Over the weekend, TikTok star Khaby Lame was arrested in the United States for breaking immigration laws.
Despite being the most followed account on the planet with over 162 million followers and 2.5 billion likes, the Italian influencer was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Friday, June 6 when he tried to leave the country.
Born in Senegal, Lame travelled to the United States on April 30 to be ready for the Met Gala on May 5. He worked with Hugo Boss to get him ready for the occasion.
But after that, or at least from the minute he tried to leave Las Vegas, his vacation took a turn for the worse.
In a statement issued to AFP, ICE confirmed, “US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Seringe Khabane Lame, 25, a citizen of Italy, June 6, at the Harry Reid International Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada for immigration violations.”
The report continued by explaining that the UNICEF goodwill ambassador was released the same day and ‘has already fled the US’ after being detained for ‘overstaying the limits of his visa’.
Lame hasn’t responded to the problem on social media, claiming it was only a minor setback in his well-known life. He even uploaded a promotional video of himself mining with Tony the Tiger of Kelloggs on TikTok yesterday, acting like a character from the video game Minecraft.
Lame only started uploading videos on the platform in 2020 after losing his factory job during the Covid-19 pandemic, thus his life was very different from what it is now five years ago.
Speaking to Today last year, he explained, “I started during the pandemic when I lost my job. I started to make happy videos on social media, but was never thinking that they were gonna grow like this, you know?”
“I was just making videos to make people happy.”
When asked whether he knew what it was about his videos that made people all around the world love them, he replied, “I think people like my videos for the expression, for the simplicity there, because it’s a simple video.”
“And then the effect that I don’t talk is a universal language. All the people can understand and be part of the comedy without having words. They just have to watch the video and enjoy it.”
He shared a video of himself wearing a Los Angeles Lakers jersey with Kobe Bryant on the back in addition to his appearance at the Met Gala.
