Jake Paul, 23, is one half of the Paul brothers, two of the most recognisable and controversial YouTube stars. Jake Paul garnered online fame before even graduating from high school, and found early notoriety as a star on the Disney Channel. Since then, Paul has gained millions of followers across social media who watch his outlandish pranks and vlogs, often featuring his many friends and collaborators in his mansion in Calabasas, California. Forbes estimated in 2017 that he was worth US$11.5 million. But his career has also been marked by a string of controversies. Paul’s mansion was raided by the FBI last Wednesday in part of an ongoing investigation related to his arrest for alleged looting and vandalism at an Arizona mall in May. Law enforcement officers seized several guns from the property, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department says. Here’s everything you need to know about the YouTube star. Jake Paul was born on January 17, 1997, and grew up in a suburb of Cleveland with his parents and older brother (and fellow YouTuber), Logan. The two brothers started making videos as children after their father gave them a video camera one year for Christmas. YouTube stars like PewDiePie, Logan Paul punished less for breaking site’s rules Jake, who was 10 at the time, said he and his brother would film “comedic bits” around the house. “We were posting them to YouTube and just generally having a good time, and the people at school thought we were funny,” he told the Cleveland Plain-Dealer in 2016. As a sophomore in high school, Jake Paul joined the wrestling team. He got “really serious” about it, and video making with his brother took a back seat. However, that changed when the video-sharing app Vine came out in 2012. Paul said he downloaded it “the first day it came out,” and he gradually rose in popularity on the app. By the time Vine shut down in early 2017, Paul had 5.3 million followers and nearly 2 billion video plays. “We didn’t care what people thought. We were the loud brothers from Cleveland, kind of crazy, and that made us relatable,” Paul said in a 2016 interview. “We were in the right place at the right time, and we were making more money than our parents before we knew it.” When it came time for his senior year of high school, the younger Paul brother decided to finish his diploma online and move to Los Angeles with his older brother. “We knew we had to move to Los Angeles if we wanted to pursue this as a full-time thing,” Jake Paul said. “We immediately started taking acting and improv classes and making connections, while still doing the video thing.” They’re having this large party, no social distancing, no masks, it’s just a big, huge disregard for everything that everybody is trying to do to get things back to functioning Calabasas Mayor Alicia Weintraub after Jake Paul hosted a day-long party at his mansion Paul’s first film role came thanks to YouTube: He was cast in Dance Camp , a movie the platform debuted on its paid streaming subscription service, YouTube Red. He also scored small roles in films like Mono and Airplane Mode , in which his brother was the main character. Paul entered the mainstream when he was cast in 2015 as the main character in a Disney Channel show called Bizaardvark. Paul said his character, Dirk Mann, was “a perfect fit” for him. In the show, Dirk was an online video star that hosted a channel where he performed crazy stunts and challenges. As his acting career took off, Paul formed Team 10, a group of social media influencers that he essentially took under his wing to make content with and groom into even bigger stars. The earliest members of Team 10 members included social media stars including Alissa Violet, and Lucas and Marcus Dobre. Team 10 moved into an US$18,000-a-month rented house in Los Angeles’ Beverly Grove neighbourhood in August 2016. Alongside acting, Paul continued to create content on YouTube, where his channel now has more than 20 million subscribers. His channel hosts videos of over-the-top stunts, wild vlogs, and Jackass-style challenges. One of his earliest attention-grabbing stunts took place when he was invited to the White House in January 2017 for a social media event, along with other online stars. Paul proceeded to sneak away from the crowd, hideout for hours in the White House bathroom, and sneak out in the middle of the night without being caught by security. That same month, on his 20th birthday, Paul officially unveiled TeamDom, a creative talent agency aimed at helping influencers grow their audience and secure brand deals. Paul announced TeamDom had raised US$1 million in venture capital, and Team 10 as the agency’s talent roster. It didn’t take long before Team 10 started to get more attention – but not the positive kind. Team 10 member Alissa Violet was kicked out of the squad’s house in early 2017 after Paul publicly accused her of cheating on him, and a feud between the former couple ensued across social media. In July 2017, neighbours living around the Team 10 house complained that Paul had turned their quiet community into a “living hell” and “war zone,” and that it was frequently invaded by screaming teenage fans because Paul publicised his address online. Neighbours were debating whether to file a class-action public nuisance lawsuit against him, but Paul and Team 10 had moved out of the neighbourhood and into a new home in Calabasas by October 2017. That didn’t stop the landlord of the former Team 10 house from filing a US$2.5 million lawsuit against the YouTuber in 2018 for allegedly trashing the rented house. Paul felt the fallout from the incident with the Team 10 house and its neighbours. Disney announced that Paul would not return to his role on Bizaardvark for the second season. “At this point in time I am wanting to focus more on my personal brand, my YouTube channel, business ventures, growing Team 10, and working on more adult acting roles,” Paul wrote on Twitter. Beyond Team 10, Paul has also ventured into music and has released a flurry of songs over the years. One the music videos for his song called It’s Everyday Bro is the third-most-disliked video on YouTube, with over 4.4 million thumbs down votes. Paul’s music has also been a source of controversy. In a video leaked in January 2018, Paul dropped the N-word twice while freestyle rapping. A source told TMZ at the time that Paul had “matured a lot” since the video was recorded. Around this time, Paul started dating YouTuber and model Erika Costell. Costell was briefly Team 10’s chief operating officer after the former COO left in May 2018. The couple broke up at the end of 2018, and Costell also departed from Team 10. Over the years, members have come and gone amid controversial management, relationships, and drama. Two transgender YouTubers said they were kicked out of the Team 10 house after a video editor told them they weren’t “real girls.” The YouTube channel and Instagram page for Team 10 have not been active since September 2019. The group’s Instagram bio reads: “who will leave next? stay tuned!!!!!!!” Paul drew negative attention in 2019 for actions both on and off of YouTube. He was criticised for advertising “mystery boxes” on his channel derided as scams, and was reportedly the subject of a police investigation related to allegations that a woman was drugged at a party held at Paul’s Team 10 house in May 2019. In 2019, fans followed Paul along his wild ride of a relationship with fellow YouTuber, Tana Mongeau. The couple started dating in May 2019 in what many speculated was a joke. The couple maintained that their love was real. Paul and Mongeau got married in July, 2019 in a Las Vegas wedding that reportedly cost US$500,000. Mongeau released a YouTube video on December 29 where she hinted that her and Paul’s relationship had gone downhill since their wedding night – which she called “just hell”. Days later, the couple announced they were “taking a break” from their relationship “to focus on our own very crazy lives.” In an Instagram post, Paul wrote: “This is bitter sweet but it’s what’s best for us right now.” Paul, who wrestled in high school, has followed in his older brother’s footsteps by taking part in various boxing boxes. He is currently preparing for a match against Nate Robinson, a former NBA player, in September. Paul was charged in May with unlawful assembly and trespassing after a video showed him at a mall that was being looted and vandalised in Scottsdale, Arizona. In May, Paul was charged with criminal trespassing and unlawful assembly after he and his videographer Andrew Blue had both posted footage on Instagram that showed chaos and vandalism at the Scottsdale Fashion Square mall in Arizona. As cases of the novel coronavirus continued to spike throughout Los Angeles, many influencers and creators – including Paul himself – continued to party and flout social-distancing guidelines. Paul hosted a day-long party at his Calabasas home in July as he filmed a new music video. Calabasas Mayor Alicia Weintraub told local Fox affiliate network Fox 11 that she was outraged by the event. “They’re having this large party, no social distancing, no masks, it’s just a big, huge disregard for everything that everybody is trying to do to get things back to functioning,” she said. In an interview with Insider, Paul said he wasn’t sure if he would give up partying during the pandemic. “I don’t know what to think of it, to be honest. I don’t think anyone really does,” Paul said of the pandemic. “No one has answers, our leadership is failing us, and everyone kind of just doesn’t know what to do. But I personally am not the type of person who’s gonna sit around and not live my life.” On August 5, Paul’s Calabasas mansion was searched by the FBI as part of an ongoing investigation related to the Scottsdale mall incident, a spokesperson for the agency’s Phoenix field office said. Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department officers assisted the FBI’s search, a spokesperson said, transporting several guns from the property. The FBI could not comment on whether the guns were being used as evidence in the investigation because of the sealed affidavit.