After Lil Xan would blow up on soundcloud with the song Betrayed
After he signed a deal with Columbia After Xan would date Noah Cyrus and the two
would have a very public breakup But then we
quickly found out that the whole thing was just orchestrated by the record label!
After Lil Xan’s new girlfriend announced that she was pregnant
But then we quickly found out that she might have never really been pregnant at all!!!
After he overdosed… on hot Cheetos
After fans began to worry about Lil Xan’s mental health
Lil Xan blew up as a part of a wave of soundcloud
rappers that had face tattoos, videos directed by Cole Bennet, massive streaming numbers
and of course, a rap name with Lil in it.
But what looked like a promising career for a young Diego quickly turned into somewhat
of a mess.
There was the public breakup with Noah Cyrus that ended up being fake all along.
There was a potential pregnancy with Annie Smith.
There was the Tupac comment that cause a whole lot of problems for Xan.
There were the Instagram live sessions.
And there was of course, the drug use that lead many fans to worry about his health.
So where is Lil Xan today?
We’re going to give you an update in this video.
What’s going on guys?
It’s your boy Michael McCrudden here for you on Where Are They Now?
I’ll be your host as we take you through the life and career of Lil Xan and we’ll
show you what he’s up to in 2019.
Let us know who you want us to cover next.
We recently did one on Lil Tay and one on Aaron Carter so you can check those ones out
later but for now, let’s get into the video.
INTRO
Lil Xan was born Nicholas Diego Leanos on September 6th, 1996 Redlands, California.
In Redlands there wasn’t much of a music scene and Diego wasn’t the biggest fan of
his neighborhood.
He also wasn’t much of a fan of school, as he struggled with all of his classes.
So Xan dropped out of high school in 9th grade.
School wasn’t the only thing he was struggling with; Diego was also battling substance abuse
problems.
But we’ll get back to that in a couple of minutes.
You probably know the story by now, of how Lil Xan would take pictures for Steven Canon
at his shows and eventually became the unofficial photographer of the crew.
After his 1200-dollar camera got stolen, Xan decided to become a rapper himself.
So, he began posting his songs up on soundcloud and shortly thereafter, a star was born.
But since his rise to fame back in the summer of 2017 with “Betrayed,” a lot has happened
to the kid.
First of all, he’s gotten a lot more face tats.
He’s got the dots on his nose, the ink blot under his eye, the heart break soldier tattoo,
the word lover, his Mac Miller tribute, his birth-year 1996,
Xanarchy above his left eye-brow, an upside-down cross and you on his eyelid.
The guy is running out of space on his face!!!
I guess he didn’t listen to his manager back in 2017:
Lil Xan’s first big controversy came after an interview with Revolt TV for their segment
called “On Clout 9.”
When ranking the clout of none other than Tupac Shakur, he rated the legendary rapper
a 2, and said that Pac’s music was boring.
The hip-hop community was pretty pissed off about the statements.
Waka Flocka got on Twitter and banned Lil Xan from hip-hop.
And then T.I. cosigned the statements
Not sure if you can actually ban someone from the entire genre, but hey, who’s going to
argue with TI!
Xan even got himself into some Toronto beef with Killy:
Lil Xan continued to make music and perform at shows
but the Tupac comments kept coming back to haunt him.
He tried to clarify the statements:
But at a meet and greet, he almost got into a full fight with a 16 year old fan:
We thought that would probably be the peak of the Tupac effect, but a year later, things
were taken to a new level when Lil Xan pulled out a gun on somebody who brought it back
up:
Be careful defending your favorite rapper’s legacy, you never know who has a strap on
them!
But the problems for Lil Xan run a lot deeper than just his comments about Tupac.
He also has struggled with mental illness and says THAT’s the reason he keyed his
150 thousand-dollar G-Wagon.
Ususally keying cars is reserved for girls after they find out their boyfriend’s cheat
on them.
Carrie Underwood taught us that!
But Xan seemed to be struggling with fame, drugs, and his mental health all at the same
time.
And on top of all that, he was dealing with the fact that his dad was addicted to crack:
It seems like Lil Xan was having problems with
his label too and that his management was trying to control him.
You can see they took away his phone right after he said that on Instagram live:
And he talked about it more in this video:
But Xan has clearly been dealing with substance problems for a long time.
In late 2018, he announced that he was going to check himself into rehab.
Xan had seen his contemporaries pass away due to drug overdoses and it really
affected him:
That really inspired him to want to get clean:
He posted to his Instagram stating:
I just dropped out of SoundCloud Uni to go to rehab, I leave in like five days.
And I couldn’t be happier with this choice.
I love you guys for being so supportive and can’t wait to get back clean headed ready
to finish my album.
He told TMZ that after he got out of rehab he would be changing his rap name to simply
DIEGO.
But just two weeks after he checked himself into a facility, Xan left the rehab facility.
He tweeted stating:
“Out and Sober”
And whether or not he was clean, his problems didn’t end just yet.
Xan got into trouble with the police in Palm Springs in a public area and was detained
by officers.
Xan wasn’t arrested but he WAS kicked out of his Air B’nB.
Dealing with all of that stuff is one thing, but dealing with it in the public eye is even
harder.
Because everyone is going to have an opinion and everyone is going to voice that opinion
online.
All of that caused Lil Xan to want to take a break from social media in April of 2019:
Since then, Lil Xan is back on social media and is dropping new music.
And it’s still being released under his rap name and unfortunately not Diego.
He dropped the music video for his song “Like Me” on August 15, 2019 and the song has
close to 3 million views.
And based on the lyrics, it seems like Xan is still struggling with his old problems
as he raps:
Ay poured up in the f***ing Rover Y'all thought I was f***ing sober
Double cup yeah I'm poured up And I'ma do this s*** til it's over
As much as he seems to be laughing in the video while he raps those lyrics, it’s a
really sad state of affairs for Lil Xan.
He’s clearly been struggling with addiction for a long time, a problem that also runs
in his family.
It’s caused him a lot of problems throughout his life and it seems like the people around
him aren’t taking his mental health or his physical health very seriously.
All we can hope is that Diego gets the help he needs and that he gets everything sorted
out properly.
Prayers for Lil Xan.
But as for the rest of the story, well, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Be sure to let us know who we should cover next for the channel in the comments below
and we’ll make those videos for you.