What has Oli London been up to? The controversial Brit had multiple surgeries to look like BTS’ Jimin and declared himself transracial, transgender and bisexual – but now rails against ‘woke’ ideology

Nov 22 , 2024

Oli London at the Venice Film Festival in September 2023. Photo: @londonoli/Instagram

It’s been hard to keep up with Oli London’s multiple transformations in recent years, but now the internet personality has found God, and is trying to prevent others from ‘following in his footsteps’

Oli London – the internet personality famous for his ethnic plastic surgeries – has been getting political in recent months.

In May, he ridiculed LGBTQ+ support for Palestine, telling Sky News it was hypocritical for the community to be “protesting in favour of people who would throw them off buildings and behead them in the streets”, without elaborating further on these claims. And earlier this month, he criticised The View host Rosie O’Donnell as having a “classic case of Trump-derangement syndrome” after she told her social media followers they were in for “one hell of a ride” with Trump back at the helm.

London has apparently made a career of controversy, and in the broad and infinite realm of internet personalities, few are quite as polarising. Born in 1990 in England, the 34-year-old has become famous for his extreme transformations and contentious statements.

Oli London has lived his life in the spotlight. Photo: @londonoli/Instagram

His journey to internet fame began with an obsession that many share but few take to the same lengths – an admiration for K-pop, specifically the South Korean boy band BTS. In 2018, London featured on an episode of the series Hooked on the Look, which documented the multiple plastic surgeries he underwent in a bid to look like BTS’ Jimin.

London’s quest for transformation involved more than 30 procedures over 10 years, including nose jobs, eye procedures and forehead lifts which reportedly cost over US$200,000. In 2022, he apologised for his efforts in a video, saying: “It was wrong of me to try to emulate Jimin in such an obsessive way … I realise now that it wasn’t the right thing to do”.

But London’s story doesn’t stop there. He made headlines again in 2020 when he “married” a cardboard cut-out of Jimin in Las Vegas.

But what has Oli London been up to since his “wedding”?

The Korean connection

In September 2022, Oli London walked the runway as a woman at London Fashion Week. Photo: @londonoli/Instagram

In 2021, London became the talk of the town once again by identifying as non-binary and later as a “transracial” person. Despite being born white, he claimed to identify as Korean, sparking widespread accusations of cultural appropriation.