Philip DeFranco posted his very first YouTube video in 2006.
And while his early vlogs were pretty low-fi, today, DeFranco is one of YouTube's biggest
success stories.
Since his career began, the media entrepreneur has cultivated a massive fan base by covering
"newsy type things" along with the latest beefs of fellow YouTube personalities.
But none of his success came easy.
From surviving an attempt on his life, to living with Kidney Disease, here are some
things you might not know about this YouTube star.
"'Sup, you beautiful bastards?"
"Let's just jump into it."
Not his original name
In 2016, the popular YouTube personality made a shocking confession: He wasn't born Philip
DeFranco.
In fact, he began life as Philip James Franchini Jr.
"Philip Franchini, oh so sexy."
But the pseudonym allowed DeFranco to keep a safe distance from his fan base.
In his early YouTube days, it only took simple sleuthing to find out where he lived.
He learned that the hard way when a female fan arrived at his house totally uninvited.
Then in 2016, DeFranco legally changed his name, admitting it was hard for his dad because:
"He still sees my name change as me not loving him."
Attempt on his life
When he was about 10 years old, DeFranco's parents divorced and he left the Bronx.
He revealed in his Draw My Life, that his mom moved him to North Carolina, where she
embarked on a series of bad relationships.
According to DeFranco, one of his mom's boyfriends tried to kill DeFranco and his mother, by
flooding the house with carbon monoxide.
Shortly after the incident, DeFranco says he was sent to Florida to live with his biological
father.
And the boyfriend reportedly wound up in jail.
Mysterious packages
DeFranco received two ominous packages in the mail in 2008; a letter urging him to go
to a storage unit near his home, as well as a key.
DeFranco filmed himself driving to the site, musing,
"Maybe someone's going to bludgeon me to death with a big stick when we get there."
Finally, DeFranco found a locked briefcase in the storage unit — which turned out to
be promotion for the video game F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin.
DeFranco wasn't the only YouTuber to receive the weird mail, but he admitted to Suicide
Girls,
"Obviously, they are using me, and I'm not getting anything except the experience."
Fan-donated kidney
During a 2017 Reddit AMA, DeFranco was asked to describe his best-ever fan experience,
and his answer was a doozy: "A beautiful bastard named James" gave his father a kidney.
DeFranco and his father both have Polycystic Kidney Disease, a condition that "slowly kills
[the] kidneys," as the YouTube star explained in a video, noting that patients are often
placed on a long waiting list for a new organ.
His father's donor, James, said in 2013,
"I never really thought of myself as super selfless."
"I really wanted to do something that would matter to someone."
In fact, James was among hundreds who applied to help DeFranco's father.
DeFranco said,
"I was emotionally blown away and am still thankful and shocked to this day that people
cared enough to help."
A poppin' proposal
In 2011, DeFranco took his show on the road for "DeFranco Does Dublin," an event that
drew roughly 1,500 attendees and has been viewed over 450,000 times and counting.
In 2013, he followed up that success with "DeFranco Does Arizona", marking his first-ever
live event in the States.
But the highlight of the night isn't hard to pinpoint:
"So are you guys gonna get married?"
"I dunno…"
DeFranco's girlfriend Lindsay said yes, to the delight of every fan ever.
And the couple have since had two sons.
Protecting the children
Particularly since becoming a father, DeFranco has found it difficult to remain impartial
when covering stories that involve children getting hurt.
For proof of this, look no further than his coverage of YouTuber DaddyOFive, aka Mike
Martin.
As The Washington Post reported in April 2017, Martin's channel featured increasingly sadistic
pranks played on his children.
DeFranco said he was "disgusted" by the videos and believed they constituted abuse.
He released a steady stream of videos about DaddyOFive, which proved instrumental in bringing
the situation to light.
Martin and his wife, Heather, lost custody of two of their kids in May 2017, and in September
2017, they were found guilty of child neglect, and sentenced to five years of supervised
probation.
In a video apology in April 2017, Martin blamed the controversy on DeFranco dishing the dirt,
saying,
"It would have never got this out of hand if it wasn't for that DeFranco guy."
DeFranco responded,
"I'm as responsible as a security camera in a gas station filming a robbery."
Totally over YouTube
DeFranco's relationship with YouTube has become an increasingly troubled one.
On April 16, 2018, he announced:
"With the current state of YouTube, The Philip DeFranco Show cannot thrive."
Since his channel covers sensitive topics such as the 2018 YouTube shooting, DeFranco
says his segments have been deemed advertiser-unfriendly.
As a result, his work is being promoted less and less on YouTube's homepage as "Recommended"
and "Trending."
To combat the monetization problem, DeFranco secured a sponsorship with Brave, the developers
behind the Brave privacy web browser and Basic Attention Token in April 2018.
In turn, he'll serve as a Brave adviser.
But we're not worried.
DeFranco has demonstrated his staying power for well over a decade.
As he says it, "Find your Why, and then figure out the How."
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