YouTube prankster Adam Saleh met with the Kuwait Times yesterday for an exclusive interview during his visit to Kuwait. — Photo by Joseph Shagra

If creativity were a person, it’d be manifested in YouTubers Adam Saleh and Slim Al-Baher. Kuwait Times had a chance to chat exclusively with the famous prankster Saleh and comedian Baher, to learn more about their recent visit to Kuwait City.

This reporter met Saleh and Al-Baher at a venue in Mirqab just after their third of four sold out shows. Youthful, excited fans surrounded the two performers, snapping selfies, asking for autographs, talking and laughing. Saleh, a 23- year-old American YouTube personality, vlogger, actor and rapper from New York, (originally from Yemen) is the big draw. He commands more than 1.8 million viewers on YouTube and has 1.3 million followers on Instagram.

Known as a prankster, Saleh actually incorporates many positive messages into his show, including diversity, inclusion, respect for parents and Islam.

Saleh and comedian partner Baher started making videos in 2012 for their YouTube channel for fun when they were 18 years old. But the duo’s pranks quickly went viral. Saleh’s most popular videos on his online channel are ‘Killer Clown Prank Gone Wrong’ with 32,780,267 views, ‘Street Boxing Match’ with 12,378,412 views and ‘Zombie Prank Gone Wrong’ with 8,553,597 views.

Visiting Kuwait, the duo performed a modern version of a variety show with a heart. For starters, Saleh performs with his niece Reema Saleh, vlogger of TrueStoryASA and his family also traveled with him to Kuwait. “The four-day show is a mixture of comedy, dancing and acting. Reema will also sing and dance. We interact with the audience and teach them valuable lessons,” Adam explained.

Adam told Kuwait Times that the audience attended from different ages “The children love Reema, and the elders love my pranks on my father.” About Kuwait, Slim said, “Coming back to Kuwait was a dream come true to my father, he used to work in Kuwait 30 years ago.” He was amazed by the hospitality and generosity of the people of Kuwait.

The prankster gets pranked

While here, Saleh got a taste of his own medicine. “Police officers stopped us and they asked for our passports which we did not have it with us at that time. We were scared that our driver did something wrong. After that we discovered that it was a prank. And we fell for it.”

Saleh is no stranger to controversy. In December 2016, he was kicked off a Delta Airlines flight simply for speaking Arabic. “I just asked Slim to move his bag, spoke with my mother on the phone because she had not seen me for a month. We always speak Arabic with each other but that time a woman decided that she felt “uncomfortable” with us speaking Arabic. I told her to relax and explained to her that I spoke Arabic because we just came from the UAE but her husband started to insult and told us to leave the plane,” Saleh said.

“Being kicked out because of our language made us feel scared and insecure because we did not do anything wrong. Although some passengers defended us but the media chose to interview the people who kicked us off instead,” Saleh told the Kuwait Times.

Baher also noted that some US media make a point of making Muslims look bad to continue stirring fear in America. “They accused us that we spoke Arabic for a prank to scare people! We were not filming on the plane.”

Tomorrow, Saleh and Baher head over to Dubai for another performance and then its off for a North American tour that includes shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Orlando Area, Charlotte, Washington DC, New York, Montreal, Toronto, Dearborn, Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas and Houston.

By Faten Omar