Nick Fuentes

Nick Fuentes - Quick Facts

Profile Overview of Nick Fuentes

Nicholas Joseph Fuentes (born August 18, 1998) is an American far-right political commentator, live streamer, and influencer. He hosts the livestreamed show America First, where he has advanced white nationalism and white supremacy, Christian nationalism, the incel subculture, misogyny, anti-LGBTQ views, and antisemitism including Holocaust denial. His supporters are known as "Groypers".

This profile of Nick Fuentes covers Early Life and Family Background, Career and Rise to Fame, Legacy and Influence, Groyper Wars and January 6 Capitol Attack.

Fuentes was raised in La Grange Park, Illinois, and held mainstream conservative views while in high school. He became active in politics after graduating in 2016, voiced support for Donald Trump, and launched America First in 2017. He attended the 2017 Unite the Right rally. In 2019, his followers confronted speakers at Turning Point USA events in what became known as the "Groyper War". In 2020, he founded the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), described as a white nationalist alternative to CPAC, which has since been discontinued.

Fuentes later appeared at events preceding the January 6 United States Capitol attack. He drew further attention in 2022 after attending a private dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Donald Trump and Kanye West. In 2024, he initiated a second "Groyper War" targeting Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. Between 2020 and 2023, Fuentes was removed from numerous social media, streaming, and financial platforms for violating hate-speech policies and for his involvement in events surrounding January 6.

Early Life and Family Background of Nick Fuentes

Nicholas Joseph Fuentes was born on August 18, 1998, in Illinois, to William and Lauren (née Chicco) Fuentes. He has a twin sister, Melissa. Fuentes has described his ancestry as Italian, Irish and Mexican, noting that his paternal grandfather was half-Mexican American. He was raised in the Roman Catholic faith.

Fuentes grew up in La Grange Park, Illinois, and attended Lyons Township High School, where he served as student council president. During high school, he "strengthened his interest in politics" through speech and Model UN, a political talk show on the school's radio station WLTL, and The Nicholas J. Fuentes Show on the school's television station LTTV. One former classmate described him as a "talented public speaker with seemingly mainstream conservative views". Journalist John Keilman later wrote in the Chicago Tribune that "after his graduation in 2016, he embraced the extreme right".

In 2016, Fuentes enrolled at Boston University to study international relations and politics. He left the university after attending the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, after he received death threats, alleging that he had "received 15 death threats via email and social media in the past week". He said that he attended the rally to "protest immigration and multiculturalism", adding that he was "not a white nationalist or racist". He also stated that he did not support violence and was not armed. Fuentes posted on Facebook that "you can call us racists, white supremacists, Nazis & bigots. … But you will not replace us", adding that the event would unleash a "tidal wave of white identity". During this time, Bill Allan, a former mentor and supervisor of television services at Lyons Township High School, said that Fuentes "may seek to outrage because he is trying to fuel a social media presence".

During a documentary with British journalist and filmmaker Louis Theroux, Fuentes recalled that at the start of his career, his parents urged "him to instead get a job or return to college". He said that he created a proposal to his parents: "'Why don't you give me just one year to explore this. If it works out, I'll keep doing it. If it doesn't work out, I'll abandon it'", adding, "And it worked out". Fuentes earned an associate degree from the College of DuPage in 2019.

Career and Rise to Fame of Nick Fuentes

Fuentes launched his livestream America First with Nicholas J. Fuentes in 2017, noted for its utilization of irony and humor to appeal to younger audiences, while offering plausible deniability for more extreme statements. Fuentes stated that "irony is so important for giving a lot of cover and plausible deniability for our views", specifically citing Holocaust denial. Early broadcasts focused primarily on immigration and multiculturalism.

During this period, Fuentes made several inflammatory remarks. In an April 2017 episode, he said that "the First Amendment was not written for Muslims or immigrants", "globalists" controlled the media and it was "time to kill" them and suggested that CNN executives should be "arrested and deported or hanged". The comments led to his departure from Right Side Broadcasting Network in August 2017, with CEO Joe Status saying that Fuentes "was just taking things a little too far into right field for us".

In another episode, Fuentes implied skepticism about the six-million Jewish death toll in the Holocaust after a viewer asked, "if I take one hour to cook a batch of cookies and Cookie Monster has 15 ovens working 24 hours a day, every day for five years, how long does it take Cookie Monster to make 6 million batches of cookies." Fuentes suggested that the real number was much lower, estimating "maybe 200,000 to 300,000", and adding "six million cookies? I’m not buying it." Andrew E. Mathis, an author with The Holocaust History Project, has noted that Holocaust deniers commonly argue that the Jewish death toll was "well below 6 million", often proposing figures "anywhere between 300,000 and 1.5 million". Fuentes later said the segment was intended as a "lampoon", and he also acknowledged the Holocaust as "the systematic persecution and murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators".

Fuentes streamed initially from the basement of his parents' home, becoming a part of his persona as a NEET-type or disconnected youth, which serves as a condition for the "focal point for the resentment of young white males". In November 2020, he moved his operations to an apartment in Berwyn, Illinois, while telling viewers he was broadcasting from his parents' basement. Whilst livestreaming, Fuentes co-hosted the Nationalist Review podcast with white nationalist James Allsup until January 2018 when they had a falling-out with accusations of "laziness, impropriety and a variety of petty slights". He spoke at the American Renaissance conference in April 2018 and later collaborated with Alex Jones to launch the livestreaming platform Cozy.tv in October 2021.

Beginning in late 2024, Fuentes experienced a significant increase in visibility within segments of the American right. He appeared on numerous podcasts and livestreams, accumulating millions of views on platforms such as YouTube, Rumble, and Kick. During this period, he became a frequent guest on the American manosphere podcast Fresh & Fit with Myron Gaines and Walter Weekes, participated in debates hosted by streamer Adin Ross, and made regular appearances on Alex Jones's Infowars. As his profile expanded in 2025, Fuentes also appeared on more mainstream programs, including Patrick Bet-David's PBD Podcast, Bradley Martyn's Raw Talk, and the Nelk Boys' Kick stream.

Source: adapted from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Fuentes), text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.