PewDiePie ends family vlogs on YouTube, to protect his son's privacy - USA Today
Felix Kjellberg, the famed Swedish YouTuber known as PewDiePie, will no longer be sharing family vlogs featuring his wife, Marzia, and son, Bjorn, on his channel. He wants to protect his son's privacy.
"The reason we’re stopping is because we didn't want to go on forever. I also felt that, with Bjorn growing up, it's a good time to stop," he said in a video titled "Thank you and Goodbye," shared on YouTube on Sep. 22.
"I love making videos, and I'm going to keep making videos obviously," he told his over 109 million YouTube subscribers. "But I do not love being famous. I actually kind of hate it. I hate that I can't go to certain kinds of places, and I always have to be mindful of other people staring, sneaking photos and following you around. For Bjorn, I want him to make his own choices. He deserves his own privacy, and that's why we felt like now is a good time to stop," he added.
But Felix doesn't seem to regret his decision to include his family life on his YouTube channel, historically known for gaming content.
"It's been really fun," he said. "We started thinking we would do one or two videos, and now we've done, what, I don't know, a hundred? And the reason why we kept going was- it's literally because of you guys. All the comments, all the support. There's no way we would have done it otherwise. We really, really enjoyed sharing this journey with you."
Felix, 36, got his start on YouTube in 2010, when he created the PewDiePie channel. He ascended to the most-subscribed YouTuber in Aug. 2013, when he was 23. He mostly played video games like "Minecraft," adding funny commentary to keep his viewers engaged.
He's since been surpassed by MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson), who became the most-subscribed YouTuber ever in November 2022, and is currently sitting at over 518 million subscribers.
But Felix had his reign and has since put his content creation on the back burner. Moving to Tokyo in 2022 with his wife, Marizia, 33, was part of that decision. They had their son, Bjorn, 3, a year later, and have raised him there.
In his Sep. 22 video, Felix noted that being in Japan helped him avoid his fame. "I love it so much because I can just sort of do whatever here," he said.
The couple will continue sharing moments of their son's life online, but they are going to be more "intentional" about it, according to Felix. Part of that is continuing their newsletter. "It's sort of like a written version of the vlog," he said in the video. "If you wanna check that out, we're gonna keep that up."
