Adam Saleh


Adam Mohsin Yehya Saleh is a Yemeni-American YouTube personality from New York City. He has been described by both himself and multiple other sources as a prankster and a "professional idiot". He has also received criticism for staging fake scenarios involving his Muslim identity to provoke conversations about race relations.

Life and career

Adam Saleh was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to Yemeni parents. He went to Manhattan Center For Science and Mathematics High School during his first three years, but transferred to Al-Madinah School during his fourth year after being expelled for hitting his dean's computer, as a response for him being racist towards his mother. He started making YouTube videos in 2012 as a part of his YouTube channel "TrueStoryASA" with his high school friends Abdullah Ghuman & Sheikh Akbar. His main career aspiration was to become a lawyer. He was an amateur boxer and was decent as he had a 13-0 record to begin but later had his fighting license revoked due to a street fight video gone viral on Worldstar which had ended his boxing career. He gained nationwide popularity when he appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show show for his dancing antics. The day his Ellen show appearance was to happen, he had a final test, but choose to go on Ellen; he later described this as the turning point in his career as a full-time Youtuber.
Saleh became part of another collaborative channel "3MH" with Sheikh Akbar, Karim Metwaly and Slim Albaher. TrueStoryASA and 3MH split up in May 2015. After TruestoryASA ended, Saleh took over both the main and vlog channels and renamed them "Adam Saleh" and "Adam Saleh Vlogs". There was a lot of controversy about why the groups had split up, some rumors say it was between Saleh and Akbar why the problem had occurred and many of Saleh's fans blame his manager for the split. Since then he has created many videos as a solo YouTuber. He has also appeared in the American buddy cop comedy-drama action film American Sharia.
Saleh first released the single "Diamond Girl" on May 3, 2015 featuring Sheikh Akbar and Mumzy Stranger as a part of TrueStoryASA. On August 16, 2015 he released his debut solo single "Tears" featuring Zack Knight as a tribute to his cousin and her father who was his dear uncle. Saleh’s uncle had died from a car accident just a few days before his cousin's wedding. Saleh describes his uncle as a very happy person and was an important member of his family and when he died in such circumstances it left their family in grief. The way his uncle had died had left an emotional scar as Saleh's has stated in the past that it one of the reasons why he does not have a drivers license. On September 2017, Adam Saleh has released his debut album called Chapter II featuring collaborations with many artists including "Waynak","Tsunami","All About Love", "The Motto", "All You Can Handle" etc. On February 18, 2018, he accepted the challenge to be KSI's next boxing opponent.

Controversies

A staged video titled "Racial Profiling Experiment'" uploaded on Saleh's YouTube channel in October 2014 became popular around the world. In the video, Saleh and Sheikh Akbar argued with each other in front of a police officer wearing western outfits but the cop ignored them. Shortly thereafter, they fight again while dressed in Traditional clothes but this time the cop stops them and behaves rudely with them. The video received more than 200,000 views on YouTube and it was also picked up by media. Public reaction to the video was against the police officer. Later Saleh said that the video was staged to recreate "previous events that occurred", and it was being shown as an example to others about how these things can happen to people on the streets only if they are dressed in a 'different' way. The New York chapter of the Council on American–Islamic Relations, which had previously tweeted out the video as an example of discrimination against Muslims, demanded an apology from Saleh and Akbar stating "Muslims are already under the microscope and to do this just to gain some cheap publicity is totally unacceptable. There should be no attempt to justify it; they should just apologize and ask people to forgive them for their irresponsible actions."
In another YouTube video, Saleh claimed to have flown inside a suitcase in the baggage hold on a Tigerair flight from Melbourne to Sydney. However, Melbourne Airport security footage proved the incident was a hoax after they produced video showing Saleh boarding the plane with the airline noting that a bag of his weight would not be loaded on the plane without investigation nor would a passenger in the plane's unheated cargo hold emerge sweating.
In December 2016, Saleh posted videos in which he claimed he was removed from a Delta Air Lines flight at Heathrow Airport for speaking Arabic. However, other passengers have spoken out, claiming that Saleh was disturbing other passengers, and Delta's own statement said that Saleh was shouting and provoking others. Saleh's claim has caused a debate over the "Right to Fly".
In 2018, Saleh, as well as many other YouTubers, were involved in a BBC Trending investigation for promoting the website EduBirdie, which lets users buy essays.
In July of 2020, Saleh posted a TikTok where it depicted him kissing a girl. This caused a backlash to spark against him for his actions. His friends and family members also expressed their disapproval of Saleh's actions on social media. Saleh later explained in a video posted on Albaher's channel confessing to his friends and fans that even he didn't kiss the girl and instead, hugged her or didn't touch her physically, he would've still gotten hate anyway. He also expressed his distaste and displeasure for preacher, Ali Dawah. Calling him a "phony" and preferring Mufti Menk over him due to him making videos criticizing Saleh and his fanbase non-stop for six years.

Albums

Songs and music videos

Featured in