IShowSpeed, whose real name is Darren Watkins Jr., commonly known as Speed or Speedy, is a popular American gamer, YouTuber, streamer, and social media personality. At just 17 years old, he has already gained a substantial fan following.
Bio, rise to fame, stats, social accounts, controversies, music videos and more. Here is everything to know about Speed.
IShowSpeed
Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio in the USA, Speed’s real name is Darren Watkins Jr. According to Speed himself, his family originates from Portugal. He occasionally speaks Portuguese in his videos.
His content on YouTube and Twitch, the popular live-streaming platform, is highly popular among the youth, as evidenced by his growing fanbase. He also has followers of millions on social media sites like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter as well.
His content primarily focuses on him live streaming various games on his YouTube channel, streaming his visits to different places around the globe, collaborating with different creators, creating humorous skits, etc.
He also occasionally streams his Omegle chats live as well as Tinder matches for fun.
Speed also has a few music song videos to his name, collaborating with other creators in the field.
He has become a popular figure in the online gaming and streaming community, and his fans love to watch his content on both YouTube and Twitch.
However, currently, he is only streaming on YouTube.
He is friends with many other popular YouTubers like Mr. Beast, Chunkz and KSI. That is not it. Speed also live streams with famous professional footballers playing in top European leagues.
He has streamed with Alphonso Davies of Bayern Munich, and Rafael Leao of AC Milan among others.
He is known for shouting and barking on live streams. He likes to play as an idiotic free-spirited person on his YouTube lives.
Rise to Fame
Speed is famous for his funny, loud, and entertaining live streams playing games such as Fortnite, FIFA, NBA 2K, and Valorant.
He started his YouTube channel, ‘IShowSpeed’, on March 22nd, 2016. He posted his first video on YouTube on December 21st, 2017. Currently, he has over 15 million subscribers on his channel, where he now regularly streams.
When he began streaming games live on YouTube, he struggled to even get single-digit views on his videos. Still, he kept streaming and exploring other platforms, like Twitch.
There was a time when he gave up. According to Speed himself, he got back in the game when one of his friends pushed him to continue his stint at streaming.
When the pandemic of Covid-19 gripped the whole world, he got back to streaming full-time as he had nothing much to do.
In June 2020, his streams attracted an average of 10 viewers, with around 150 new subscribers each week.
However, in early 2021, his viewership rose to an average of 350, and he gained nearly 1,000 new subscribers per week. In April 2021, he achieved a milestone of 100,000 subscribers.
Speed became popular for his funny, hot-headed approach on his streams, and in 2021 he was one of the fastest-growing channels on YouTube.
That recognition grew exponentially when his loyal fan base started posting his funny clips on the popular short-clip-sharing site, TikTok. Clips from his streams with Talking Ben particularly became viral on TikTok.
His channel experienced significant growth in part due to his viral memes posted on the social media app TikTok. He began posting humorous clips from his streams on his YouTube and TikTok channels, and his consistent posting schedule helped his channel to become extremely popular.
Sidemen Charity Match, Premier League and FIFA World Cup 2022
In 2022, his visits to UK to watch English Premier League matches and to Qatar to witness and stream FIFA Football World Cup 2022, helped him gain immense popularity all over the world.
His appearance in the Sidemen Charity Match played between Sidemen FC and YouTube All Stars became the center of attention for everyone. His offside goal, which he celebrated with the Ronaldo celebration, became a meme fest on Twitter.
The Sidemen charity match is a football match organized by the Sidemen, a popular UK YouTube group. The match, which features some of YouTube’s most popular creators, is organized to raise funds for charitable causes.
The event attracted 2.6 million live viewers at its peak, and the total amount raised was £1,074,379.
Apart from his main live-streaming channel ‘IShowSpeed’, he created two other channels ‘Speedy Boykins’ and ‘Live Speedy’.
On ‘Speedy Boykins’ he would upload short highlight clips from his streams with catchy headlines to make them go viral on YouTube. Meanwhile on ‘Live Steady’ longer highlights and best moments from his live streams would be edited and posted to attract viewers.
The strategy worked wonders for him and he kept on gaining followers on all his channels.
Speed quickly became a sensation in the world of internet memes, live streams, and collaborations, and his star kept on rising.
Personal Life
Darren Watkins Jr aka Speed is an internet sensation who has gained millions of fans through his viral videos.
Though very popular, he has managed to keep the limelight away from his family. Very little is known about his parents and siblings.
According to the internet, he lives with his mother and has two younger siblings, a sister, and a brother. His father frequently appears in his videos, although it is unclear whether or not Speed is still attending school following his newfound fame.
Before his rise to stardom, he reportedly attended Purcell Marian High School and was part of both their football and basketball teams. He was a highly talented athlete, and it’s no surprise that his passion for football sees him as popular among football fans.
In one of his streams, he is seen going for a tour of a USA school ‘Chandler Park Academy High School’.
Though he can be seen lamenting about his school and school life in his streams, it is now speculated that all of his focus is on his career.
IShowSpeed Girlfriend!
Very little is known about the love life of Speed.
Reports suggest that he has previously been in a relationship with Ermony Renee (also known as Dream). He has done some live streams with her.
Furthermore, there has been speculation that he could have been in a romantic relationship with another TikTok star and singer, Ava Barbie, who is transgender.
Although neither of these relationships has been confirmed. Speed is known for his over-the-top flirty nature and that has gotten him in trouble as well.
As of now, it seems he is living the single life.
Music
In 2021, Speed achieved immense popularity among the youth.
He began collaborating with music producers to create songs, which he then released on his YouTube channel, ‘IShowSpeed’ to cash on his fame. His songs are also available on the popular streaming site ‘Spotify’ in audio format.
On 23 September 2021, he released ‘Bounce That A$$ (Official Music Video)’, and it has already gathered 21 million views.
But it was his song ‘Shake (Official Music Video)’, released on 24 November 2021, which achieved 161 million views and is his most popular video on the video-sharing platform.
He went on to create part 2 of the song called ‘Shake 2’.
Speed received a lot of fame for his video song ‘Ronaldo (SEWEY)’, which was dedicated to the popular football player Cristiano Ronaldo.
He also created his version of the football World Cup song called ‘World Cup’ before the commencement of the grand event in Qatar in 2022. The song has garnered 64 million views in the two months since its release. Fans on Twitter even called the song to be better than the official anthem of the competition.
He also got a reply on Twitter from the official FIFA World Cup handle which made football fans excited that there could be an official collaboration between them but that didn’t happen.
Controversies
At just 17 years old, popular streamer Speed has already seen a great deal of controversy during his streaming career. On several occasions, he has been called out for making sexist and racist remarks, leading to a great deal of public backlash.
One of the recent incidents was when he appeared on the pre-game show on Sky Sports, one of the most popular sports TV channel, in one of the English Premier League match.
The next day Sky Sports took an active stance against Speed, citing a year-old incident, and stated that Speed would not be allowed to appear in any of their shows from now on.
Speed addressed that with a statement on his official Twitter stating that he was too young when the said incident had happened and by emphasising that he has already apologized for being reckless in his behavior.
Despite all of the negative attention that comes with such controversy, it can be argued that it has also played a significant role in his rise to fame.
Talking Ben Popularity and Controversy
speed’s rivalry with Talking Ben from Outfit7’s Talking Tom & Friends franchise has become so famous that it’s become an Internet meme!
But things took an unexpected turn when he received a legal strike warning email from Outfit7 on February 24, 2022 – apparently, countless emails had been sent to their support team complaining about his streams related to the company’s games.
It’s possible that the email was a fake sent by someone trolling him, but either way, he had to stop live-broadcasting any games associated with the company. It looks like his rivalry with Ben may be coming to an end – unless he can find a way to beat the system!
Channel Strikes from YouTube
On July 22, 2022, the same day Speed hit a massive milestone of 10 million subscribers, he revealed on his highlights channel and on Twitter account that he had been hit with a Community Guidelines strike by YouTube for showcasing a sexual Minecraft modifier on his screen, causing him to be unable to upload for a week!
Things took a turn for the worse on September 21, 2022, when he announced on his socials that he had received his second Community Guidelines strike by YouTube for harassment and cyberbullying.
Speed revealed that he had been arguing with another person on Omegle and had then joked about the person’s weight, which led to the strike. Understandably, he was angry that YouTube had given him a strike for something he usually does.
In order to avoid a third channel strike, he announced that he will stream less frequently on his main channel upon his return on October 5, 2022.
Twitch Ban
On December 13, 2021, Speed was on a live dating show on Twitch. Several women and men on the show were asked questions about dating.
He asked an Instagram model named Ash Kaash if she would reproduce with him to keep the human population going if they were the last two people on Earth. Ash said no and said their kids would have to do incest to continue.
He then asked “Who’s going to stop me?” in an aggressive way and danced strangely. He argued with Ash until he left the stream but came back later and started a sexist rant, calling Ash names and saying he masturbated with her every day.
After the incident, clips of the rant became popular on Twitter and YouTube and Speed received a lot of criticism for being creepy and sexist. Many people defended him, saying he was young and joking, but others questioned why he was on a dating show at a young age.
The next day, Twitch banned his account because of the outburst. The producers at Riot Games said that they “do not want players like him in their community at all.”
Despite the criticism, Speed’s popularity and channel growth were not affected and he continued streaming on YouTube.
Ban on Valorant for Sexist Rant
While Speed was playing Valorant with a girl and others, he made sexist comments, including saying “go do your husband’s dishes”.
He was banned from Valorant for 30 days. On April 6, 2022, Jake Lucky News, a YouTuber and esports news reporter, shared a clip of his sexist comments on Twitter.
Sara Dadafshar, an employee at Riot Games, replied to the tweet and said Speed is now permanently banned from all Riot Games.
Speed apologized, but people accused Jake of trying to get him banned because of his race. Keemstar said Jake was hypocritical for also endorsing “trash talk” in video games. xQcOW said Keemstar was “pretty rich” to use the racism card and not address sexism.
Jake received hate comments and death threats because of the drama. It is not clear if the drama has been resolved but the involved parties have moved on with their careers.
The 4th of July Fireworks Incident at Home
On July 4, 2022, Speed lit some fireworks in his room. He thought they were noisemakers that wouldn’t catch fire, but a firework started to spark and shot fireballs around the room. He panicked and left the room, and his mother was also shocked and angry.
The firework hit a wall and the house alarm went off. Firefighters came to the room and he stopped the stream.
His room and the house did not catch fire, but the ceiling and walls in his bedroom were damaged. The incident became popular and was on the news.
Many people worried about him and his family and found the incident funny, but others criticized him for lighting fireworks inside and putting his family in danger. Others thought the incident was funny but also criticized his recklessness and worried about his safety.
The next day, Speed confirmed on his stream that he and his family were safe and he only had minor burns. He also said he didn’t know the firework would spark as much and told his chat not to light fireworks indoors.
Speed Arrested by the Police?
On August 8, 2022, something unexpected happened to Speed. He was arrested after someone called the police on him as a prank. It’s unclear if it was one of his fans or if they asked him to call the police as a joke.
While he was being arrested, he used his phone to stream the event and had a friend film him. A police officer later told the friend to stop filming.
The video quickly gained attention online as viewers heard him shouting in panic “Oh my god, bro! I swear I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do s**t. Oh my god!”.
As the situation escalated, a police officer can be seen approaching the cameraman and asking him to stop filming, before the camera was eventually shut down. This viral video spread quickly and sparked a conversation among viewers as to what exactly had happened
Many of Speed’s viewers and others were confused by the incident. Some people, like Jadyn, said that he deserves a better group of fans and should not do what they ask.
Racism Accusation in FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022
On December 6, 2022, Speed went to Qatar to watch the 2022 FIFA World Cup and streamed the event on his phone. However, a clip circulated online that showed him talking to a Chinese fan wearing an Argentina jersey. He asked the fan why he was wearing the jersey and kept saying “Konnichiwa”, a Japanese greeting, even though the fan said he was Chinese.
Many people were upset by his comments and some called them racist. Speed then responded on Twitter saying his apologies.
He said he did not mean to be racist and was caught up in the excitement of the game.
IShowSpeed’s love for Ronaldo
IShowSpeed is a popular YouTube streamer who has gained a lot of attention for his entertaining and funny gaming videos as well as his unique music.
On the other hand, Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the most famous footballers in the world. He is renowned for his incredible talent and skill on the pitch, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time.
Ronaldo has won numerous awards and accolades, and is an inspiration to millions of people around the world. His ‘Suiii’ celebration is one of the most famous celebrations in any sport.
Speed is in love with this celebration and is often seen saying it. He even made a music video for the celebration called ‘Sewey’.
It was Rafael Leao, Cristiano Ronaldo’s teammate in Portugal’s national team, who told him that Cristiano Ronaldo actually knows him.
Speed preaches to be a massive Ronaldo fan. It is funny that when he went to watch him live in the Man United game, Ronaldo was not included in the squad. Funnier, he attended two Manchester United games in a row and Ronaldo wasn’t in the squad both times. He then followed him to Qatar World Cup to catch his football play football for his national team Portugal.
IShowSpeed YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok Account
IShowSpeed has quite a lot of fan following on different Social Media sites. Here are the full details of the accounts and their stats as of January 5, 2023.
YouTube – Speed has 2 other channels on YouTube besides his main channel ‘IShowSpeed’.
YouTube –
- IShowSpeed: 15.1 million subscribers and 1.147 billion views (1.2k videos – Joined on 22 March 2016)
- Live Speedy: 4.18 million subscribers and 679 million views (511 videos – Joined on 2 June 2021)
- Speedy Boykins: 1.05 million subscribers and 380 million views (785 videos – Joined on 27 April 2021)
Twitter –
- @ishowspeedsui – 1.6 million followers
Instagram –
- ishowspeed – 7.6 million followers
TikTok –
- @ishowspeed – 14.8 million followers and 82.6 million likes
Twitch –
- IShowSpeed
Snapchat –
- darrenwatkins1
Contact email –
FAQs – IShowSpeed
How old is IShowSpeed?
Speed has managed to keep his age and birthdate a secret from the public, but recently he confirmed in an apology letter to Sky Sports that he is indeed 17 years old.
This information matches with what has been uncovered by many internet sources who have claimed that he was born on 21 January 2005, making him 17 years old at the time of writing.
While the reasons why he has kept his age a secret remain unknown, it is clear that his age is 17 and his birthdate is 21 January 2005.
How tall is IShowSpeed?
According to online records at PURCELL MARIAN CAVALIERS, the athletics team, speed was 5′ 8″ tall in 2021.
What is IShowsSeed’s Real Name?
IShowSpeed’s real name is Darren Watkins Jr.
Where does IShowSpeed live?
IShowSpeed lives in Ohio USA.
What is IShowSpeed’s Net Worth?
IShowSpeed has experienced an astonishing rise in success, making it difficult to estimate his net worth. However, given the success he has attained thus far, his current net worth could be somewhere in the ballpark of USD 3 million.
Apart from earning from YouTube ad revenue, he also receives a lot of donations through the ‘Superchat’ feature during his live streams.
Does IShowSpeed play Growtopia?
Growtopia is a sandbox video game developed by Ubisoft. Fans of the game have spotted the game icon on the desktop screen of IShowSpeed.
However, Speed is yet to live stream the game. It is not confirmed whether he actually plays the game or not but fans of Growtopia can expect him to join their community soon.
Where I can get IShowSpeed Hoodies and Shirts?
IShowSpeed has his own online where he sells his merch. The hoodies and shirt bought from the store are designed with his face and other texts on the front or the back.
Is IShowSpeed on Omegle?
Yes. (Omegle has shut down now).
IShowSpeed has become an Internet sensation with his unique way of connecting and engaging with people. He streams his Omegle chats with random strangers live on his YouTube channel.
These conversations are spontaneous, unscripted, and often unpredictable, making for an entertaining viewing experience.
FYI, Omegle is a free online video chat website that allows users to communicate with strangers without registering. It randomly pairs users in one-on-one video and text chat sessions, where they can chat anonymously.
Does Ronaldo know IShowSpeed?
Yes. Speed has met Ronaldo and the video was live streamed on his YouTube channel.
Speed face timed Cristiano’s teammate at Portugal’s national team, Rafael Leao, he confirmed that Ronaldo actually knows him.
Leao told Speed that sometimes in training he does his way of ‘Sewey’ celebration and Ronaldo also does the same.
Why does IShowSpeed bark?
IShowSpeed is well-known for his comedic nature, particularly for his trademark of barking and shouting loudly. While some people have expressed their disapproval of these antics, the majority of his fans love him for his unique style.
His willingness to bark and scream whenever he likes often results in comical moments and his fans can’t get enough. This example of humorous entertainment appeals to them and sets him apart from other streamers.
What is IShowSpeed PayPal?
Speed’s PayPal link is mentioned in the about section of his YouTube channel ‘IShowSpeed’ and he also mentions it in his video description alongside his other social accounts.
Is Darren Watkins a student at Purcell Marian High School?
Darren Watkins Jr aka Speed was probably a student at Purcell Marian High School. According to data on the official Purcell Marian Athletics website, Darren was a sophomore in the year 202/21.
He was part of the football team Purcell Marian Cavaliers as a WR/DB. Some of his basketball highlights can be found here.
When is Darren Watkins Jr’s birthday?
On 21st of January.
What is Darren Watkins Jr.’s (Speed) Age?
Currently, he is 17. On 21st January 2023, he will officially turn 18.
What is Speed’s birthplace?
He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States.
Does IShowSpeed have a kid?
According to some accounts, it has been claimed that the streamer IShowSpeed has a daughter. However, others have expressed doubt about this and speculate that it could be a tactic to counter the perception that he is gay.
This has not been confirmed entirely and we do not believe it to be true.
