TikTok Star, Khaby Lame Joins Italia’s Got Talent As Judge

Khaby Lame – a Senegalese-born Italian who is the world’s most-followed TikTok creator has reportedly joined Italia’s Got Talent as a judge.

He rubs shoulders with A-listers, appears on red carpets and has run the catwalk at Milan Fashion Week in 2022 – and now Khabane ‘Khaby’ Lame, 22, is said to have signed on to the popular talent show.

The programme will air on Disney+, rather than Sky, like previous seasons, and auditions have started in the southern Italian city of Avellino, near Naples, reported Variety.

It’s unclear when exactly the new series will air, but Khaby will join TV personality Elettra Lamborghini, granddaughter of Ferruccio Lamborghini, founder of the luxury Italian car manufacturer.

Returning judges for the talent show include TV personality Mara Maionchi and comedian and YouTuber Frank Matano.

Khaby, who posts posts under the name @khaby.lame and moved from Senegal to Chivasso, close to Turin in Italy aged one, currently has 155million followers on the social media site – all of whom can’t seem to get enough of his caustic expressions and exasperated call-outs of other people’s dismal TikToks.

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The 22-year-old was working as a factory worker when he was made redundant in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. 

He told the New York Times that he began spending hours of his free time every day posting TikTok videos – and his comedy clips soon started going viral.  

His most watched videos include him deriding a fellow TikToker who cuts himself free from a car door by shearing through his t-shirt – which has had more than 158 million views.  

Khaby films himself in the same predicament but instead of reaching for the scissors to hack his way out of the situation, he simply opens the car door to free himself – and then offers his signature shrug of exasperation. 

Another TikTok clip sees the joker mocking someone who uses a plastic pizza saver to cut their takeaway Italian staple dish into slices. Khaby simply neatly divides his own using his hands – and then lifts in shoulders in frustration. 

Much of his success appears to come from the fact he doesn’t usually speak in his clips, he thinks. 

The star told the US newspaper that the success behind his videos are down to the fact that he speaks a ‘global language’, saying he has a huge following in Brazil and South America. 

While the work opportunities have flooded in since his rise to the top of the TikTok rankings, he said at the time that he’s not yet set for life…rather earning ‘steadily’ – but planned to snap up a house for his mother as soon as he could afford it. 

Khaby, a huge Juventus fan, has been open about his tough start in life, telling Olhar Digital last year: ‘Public housing is a place to which I owe everything. They taught me education and allowed me to cultivate many bonds.’

The social media comedian, who posts in English and Italian, also has no time for dramatic over-reactions – or people who offer up delayed reactions when something goes wrong, while pointless life hacks are his biggest targets.

‘I came up with the idea because I was seeing these videos circulating, and I liked the idea of bringing some simplicity to it,’ Khaby said to CNN last year, ‘I thought of a way to reach as many people as possible. And the best way was not to speak.’