Adam Saleh Canadian YouTuber Born 1993 in New York City

Early life

Adam Saleh was born in New York City in 1993. He studied at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. By his own account, he once hoped to become a lawyer, but a different path opened up when his videos began to find an audience.

Career

Saleh began posting videos in 2012 on a shared channel called TrueStoryASA, which he ran with two friends from his school days, Abdullah Ghuman and Sheikh Akbar. The channel mixed vlogs, comedy sketches and what he calls social experiments. His first wide exposure came after he appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where he was invited for his dance antics. He has described the day of that taping as a turning point, because he skipped a final examination to attend and afterwards committed to YouTube full time.

When TrueStoryASA came to an end, Saleh took over the main channel and the vlog channel and renamed them "Adam Saleh" and "Adam Saleh Vlogs". As of October 2025 his main YouTube channel counted about 4.66 million subscribers, and he is described as a YouTuber and vlogger.

Music was his first move outside video. In 2015 he released the single "Diamond Girl", which came out on 3 May with Sheikh Akbar and Mumzy Stranger as part of TrueStoryASA. On 16 August 2015 he followed it with his first solo single, "Tears", recorded with Zack Knight and written as a tribute to his cousin and his uncle. His debut album, Chapter II, arrived in September 2017 and included collaborations with several artists, among them Faydee on "Waynak", Kennyon Brown on "The Motto" and Demarco on "All You Can Handle".

Some of his videos have attracted public criticism. A clip uploaded in October 2014 and titled "Racial Profiling Experiment" showed Saleh and Akbar arguing in front of a police officer, first in Western clothing and then in traditional dress, with the officer reacting differently each time. It was widely shared, and Saleh later said it had been staged to illustrate events that happen to people. The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which had earlier circulated the video, asked the two men to apologise. In 2018 he and other YouTubers were also covered in a BBC Trending report about promotion of an essay-writing website.

Boxing became the other main strand of his public work. On 18 February 2018 he accepted a challenge to become the next boxing opponent of the British YouTuber KSI. His first recorded bout took place on 29 September 2019 at York Hall in London, a charity event for Yemen, where he beat the amateur Marcus Stephenson by unanimous decision.

He then took part in exhibition fights. On 30 July 2021, at the first Social Knockout event, held at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai, he met the Iraqi TikToker Walid Sharks over three rounds, and the judges returned a majority draw. At the second Social Knockout event in Dubai he defeated the Jordanian influencer Anas Elshayb by unanimous decision.

His professional debut came on 10 September 2022 at the Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles. He fought the American YouTuber Landon McBroom for the ICB International middleweight belt, and the judges scored it a draw. On 26 February 2023, on the undercard of Jake Paul against Tommy Fury at Diriyah Arena in Saudi Arabia, he faced the American TikToker Stuart Kellogg. The bout was stopped when Kellogg could not continue, which gave Saleh a win and a professional record of one win, one draw and no losses.