It isn’t uncommon for YouTube stars to create “edgy” content for clicks and views, but after one his pranks went too far, Kanghua Ren found himself facing jail time.
According to USA Today, the 21-year-old Youtuber was sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay over $20,000 in restitution over the weekend, after a judge deemed his prank on a homeless man a “clear and unambiguous act of humiliating content.”
Charges reportedly stem from a 2017 prank where Ren captured himself giving toothpaste filled Oreos to a homeless man in Spain and continued recording as the homeless man began vomiting after eating them.
“This will help clean his teeth,” he said at the end of the video. “I don’t think he has cleaned them since he became poor.”
Apparently, Ren, who goes by the online moniker ReSet deleted and replaced the video with a new one, where he offered the same man a 20 euro bill. Spanish police reported that Ren attempted to pay the man’s daughter around $330 in exchange for not pressing charges against him.
The YouTuber gained popularity in Spain for his pranks and had over 1 million subscribers, but as a part of his sentencing, Ren has been banned from using the platform and other social media accounts for five years.
Ren released a brief statement on Sunday.
“Do not believe everything the newspapers say,” he wrote in the statement. “They’re not completely wrong, but they make things up to make people (in this case, me) look bad.”
