Jake Paul and Tana Mongeau were only married for a few months. In fact, they weren’t actually legally married. Mongeau may have changed her name on her social media channels, but when they broke up she revealed they weren’t technically betrothed. While the couple is still supporting each other, some are claiming it was all a publicity stunt.
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Celebrity sham relationships are nothing new of course. Whether Paul and Mongeau’s marriage was is hard to say. Sure, they weren’t together very long and both have made their name (and their fortunes) by cultivating huge online followings, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t in love. Now, there are some outlets reporting that that couple’s relationship, real or not, might have been worth an insane $605 million in branding.
Both stars have enormous online followings. Paul alone has almost 20 million followers while Mongeau has about five million. Jake Paul’s brother, Logan, has another 20 million or so. If you aren’t hip to how huge YouTube celebrities have become, just know that they are all racking up billions upon billions of views and millions upon millions of dollars. Forbes estimates Jake Paul made in the neighborhood of $21 million in 2018 on the platform.
It’s a jaw-dropping number, to be sure. It’s not hard to see why pushing a fake relationship would be worth some dough. According to Social Blade, which tracks followers, both gained at least a million new subscribers to their channels during the course of their romance. The brief relationship was also the subject of intense online scrutiny, both in the media and in the comments sections of social media. It created a ton of hype.
Some of that hype likely helped promote Jake Paul’s recent boxing match with fellow online superstar AnEsonGib. Paul won the match handily and now is reportedly trying to set up a match with troubled NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown. Last week, the YouTuber dropped a diss track about the former Pittsburgh Steeler Pro Bowler. It would be easy to dismiss this idea as something entirely cooked up by Paul to get publicity, but when there is a built-in audience of tens of millions, there might actually be a big enough paycheck in it for Brown to agree.
There is a ton of money flying around social media influencers these days. Many of them, including Paul, have made their name by pulling off pranks and media stunts, so it’s certainly possible that his relationship with Mongeau was a scam.