BREAKING: ICE confirms TikTok’s most followed creator, Khaby Lames was taken into custody.
Let’s cut to the chase. Yes, the world’s top TikToker Khaby Lame WAS detained by ICE, the agency confirmed on June 7.
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Seringe Khabane Lame, 25, a citizen of Italy, June 6, at the Harry Reid International Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada for immigration violations,” ICE confirmed to Men’s Journal in an emailed statement after Men’s Journal asked whether it was true that ICE had arrested the popular TIkToker.
“Lame entered the United States April 30 and overstayed the terms of his visa. Lame was granted voluntary departure June 6 and has since departed the U.S.,” ICE wrote.
Here’s the ICE statement:
That news came after confusion erupted because Lame is not in the ICE arrest database. Furthermore, he’s been posting on Instagram and on TikTok since the rumor went viral, including while in a bookstore. However, that’s likely because ICE now says it let him leave the country, so he’s no longer in ICE custody.
On June 6, Men’s Journal asked ICE public relations about the viral and then-unverified rumor that Lame was arrested, which started on the X page of a social media influencer named Bo Louden, who claimed he reported Lame. X’s Grok warned readers on June 6 that the rumor was likely false.
A spokeswoman for ICE, Alethea Smock, told Men’s Journal on the evening of June 6 that she was looking into it, and the agency responded with the statement on June 7.
On June 7, Lame posted several times to his Instagram story, including a post in a bookstore, holding a book. He also wished a top athlete a happy birthday.
In a June 6, 2025, post, Louden alleged that Lame, who has more than 162 million followers on TikTok, was arrested by ICE in Nevada and is in custody, and he shared an ICE database screenshot in the name of Serigne Khabane Lame of Senegal. The post then ricocheted around social media and was viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
A community note was quickly attached to his post. “Khaby Lame is still living in Italy, and was granted citizenship there in 2022. ICE is a U.S.-based organization and cannot deport someone not living in the USA,” it read.
It’s true that Lame doesn’t come up in the database and didn’t on the evening of June 6, either. No evidence of Khaby Lame, Khabane Lame, or Serigne Khabane Lame being in ICE custody came up in that database (as the screenshot lists). Nothing. Zero results came up also when you put the supposed A-Number from the screenshot into the database. In other words, the screenshot was impossible to replicate, fueling initial questions about the report. As noted, that’s likely because Lame was allowed to voluntarily leave the country, though, per the new statement from ICE, which confirmed that he was taken into custody, albeit briefly.
On Louden’s comment thread on X, other people wrote that they also got no results when they tried to replicate it in the official database, raising questions.
Authorities also later confirmed Lame’s brief detention to France 24.
Lame is an Italian citizen.
Italian citizens do not need a visa to be in the United States for up to 90 days. KRON4 confirmed that Khaby Lame was born in Senegal. He is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
“Lame moved to Italy from his native Senegal when he was an infant with his working class parents, but was only granted Italian citizenship when he was 20,” that site reported.
In 2024, he starred in a show about trying to find a new home in the U.S. In early May, Lame was photographed attending the Met Gala in New York.
This post was updated with the ICE statement.
