YouTube Star Brent Rivera's Most Controversial Moments
Brent Rivera is one of the most followed content creators on YouTube, with over 29 million subscribers to date on just that one platform. As reported by Forbes, Rivera first got his start on Vine as a kid sharing humorous videos and hopped on over to YouTube after amassing millions of followers, eventually posting content on his TikTok account as well.
Back in 2017, Rivera shared his reaction to his very first videos on YouTube as a 12-year-old. One was of him trying baby food and telling fans that he had used breast milk to mix a rice formula. The older Rivera laughed and told the camera, "I didn't use breast milk guys. I promise I didn't use breast milk." A voice off-camera stated, "That's inappropriate." The content creator cringed at his older videos but fans have thought he crossed lines quite a few times over the years, like when he posted a YouTube video of him and his sister doing some too-close yoga poses together, in Target, no less. "I think everyone in Target thinks they're a couple," a viewer commented. "People might think that you guys are not siblings," another added. While public yoga with his sister wasn't his most controversial moment, Rivera has plenty of other instances that had fans — and other content creators — calling him out.
Brent Rivera was accused of copying ideas from other content creators
These days, it's hard to be original on social media and content creators often borrow ideas from each other. However, in Brent Rivera's case, he appeared to have completely plagiarized Josh Slavin's fake food critic video. "You know you've made it when a creator with over a hundred million social media followers takes inspiration from one of your videos," Slavin shared on TikTok. He then compared a video he had made of himself pretending to be a food critic at a restaurant with one of Rivera's — and their words were identical. Rivera even wrote down Slavin's exact words in a notebook that read, "Yummy yummy, in my tummy." A fan replied, "Bro copied it word by word."
YouTuber Dabi (Dr. David Liu) wasn't as nice as Slavin. He called out Rivera for several instances where he seemingly copied others' ideas, including a video by Andrew Falchook that followed him in a capsule hotel for 100 hours. Two months after it was shared, Rivera posted a video of himself with the same caption. Dabi wrote, "So I'm kinda mad. Therefore, let me grab a list of all his copycat thumbnails." Other examples include Rivera building a $25,000 dog house after creator Zealous built his dog a "dream house" and a "100 Dates in 24 Hours" video similar to YouTuber Airrack's. "So, although one can't do anything about copyright, I'd probably suggest most people in the YouTube space block him to avoid him pillaging ideas from your content," Dabi advised.
Brent Rivera got into it with another content creator at a hotel
When two content creators get into a public feud, you bet they're going to record it. Back in January 2023, YouTuber Tyler Oliveira shared a video on TikTok of an altercation that he got into with Brent Rivera at the Stanley Hotel, where the movie "The Shining" was filmed. Oliveira was there shooting content when he opened the door to find two women standing in the hallway dressed like the creepy twins from the film. He then walked over to Rivera and asked him, "Do you fake your videos?" Rivera responded, "No, do you fake your videos? You're filming on an iPhone." While Oliveira was filming around the hotel, he bumped into Rivera and his crew again and things got heated. "Go have fun with your hundred subscribers," Rivera told him. Oliveira ended up getting escorted out of the hotel after the cops were called and was out of the $400 he spent on his room.
Rivera took to his own TikTok to state, "Things get quickly taken out of context," and explained that while filming his prank, Oliveira came out and yelled at him. "As the night went on, he continued to approach us with his camera, saying awful things about me, my friends, and my sister to try to get a rise out of me for his video," Rivera stated. He went on to say that the hotel staff had warned Oliveira to leave the group alone and they were the ones who called the cops — not him.
Brent Rivera played a Billie Eilish prank despite the singer's request not to impersonate her
In 2020, another YouTuber named Jordan Matter had a friend dress like Billie Eilish while walking around in public with a fake security team, per Insider. Eilish shared screenshots of the video in her Instagram Story and wrote, "please stop doing this s***. it is not safe for you and it is mean to the people who don't know any better you make me look bad." She also shared examples of other content creators impersonating her for their videos and wrote, "please" and "stop."
Despite Eilish's request, Brent Rivera had his female friend Nadine Yani dress up in a baggy neon green sweatshirt and hat in an attempt to look like the "Ocean Eyes" singer to prank people in his YouTube video. "Billie: stop pretending to be me it's pissing me off. Brent: *completely ignores* PRANKING PEOPLE WITH BILLIE EILISH!" a fan responded on his page. Another called Rivera out by writing, "Come on Brent, Billie Eilish told everyone that she doesn't want anyone imitating her." After the backlash, Rivera wrote in his caption, "Billie asked fans not to impersonate her in public, due to safety reasons and bad publicity. I respected those wishes and did not do anything in public with this prank. I surprised my closest friends in my house with someone dressed like her." Unfortunately, his statement wasn't completely true as he and Yani had visited a couple of fast food joints and tricked the employees into thinking they were taking a pic with Eilish.