Khaby Lame

Biography

Khabane "Khaby" Lame (born 9 March 2000) is a Senegalese-born Italian social media personality. He is known for his TikTok videos, in which he silently mocks overly complicated "life hack" videos. As of April 2023, Lame is the most-followed user on TikTok.

Lame was born in Senegal on 9 March 2000. His family moved to a public housing complex in Chivasso, Italy, when he was one year old. He has three siblings. 

He studied in Italian schools until he was fourteen when his parents decided to temporarily send him to study at a Quranic school near Dakar. Lame worked as a CNC machine operator at a factory near Turin, before getting laid off in March 2020.

After he was laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lame began posting on TikTok. His early videos showed him dancing and watching video games. He rose to popularity with his video responses in the form of TikTok's "duet" and "stitch" features to videos depicting complicated "life hacks", in which he performs the same task in a simple way, without saying anything, followed by a trademark hand gesture.

 In April 2021, he surpassed Gianluca Vacchi as the most-followed Italian on TikTok, and he subsequently surpassed Addison Rae, to become the second most-followed personality on the platform overall. In August 2021, Lame appeared as a co-star for Juventus F.C.'s announcement of Manuel Locatelli. 

In September 2021, he attended the Venice Film Festival as a special guest for the first screening of the French film Lost Illusions, by Xavier Giannoli. In January 2022, Lame signed a multi-year partnership with Hugo Boss and was featured in the #BeYourOwnBoss campaign.

On 22 June 2022, Lame became TikTok's most-followed creator, surpassing Charli D'Amelio, with 142.1 million followers.

Lame was appointed as a juror on the television show Italia's Got Talent, in 2023.

Khaby Lame is a practicing Muslim. He announced his engagement to Zaira Nucci in October 2020.

Lame has lived in Italy since he was one year old and is fluent in Italian. He was a Senegalese citizen living in Milan with his agent until August 2022, when he became an Italian citizen in Chivasso after the Italian Undersecretary of the Ministry of the Interior Carlo Sibilia announced that he would be granted citizenship.

 Lame said he “always felt Italian” and has previously stated that he "did not need a piece of paper" to define himself as such.