WillNE is the online alias of English YouTuber and internet personality William Jonathan Lenney who is known for his commentary videos about internet culture and his practical jokes like giving a fake TEDx talk. He also co-owned a collaborative channel called Eboys with fellow YouTubers ImAllexx, James Marriott and Memeulous. Since 2017, he has been associated with the YouTube group, The Sidemen.
Early Life
WillNE attended Loughborough University to study automotive engineering, but hated it. After earning viral fame on YouTube, he left university to become a fulltime YouTuber on his mother’s advice.
Career
WillNE started making videos in his spare time since he was 14 and joined YouTube in February 2011, although his older channel has been renamed several times and is now his second channel known as a bit more willne. His second created channel, which is now his primary channel known as WillNE, was created in October 2011. In a later video, he has stated that he was inspired to make the kind of content he does after watching videos by fellow YouTuber Nathan Zed. While he had started out with videos about games, he soon shifted focus to variety content including skits, pranks, challenges and commentary videos.
He had a series called This Week on the Internet that sought out the weirdest and most shocking stuff on the internet to roast them. In 2016, while he was a first year student in university, he stumbled across a freestyle rap called Road Rage, by a 13-year-old boy called Little T from Blackpool issuing rape threats, on the channel Blackpool Grime Media. He subsequently made the video World's Cringiest Children Ever Make Grime, which initially struggled for views, but soon went viral. By the end of 2017, his channel crossed one million subscribers, making him among the 25 most-subscribed British YouTubers.
WillNE has now built a reputation for performing practical jokes. In November 2018, he successfully fooled some UK-based tabloids into believing that he would be a contestant on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! In January 2020, he was able to secure a brand deal from a fitness company by pretending to be muscular in Instagram photos. In December 2022, he tricked TED authorities into letting him give a TED Talk, and while the video was taken down shortly after being uploaded to the official TEDx YouTube channel, he shared the whole escapade in the video I Tricked TED Into Letting Me Give A Talk.
Family Life
WillNE was born as William Jonathan Lenney in Newcastle upon Tyne and was raised in Whitley Bay, but currently lives in London. He was previously in a relationship with Twitch streamer and Instagram star Mia Monaghan aka Miaxmon, who has appeared in several videos on both his channels. The two, who recently appeared in the video I Built My Own Tiny Home in November 2023, in which WillNE built a house in the hill in five days to celebrate their fifth anniversary together, reportedly broke up shortly after that.
