Jake Paul Reacts to Viral AI Deepfakes Claiming He Came Out as Gay
TikTok became inundated with highly convincing fabricated videos depicting YouTuber and professional boxer Jake Paul appearing to reveal he was gay in October 2025.
These extremely lifelike fake videos — produced using OpenAI’s advanced video creation tool Sora — showed the fighter draped in an LGBTQ+ Pride flag or performing ballet in a tutu, all while urging audiences to embrace his sexual orientation.
Many individuals were deceived by these deepfakes, with commentators on TikTok noting that “AI is scary” due to their uncanny realism. For his part, Paul lightheartedly addressed the widespread phenomenon by sharing several of the manipulated clips on his official TikTok account, using them to promote his energy drink brand, Celsius.
“AI is getting out of hand,” he expressed in one reactive post.
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Continue reading for further details on Paul’s reaction and an explanation of the deepfake situation.
What Are the Viral Jake Paul Deepfake Videos?
Paul is hardly the first public figure to be targeted by deepfake content.
In recent years, Whoopi Goldberg, Tom Hanks, and YouTuber MrBeast have cautioned their followers about deepfake videos illicitly using their likenesses to endorse fraudulent products.
In Paul’s specific instance, the deepfakes were not primarily aimed at defrauding viewers.
Instead, creators utilized the text-to-video generator Sora to produce entirely fabricated footage of the athlete publicly announcing he was gay.
“I have an announcement in 3-2-1 … I’m gay. I hope you’ll support me,” an incredibly lifelike digital rendition of Paul declared in one deepfake that amassed over 1.5 million “likes” on TikTok.
In another video, the artificial Paul appeared with glittery makeup and a Pride flag draped over his shoulders as he passionately defended the LGBTQ+ community.
“I’ve had a lot on my shoulders but I feel lighter than I ever have,” the AI posing as Paul informed viewers. “I’m admitting it. I’m gay! It took me a while to say those words.”
Other deepfakes depicted Paul boasting about “rocking [a] cute pink blouse and a white skirt,” or getting styled with a distinctive makeup palette.
The trend appeared to target Paul due to his previous transphobic remarks.
During a live-streamed conversation with controversial influencers Sneako and Adin Ross in 2023, Paul stated that “there are only three genders: male, female, and mentally ill.”
Many TikTok users found the deepfakes bewildering, with one person confessing: “Bro how is this ai im cooked.”
“This is actually so dangerous,” one TikTok user warned, while a third viewer complained: “AI is the most dangerous tool we got in this world.”
Paul himself has previously used deepfakes on his own social media, including sharing an AI-generated clip of him kissing opponent Gervonta Davis to promote their November 2025 boxing match.
What Is Sora AI?
Many of the Paul deepfake videos displayed the Sora brand logo on screen.
The text-to-video AI model was launched by OpenAI for ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Pro subscribers in December 2024, enabling them to generate short videos based on user-provided text prompts.
With the release of a Sora app in October, users can now simply input a brief prompt, and the AI model can create an astonishingly realistic visual representation.
Sora has faced widespread criticism across the entertainment industry for alleged intellectual property infringements, leading OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to announce in October 2025 that future iterations of the model would “give rightsholders more granular control over generation of characters.”
However, Motion Picture Association chairman Charles Rivkin expressed concerns to Deadline in October 2025, stating that Sora had already produced countless “videos that infringe our members’ films, shows, and characters [and] have proliferated on OpenAI’s service and across social media.”
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“While OpenAI clarified it will ‘soon’ offer rightsholders more control over character generation, they must acknowledge it remains their responsibility — not rightsholders’ — to prevent infringement on the Sora 2 service,” Rivkin emphasized.
“OpenAI needs to take immediate and decisive action to address this issue. Well-established copyright law safeguards the rights of creators and applies here.”
Jake Paul Responds to the Deepfake Controversy
The boxer did not appear to take the popular deepfake trend too seriously, as he shared several of the fabricated clips on his official TikTok in October 2025.
Paul merged one deepfake with actual footage of himself stating, “This AI is getting out of hand. It’s honestly not even funny.”
Viewers observed Paul being handed a can of his Celsius energy drink before he mimicked the style of the deepfakes.
Paul’s fiancée, Jutta Leerdam, was not entertained by the widespread trend.
“You don’t like it?” Paul questioned Leerdam in another TikTok video, with the Olympic speed skater confessing: “I don’t like it, it’s not funny! People believe it!”
She also responded directly to one of the deepfakes, writing simply: “HELP.”
Paul has never publicly identified as gay.
He live-streamed his supposed wedding to fellow YouTuber Tana Mongeau in July 2019, although the ceremony lacked legal validity in the state of Nevada as they did not secure a marriage license.
Mongeau and Paul separated in 2020.
Paul and Leerdam confirmed in March 2025 that they were engaged, having initially connected via Instagram two years prior.
“We’re engaged we can’t wait to spend forever together,” they announced in a joint Instagram post.
