Trisha Paytas: Secrets of a YouTube Sensation Revealed

For most influencers, the adoration of millions of fans is their life blood. Lose it and lose your income with it. 

The fear then of being 'canceled' over some viral controversy surely weighs heavy on their minds - and pockets. But for Trisha Paytas, 37, being ripped apart online for her insensitive remarks, public spats with fellow YouTubers or her latest obscene stunt is just par for the course.

That's because she has already been canceled more times than arguably any other person on the Internet. In fact, Paytas has managed to turn being perpetually canceled into a lucrative empire with an estimated of $14 million.

And with the bizarre announcement that she's weighing a  run in this year - despite having no political experience - it is clear there's no telling what Paytas's next move will be.

Jordan Worona, her former manager, believes it is part of Paytas's 'mentality' that, with every online scandal, she just keeps coming back stronger.

'She has one of my favorite quotes of all time,' Worona told the Daily Mail. 'She was getting canceled for the gazillionth time, and she was like, "I can't be canceled. You guys can't cancel me. You can shame me, but you can't cancel me. I'll just keep coming back." And it's completely true.'

It was 2007 when Paytas, then 18, posted her first video to YouTube, a platform that had only been around for two years at the time.

Since then, she has gained a whopping 5.14 million subscribers on her YouTube channel, where she goes by the nonsensical username 'blndsundoll4mj,' as well as 1.9 million followers on Instagram and 11 million on TikTok.

Seemingly no part of her life has gone undocumented.

Whether it was filming herself hysterically crying on her kitchen floor, her 'mukbang' eating challenges (where she'd stuff her face with enough fast food to feed a family), or even dramatically claiming she was transgender (before rowing that back), Paytas has become one of the most iconic - and controversial - figures in YouTube history.

At the height of her fame, she appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, starred in an Eminem music video as a parody of singer Jessica Simpson, and in 2017 went on Celebrity Big Brother and went viral for saying she doesn't 'believe' in gravity. 

Along the way, she has been particularly candid about her weight. At her heaviest she clocked in at 234lbs, and has filmed herself trying various fad diets. Though recently, she posted a video simply titled: 'I'm Fat... that's OK.'

According to Gabriel Zamora, a fellow YouTuber and social media influencer, Paytas's ability to remain relevant in a constantly changing industry has been the secret to her success.

'Anybody on the internet has a whiff of desperation or yearning for success,' Zamora told the Daily Mail. 'Earlier on, we really saw it in Trisha when she was the controversial person wanting that attention. Now, she's kind of solidified the name Trisha Paytas.

'If you can survive a decade in entertainment, you kind of solidify yourself to a certain degree.'

Paytas moved away from her small 'farm town' in Illinois to Los Angeles at age 17, the day after her high school graduation. Unlike most hopefuls who move to the city with a dream, she didn't have her sights set on becoming a singer or actress. For Paytas, she simply craved notoriety.

'I just wanted to be famous,' she told Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper in 2024.

Paytas landed various television gigs, including an episode of My Strange Addiction as a self-admitted tanning addict - which she later revealed was 'a lie' to be on the show.

She also appeared in music videos for artists including Amy Winehouse and The All-American Rejects.

To support herself, Paytas began working at strip clubs in Los Angeles and charging $5,000 for weekend dates as an escort, she previously revealed to Rolling Stone.

She described her drug use during this time on the Call Her Daddy podcast, telling Cooper that she was frequently snorting cocaine and 'woke up in the back of a truck multiple times' while working as an escort.

And it was around then that Paytas started her YouTube channel, originally dedicated to her favorite Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino.

But soon, Paytas's content evolved into beauty tutorials, shopping hauls, candid posts about being plus size and 'trolling' videos in which she would say outlandish things like 'dogs don't have brains' and that she was voting for Mitt Romney.

The YouTuber would later admit in an interview with Business Insider that she was 'dumbing [her]self down' to get attention, 'not really understanding more people would watch if I was just real and true to who I was.'

Some of those controversial videos included clips of her pretending to be a Japanese popstar named Trishii in 2012, in which she appeared to wear blackface and put on a racist Japanese accent. These videos were later removed due to backlash.

She also posted a video in which she claimed her ethnicity has changed and identified as Black, before citing racial stereotypes associated with Black people as the reason why she thinks she's not white.

Paytas also has a history of rapping the N-word in videos posted to her YouTube channel, all of which have also been removed.

'She's definitely a controversial figure,' Zamora said. 'There are probably quite a lot of people who don't like her because of her past videos and past instances.'

In 2021, Paytas faced accusations of antisemitism amid a falling out with her former Frenemies podcast co-host Ethan Klein, who is Jewish. Klein is also the brother-in-law of Paytas's now-husband, Israeli artist Moses Hacmon.

During a dispute over financial negotiations, a series of leaked text messages showed Paytas using the word 'Jewy' to describe their monetary spat.

Following backlash over the surfaced texts, Paytas apologized for her comment and maintained that she was not antisemitic.

Her former manager Worona, who is also Jewish, insisted to the Daily Mail that despite facing accusations of antisemitism, Paytas is not 'against any group of people' at all.

'She is not antisemitic, and I'm positive about that. I'm Jewish, too, and she does have a certain interest in Judaism,' he said.

'I think that she definitely has said some things. She says some probably really inappropriate stuff like that, but in her heart of hearts I don't think she's antisemitic or against any group of people.'

By 2015, Paytas had amassed 1.6 million subscribers on YouTube and began to release her own original music. That year, she debuted a music video for her original song titled Fat Chicks, which she described as an empowerment anthem.

'I figured why not do a video taking the negative connotation in "fat" away. If I call myself fat, they can't use that against me,' she said at the time.

Paytas would go on to release another viral music video for her controversial song, I Love You Jesus, in 2017 - marking her most popular track to date, with 12 million streams on Spotify and 10 million views on YouTube.

But according to Worona, Paytas 'doesn't really care' at all about how many streams or views her videos get.

'I'm sure she gets a lot of hate-watchers too, but for the most part, her dedicated audience will watch any single thing she does,' he said.

'She's probably on the verge of being more of the original creators because she really has that personality to be original.'

Despite the viral success, her videos also showed that Paytas appeared to be battling something far more serious in her personal life, including apparent struggles with her gender identity and an ongoing battle with mental illness.

In 2019, the YouTuber sparked controversy when .

Paytas said in a 15-minute video she believed she was trans because she felt more masculine than feminine and was attracted to other gay men.

But viewers were left outraged by the announcement, accusing Paytas, who once said she identified as a chicken nugget, of exploiting the LGBTQ+ community and making clickbait out of transgender identity.

In response to the backlash, Paytas posted a nearly 19-minute-long video apologizing for offending her fans 'with my language and the way I said things.' 

She said she 'would never' intentionally 'mock a community that I've loved and that has loved me,' though she maintained that she still feels 'like a prisoner in my own body.'

In 2021, Paytas came out as nonbinary in a video posted to YouTube, revealing that she used they/them pronouns.

As for the backlash to her widely criticized video about being transgender, Paytas said: 'That video was never meant to be offensive or a troll. It came across as bad and wrong and I didn't know "non-binary" back then. I really just thought, "I'm really a male."'

Today, Paytas continues to use both they/them and she/her pronouns, according to her Instagram and TikTok bios.

It was also in 2019 that Paytas revealed she had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) - a condition characterized by emotional dysregulation, extreme mood swings and impulsive behaviors, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Paytas detailed her diagnosis in a 2024 TikTok video, as she described her symptoms.

'I couldn't control my emotions, the way I reacted to things,' she said on TikTok.

However, Paytas said that her mental health struggles began long before she found YouTube fame.

She described herself in the TikTok video as always being 'a little bit of a loner,' and having an undiagnosed mental illness as early as age 12.

Paytas said she was initially misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. She also famously sparked backlash in 2020 for diagnosing herself with dissociative identity disorder in a YouTube video titled 'MEET MY ALTERS' (as in, her claimed alternative personalities), which drew criticism from mental health professionals for spreading misinformation about the disorder.

Paytas said in the video that she was first hospitalized for a 'downward spiral' in 2007, shortly after she moved to Los Angeles. She suffered a more public mental breakdown in 2018, which was largely documented on her YouTube channel, as well as what she described as a 'bit of a psychotic break' in 2021.

'I realized, like, maybe I need to do something about this,' Paytas said on TikTok.

She was ultimately hospitalized three times throughout 2019, where she said she underwent dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), a form of talk therapy for individuals with BPD, and developed meditation and breathing exercises as treatment for her BPD.

As for her reported psychotic break in 2021, Paytas credited her husband in the video for supporting her throughout the mental health crisis.

'I thought if he's sticking by me, and he believes in me, I need to start sticking by me and believing in me and bettering myself and love myself because this person is loving me through all this,' she reflected in the clip.

Paytas and Hacmon were married in December 2021, and have since gone on to welcome three children. Online, however, her kids' unconventional names have been at the center of many viral memes, as well as a .

In September 2022, Paytas gave birth to their first child, daughter Malibu Barbie, followed by a second daughter named Elvis in June 2024. They welcomed their son, Aquaman Moses, in July 2025.

Fans of Paytas then created the viral theory that her children are all the reincarnated souls of famous and historical people, considering their birth dates all came around the time of a major celebrity death.

For those who have closely followed Paytas's journey from YouTube 'troll' to mother of three, it has been satisfying to witness the influencer's career trajectory and personal growth.

Despite her countless controversies and multiple cancelations, Paytas herself has acknowledged how each internet scandal has been a learning lesson.

'Truly, cancellations always teach you something,' she told Rolling Stone in 2024. 'You're always like, "What did I do that was wrong or f***ed up?" So I've been thankful.'

Zamora called himself a fan of Paytas because she has been 'a great example of accountability' to other influencers who have been faced with similar backlash or outrage online.

'Maybe not to everybody's degree of what accountability should be,' he added. 'But in a state of constant conversation about cancel culture and canceling influencers when they do bad things.'

These days, it seems that Paytas's career has shifted away from making trolling content on YouTube.

In 2024, she signed with Creative Arts Agency - her first entertainment agency in the 17 years of being on the internet.

Just one year later, Paytas fulfilled a lifelong dream of making her Broadway debut with the one-night-only show, Trisha Paytas' Big Broadway Dream.

She then headlined her own US tour with 35 performances of The Eras of Trish Tour, which ran last year from February to June, followed by a limited run as Maxine Dean in the Broadway musical Beetlejuice last November.

As for her next move, Paytas has in 2026.

In a YouTube video titled '2026 MANIFESTATIONS' uploaded in January, Paytas said she 'would love to run' for her US House of Representatives seat in California.

'I know, it sounds so crazy to me, too,' she told her fans in the video that was filmed in her car, in true Paytas fashion.

'I really want to be able to truly make a difference because I see so much horrible stuff happening in the world - and happening right here in California as well.'

However, her former manager shared his thoughts on influencers who shift their content toward politics.

'I have a really strong opinion on this, and it's not anti-Tricia. It's anti-influencers doing this,' Worona said. 'Anybody who would be a one policy candidate, or somebody who doesn't have a deep understanding of service in politics, I wouldn't want any of those people to ever run.'

Of course, there is the chance that Paytas had briefly reverted back to her 'trolling' ways when she made the political announcement on YouTube. 

But if one thing is for certain, there's truly no telling what the YouTube star will say next.

The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Paytas for comment.