As YouTuber, musician and boxer KSI gears up for his next fight against ex-Love Island contestant Tommy Fury in October, the content creator has been taking aim at his opponent in a series of posts on X/Twitter – but one tweet mocking Fury has seen the Sidemen member branded “ableist” by social media users.
KSI, real name Olajide “JJ” Olatunji, took to X on Thursday evening to share a series of posts mocking Fury, one of which featured a video of a disabled model flexing his muscles.
In a caption accompanying the TikTok video from user @the_honest_1, JJ wrote: “Can’t lie, Tommy Fury has never looked better.”
The clip was taken from the account of 20-year-old Amine Sheik, a person with a shorter upper body who has more than 193,000 followers on the social media platform.
However, Olatunji has since been criticised for his use of the video, with X users labelling the “Holiday” singer “ableist” and “pathetic” for using a disabled person to belittle his rival:
Neither KSI or Sheik have responded to the tweet and the backlash since it was posted.
It is not the first time KSI has come under fire for comments and actions around disability, with the social media influencer previously being filmed giving a video message to an autistic fan telling them to “get well soon” before asking his friends “am I being r****ded” when he was met with shocked reactions.
He also forced his editor to subtitle gibberish in a video from 2020 after his YouTube content started coming with closed captions – a feature which makes videos accessible for deaf viewers.
In April, the YouTube star took a break from social media and apologised after he was filmed saying a racial slur during a ‘Sidemen Sunday’ parodying popular daytime game show Countdown.
KSI fights Tommy Fury on 14 October in Manchester, with Prime co-founder Logan Paul also on the card against mixed martial artist Dillon Danis.
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