Nationwide — Khaby Lame, who has greater than 162 million followers on TikTok and made greater than $20 million from the platform in 2024 alone, was briefly detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on June 6 at Harry Reid Worldwide Airport in Las Vegas. Based on an official ICE assertion to AFP, Lame was held for immigration violations after overstaying his visa. He had entered america on April 30 and was launched the identical day of his detention. ICE additionally confirmed that Lame has since left america.
Newsweek experiences that 25-year-old Lame, whose actual title is Seringe Khabane Lame, is an Italian citizen initially from Senegal. As of Saturday afternoon, he had not publicly addressed the incident on social media. Recognized to thousands and thousands for his signature silent response movies, the influencer is the best earner on TikTok, making him one of the crucial common figures on the platform. Regardless of the controversy, there was no quick signal that the incident had affected his standing with followers or his international model partnerships.
Lame’s TikTok account persistently shows his signature fashion which includes poking enjoyable at unnecessarily sophisticated life hacks and on-line tutorials. He ends every video with a now-iconic gesture: arms outstretched with palms turned upward, wide-eyed and smiling as if to say, “Why make issues more durable than they should be?” This distinctive method has resonated with audiences all over the world, serving to him stand out in a crowded social media house.
His artistic spark first ignited in 2020 after dropping his job as a manufacturing facility mechanic through the pandemic. Wandering the working-class neighborhood of Chivasso close to Turin, the place he grew up, Lame started producing content material utilizing his telephone and a easy message: simplicity might be highly effective. The system rapidly caught on, and his viewers grew by the thousands and thousands.
From June 2022 to September 2023, Lame reportedly earned $16.5 million by a wide range of model sponsorships, in response to Forbes. These included partnerships with main international corporations desperate to faucet into his monumental attain and affect. His success has made him not solely considered one of TikTok’s prime creators but additionally considered one of its highest-paid.
The timing of Lame’s detention comes amid heightened immigration enforcement below U.S. President Donald Trump, who took workplace in January and has since launched a large-scale deportation marketing campaign. Although many points of the administration’s immigration insurance policies have been challenged in U.S. courts, the ICE motion towards Lame displays the tightened scrutiny even high-profile guests might face below present laws.
