears down the camera all the time," and then for him to be affected by the comments on Instagram. It feels like a—it feels like a contradiction, doesn't it? To the outside person who's viewing in.
But then as you—okay, so to be absolutely brutally honest then, to really narrow it down for someone who might think that there is a contradiction, it's like I don't mind whether you like me or hate me. I'm actually fine with that. But if you insult me, that will hurt my feelings. So I'm choosing not to listen to either side. Because I truly don't care if you like me or hate me. You know what I mean? I don't care. I just don't want to hear it because then I will care. And I don't want to have to do that. And that's the truth. You know what I mean? And I'm comfortable with that reality of some people will like me, some people won't like me.
And I think to be as honest as have from day one and just be like "Fuck it, put it out there" like that. I'm not—I'm not trying to make people dislike me. If anything, I want to make people enjoy life, forget about their problems, have a laugh. And as probably as passionate as I've come across here sometimes, I'm really like a lighthearted person and surprisingly I think one of the main things people say about me when they get to know me is I'm actually really chilled out off-camera. But when the camera comes on, I know it's time to fucking do what I do and it's like the volume goes up and the opinions become more powerful, more passionate, more definitive. You know what I mean? And I don't know, that's just what I've learned to do.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve come to learn about you as well. I think the first time I met you I remember thinking, "God, he's such a—such a soft, nice, kind gentleman."
I am—I am soft as shit actually.
But then there's this—this exterior which is—can be quite—can be quite like aggressive at times and self-sabotaging. It comes back to what we started the podcast on really, is—is that two sides to me. Like and I kind of called it my mom and my dad, but yeah, very much so. Like there's my mom's side of me which makes me the caring and compassionate interviewer who can pull things out of people I think other people can't and make people feel like it's okay to share that. And then there's the arrogant show-off who has a huge ego sometimes and that is my dad's qualities you know, coming out in me. And I—I am lucky to have both of those, you know, because it is such a weird combo. But yeah.
I guess—is that it?
Yeah, that’s it, yeah. No, I—I genuinely—I've been fascinated by you for—by you for so long, and the more you shared and the more vulnerable you've been online, the more it's—it's all started to make sense to some degree.
Oh yeah, oh yeah. And I'm—I'm looking forward to see where we go with it, you know, because I want to dig deeper. I want to—I want to be even more vulnerable. I want to—I want to go further in the future, but I got to grow—I like to grow as a person and then let it come out like in stages. Because you know—you know how people like us we—we sort of we're mulling things over on a daily basis: "Who am I? What am I becoming? Is this the direction I want to go in?" All these fucking questions. And when you do that every single day and you're laying a brick in the house that eventually becomes like the person you are in your life, three months to someone like that is a lot. They can do a lot. So yeah, I—I feel like we can—I'm looking forward to find out that direction and and hopefully making a shitload of money as I said. That's the—if anyone—any—I know a lot of investors listen to this podcast, if you—if you [email protected] if you want to—
Well, we’ll end it there. But no, I genuinely—do you know crazy things—crazy things have happened from people that have listened to this podcast, so I know that a certain big brand got a very big deal off the back of—
Oh really? Yeah, big. Probably worth seven, eight, nine figures. So—
Right. Okay then. I’m on the right podcast. Finally, finally. I came here to do you a fucking favor, but it could work out for me.
No, but you have. You really've done me a favor because, you know, we had—just for anyone that's listening, we had a guest move till next week and bloody Ben Francis. Honestly, if I wasn't his favorite employee I'd better be now, I tell you. But I—I text you, I think yesterday or the day before and you've, you know, moved things around to be here so I appreciate that and I owe you a big, big favor, but—and you didn't have to, you know what I mean? We're all very busy so I do honestly appreciate that.
Nah, we’ve always—we've always got on all right, mate. And I've always—I like obsessive people who are pushing themselves to the limit and I—I appreciate what you're doing and you've always been respectful of the—the space that we're in because I feel like you're trying to bridge the gap a bit between mainstream, hence the TV show and all the other stuff, but also the space that I come from and you don't talk down to people who are on this side. And I think there's a lot of people who are in the mainstream who sort of—they just don't know what the fuck we're doing over here and by the time they do it'll be too late and they'll be swallowed by this industry. So I'm coming for your job.
I agree, man. And you know, I—I look at you as a businessman and I genuinely, and I'm sure a ton of people watching this will as well, I just see—and I've always seen a massive opportunity because I do think what you do represents the future and I also think the way you present your content and not having the filter also represents the future. Because the reason we have watershed and this and the BBC are so scared of everything—even though I'm now on the BBC—is because of the medium in which we deliver the content: TV and screens. But look at Sky. If you look at Sky's social media, they're trying to copy us every step of the way now. They're trying to do what we do, you know what I mean? And that's a compliment, you know.
And they’re pulling YouTubers in from—
Oh mate, all the—all the time. But when Sky set up their own version of The Kick Off, that was the ultimate compliment and when it went down in flames within two years it was an even bigger compliment.
We’re going to end the podcast here. But we'll talk—we'll talk offline about, you know, if there's any way—now I'm a free agent, maybe there's some way that I can help you get the value that you've—
Oh mate, imagine. Imagine you were the guy who finally sold True Geordie to the mainstream and made it all happen. If you can do that, then you'll really prove yourself. But we'll leave—we'll let Steven Bartlett go and do his Dragon's Den thing for now. Okay, Brian, but if you really want to see if he's good, can he sell True Geordie? That sounds like a challenge. I love it. I love how he plays with your ego. I know. Just to see. If you knew me as well I was like "I'll be going upstairs like fucking hey!" No, well done on Dragon's Den. I appreciate it, mate. Thank you, bro. Amazing, isn't it?
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