Logan Paul is the Maverick, while Jake Paul is the Problem Child. As their nicknames suggest, the sibling influencers are unapologetically themselves in everything they do—be it their viral videos or their headline-grabbing athletic feats.
The brothers share their side of their meteoric rise to fame in Paul American, a new reality show that debuted Thursday on Max. The eight-part series is meant to showcase “the good, the bad, and the ugly” of the duo’s celebrity status, as well as the personal bonds that keep them grounded.
For 29-year-old Logan and 28-year-old Jake, their fame as teenage social media stars was a family affair. Although their competitive nature led them to a very public feud, the brothers have since regained their close bond.
“We got sucked into the Los Angeles madness, and it got the better of us, and we had to realize, like, look, we’re brothers at the end of the day,” Jake said in 2023. “That’s more important than any of this other stuff that we have going on and once we figured that out, we have worked together to take over a lot of industries.”
Here’s a look at how the brothers got their start, quelled their animosity, and built their respective sports and entertainment empires.
Jake and Logan became social media stars on Vine and YouTube
Logan and Jake grew up in Westlake, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, and didn’t shy away from the spotlight as kids. When Jake was around 10, he and his older brother began making videos after their father, Greg Paul, gifted them a video camera for Christmas. “We did that, just messing around, for about four years, but we weren’t serious about it. We were posting them to YouTube and just generally having a good time, and the people at school thought we were funny,” Jake later told Cleveland.com.
However, social media became serious business for the boys in 2013 after Jake downloaded Vine, the first widely popular video app featuring looping clips up to six seconds long. Soon, Logan and Jake were posting videos and often appearing onscreen together. Their respective uploads, showing pranks and stunts such as jumping over cars and yelling inside book stores, proved immensely popular. Jake and Logan combined to attract more than 14 million Vine subscribers by the app’s dissolution in 2016.
The success caused Logan to drop out of Ohio University and move to Los Angeles. Jake similarly dropped out of high school, opting to finish his education online and follow his brother West in 2014. As competitors began challenging Vine’s dominance, the brothers focused on growing their respective YouTube audiences. Around this time, Jake established the Team 10 social media brand of content creators.
Beyond the internet, the duo forayed into TV and movies in addition to starting their own business ventures. In 2016, Jake began a recurring role as Dirk Mann across 42 episodes of the Disney Channel series Bizaardvaark, starring emerging singer and actor Olivia Rodrigo. He also cofounded the mobile sports betting company Betr in 2022 and W, a line of men’s care products, in 2024.
Logan competed as the “Grandpa Monster” on the Fox reality show The Masked Singer in 2021 and partnered with social media influencer KSI to create Prime, a line of sports and energy drinks, in 2022. He also oversees Maverick, his personal brand and accompanying clothing line.
As of this year, the Paul brothers have accumulated 43.5 million subscribers on their personal YouTube channels. Logan has an additional channel for Impaulsive, his long-form podcast that launched in November 2018. He has interviewed a variety of high-profile guests from sports, entertainment, and politics, including then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in June 2024.
Some of their videos were highly controversial
While pranks and their candid chats generated millions of views, Jake and Logan’s videos also drew negative headlines.
In December 2017, Logan posted a vlog from the Aokigahara, a Japanese forest near Mount Fuji infamously known for the amount of suicides attempted there. The video, which showed Logan wandering through the forest with friends, included uncensored footage of a deceased man who had apparently taken his life. Although the video immediately went viral with 6 million views in one day, Logan removed it following intense criticism over the inclusion of the man’s body. Logan uploaded his own clip apologizing for his “severe and continuous lapse in my judgement” and later spoke about the controversy in an interview with ABC News.
“The idea was to just do another fun vlog, go camp for a night, and make an entertaining piece of content in a forest, and things obviously changed pretty drastically and quickly,” he told Michael Strahan. Logan also suggested that parents should do a better job of vetting social media content watched by their children. According to Rolling Stone, he pledged to donate $1 million to causes raising suicide awareness.
Jake wasn’t immune from backlash, either. In 2017, his neighbors in the Beverly Grove area of Los Angeles considered a class-action lawsuit to declare the influencer a “public nuisance” over his stunt videos. That same year, Jake made xenophobic comments to a fan from Kazakhstan in one of his videos.
Then in 2020, authorities charged Jake with criminal trespassing and unlawful assembly after Instagram videos appeared to show him looting a mall in Scottsdale, Arizona. The charges were later dropped.
The brothers feuded through their music
Jake and Logan’s respective channels also provided a public forum when they started feuding with each other in 2017. Their relatively civil battle to attract more subscribers turned personal when Jake released “It’s Everyday Bro,” a song directed at his former collaborator and one-time rumored girlfriend Alissa Violet.
After Logan criticized the song on camera, Jake uploaded the diss track “Logang Sucks” aimed directly toward his older brother, mocking his channel and music. “You was poppin’ on Vine, but now your content s––,” Jake rapped.
In response, Logan posted the opening verse of his own song “The Fall Of Jake Paul,” which ended on a teaser showing a woman opening a car door. Logan later released the full track, revealing Violet as the anonymous woman and singing about her move to the “Logang.” At one point, Logan quipped about Jake, “This song will be the death of you, I’m ’bout to be an only child!”
But before their feud spiraled out of control, the two stopped the string of diss tracks and appeared onscreen together for the song “I Love You Bro,” in which Jake raps about wishing “our war would end.” Logan responds in kind: “Yeah we may have had one small brawl / But I can move on, and so should y’all.”
A year after the videos, Violet said she had a sexual encounter with Logan following her separation from Jake and Team 10, suggesting the siblings’ war of words was legitimate and not just a stunt designed to attract views. But by that time, the brothers were apparently on better terms.
Logan is now in WWE, while Jake boxes
The siblings aren’t afraid to back up their tough talk, as evidenced by their burgeoning athletic careers. Following his first amateur match in 2018, Jake has become a major TV draw as a boxer. His megafight with Mike Tyson in November 2024 drew 60 million household streams on Netflix and earned him a reported $40 million. Logan accompanied him in a customized Chevy truck for his procession to the ring, a sign of their close relationship.
Meanwhile, Logan entered the boxing ring himself, most notably facing former champion Floyd Mayweather in a 2021 exhibition. Logan is currently under contract as a WWE superstar. He began appearing on company programming in April 2021 and competed in his first match at WrestleMania 38, teaming with the Miz against Rey and Dominik Mysterio. Since January, the influencer has had a recurring role on the WWE’s weekly Raw program.
Although he’s a newcomer compared to many of his competitors, Logan has been vocal about his desire to prove he belongs. “The only thing that’s preventing me from being potentially one of the greatest in this sport is the time and energy that I put into it, which is the one thing I’m good at. So if I do that, I don’t see why I can’t get there,” Logan told ESPN in 2022.
As the brothers start their own families, they remain connected
Paul American gives viewers a closer look at the brothers’ personal lives today. Logan is engaged to model Nina Agdal, 32, and the couple has a daughter, Esmé, who was born in 2024. Jake is newly engaged to Olympic speed skater Jutta Leerdam, after going public with their relationship in April 2023. Their father, Greg, and mother, Pam, are also part of the show.
Jake recently told Sun Sport he plans on becoming a dad like Logan, but that fiancée Leerdam wants to wait until after the next Winter Olympics in 2026. “I think it would be great for all of our kids to grow up together,” he said. “I think they’re gonna be each other’s best friends because of the fact that they’re gonna be growing up in a crazy world that is so different than most other kids and they’re not gonna be able to turn and trust a lot of people.”
The brothers’ own relationship still has its occasional quarrels. In 2023, Logan claimed he was nearly ejected from one of Jake’s boxing matches over his promotion of Prime. Jake partners with competitor Celsius.
The younger Paul has said he approached Logan about business collaborations, including a role with his company Most Valuable Promotions, but that the WWE star isn’t interested. “I think he wants to create his own story and his own lane, but it bothers me,” Jake told the Twin Talk podcast.
Ultimately, though, the siblings are supportive of each other’s accomplishments and endeavors. “I’ve never missed a Jake Paul fight, and I don’t plan on missing a Jake Paul fight,” Logan said in 2023. “He’s my little brother, and I want to support him in the biggest moments of his life.”
Watch Paul American on Max
Paul American began streaming March 27 on Max, with new episodes airing every Thursday through May 15.
Tyler Piccotti joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor and is now the News and Culture Editor. He previously worked as a reporter and copy editor for a daily newspaper recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors. In his current role, he shares the true stories behind your favorite movies and TV shows and profiles rising musicians, actors, and athletes. When he's not working, you can find him at the nearest amusement park or movie theater and cheering on his favorite teams.
