Popular TikToker, Keith Lee, sits down for an exclusive interview with Rolling Stone.
Lee is a former MMA fighter turned food critic. He has gained over 16 million followers on TikTok and helped hundreds of restaurants across the world with his food reviews. He shares an experience when being “popular” led to him hiring security.
While he was in New Orleans, he details, “before I could think, the car was surrounded,” Lee said. “People are stopping at green lights and jumping out of the car in the middle of traffic and running up to us to take pictures and crying and screaming.”
“I am not a person who likes conflict. I got the biggest security that you could possibly have. God is always watching over me.” He does, however, make it clear that his “hands are registered, too. I’ll beat the hell out of somebody if I have to.”
Lee also talks his MMA career, and how he felt the need to sharpen his public speaking to better his professional interview skills.
“I was so nervous. I was sweaty. It would mess up my entire day just to hear that I had to do an interview,” Lee told the publication. “You can’t be a super-successful professional fighter and not be good on the mic. So I took it upon myself to start doing TikTok.”
He continued: “I just set up the camera, and I started recording myself and pretended that it was 1,000 people watching me and I would use that as an outlet to get better in front of the camera.”