Kevin Leonardo Discusses His Viral 'Nair' Video, Safe Bottoming And Taylor Swift

Kevin Leonardo is a content creator on TikTok and YouTube known best for his educational video tutorials on health and sex topics related to the gay community. Kevin found massive virality lately after uploading a tutorial on how to remove the hairs on your butt using Nair cream, showing viewers how to do so in graphic detail. The video amassed over 25 million views in two weeks as TikTokers and Twitter users began sharing their shocked reactions to the content, resulting in tons of memes and leaving many wondering how the video is allowed on YouTube in the first place.

We spoke with Kevin Leonardo to discuss his career in content creation, the Nair video, why it's so important to post these types of videos online and why Taylor Swift's 1989 is better than Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly.

Q: Great to talk with you, Kevin. So what is it that you do online?

A: I've been posting on TikTok and YouTube for a couple of years now and I pretty much just give tips online for gay people on how to have safe sex and all things butt related. I talk about shaving your butt and using creams on your butt or butt fissures and what to do when you're bleeding and all of those lovely things.

I also sell my own products online. I have a bottoming course on how to have safe sex as a bottom and also douching kits and just safety educational things for mainly gay men.

Q: When did you start making content and why?

A: : I started making content I think around 2020. It was COVID time and we were all locked in. In the beginning, it was just random videos. It wasn't gay stuff. But then towards the end of 2020, I had been seeing this guy who was in an open relationship with somebody else and I was really sad 'cause I lost my V-Card to him and he was my first and I loved him a lot but he didn't love me back. So I started to make videos about this guy that I was sleeping with who was not emotionally mine.

But then people started to ask me questions about, "Oh, how's your sex life? Why are you seeing this guy if he's not dating you? Have some self-respect." I'd be like, "Well, the sex is good," and then they'd be like, "Oh, how are you having good sex? It hurts for me." Or, "Oh, I'm so dirty, how can you enjoy gay sex as a receptive bottom?" I'd be like, "Oh, well, I just do x, y, z and I learned a lot from trial and error" and so I started to give tips online. So that started happening around 2021, where it was mostly advice and tips on how to do it well.

@thekewlestkev Happy with the experience and the results! #hairrremoval #hairremovalcream ♬ original sound – Kevin Leonardo

Q: What do you think is the importance of posting educational content geared toward the gay community?

A: I think it's really important because when I was first starting out, before I was making content, I didn't have someone to watch, like me, to teach me these things. So that's why I had to deal with a lot of bad things. I've cut my butt while I was shaving because I didn't know what to do. I've douched improperly and I got a butt fissure once. There were a lot of issues that I had to deal with just from experiencing things that I could have avoided if I had just had somebody to watch that would give me advice the way that I do for other people now.

Q: Do you find there's a lack of content like this online?

A: It's definitely a lot better today in 2023 compared to before, but I definitely still think it's a taboo topic. We're all kind of cool with gay people now, in America at least, we're all kind of cool with it, but I feel the topic of gay sex is still kind of, 'eh,' because even recently, this year, I feel there's a narrative of, "gay people just want to have sex all the time" and there's a narrative that everyone's promiscuous.

I think the reason why it's not as okay [to make this type of content] is because of those harmful stereotypes like, "Oh, they all just wanna have sex and they all just wanna do these things that aren't natural and then that gets them in trouble and gets them STDs," stuff like that, which I get to a certain degree. I get that gay sex, you have to be more careful with it, but it doesn't mean that it's not normal. You have to take extra precautions to do those things. But yeah, I think anything super intimate is still kind of taboo. Even butt shaving is still taboo and that's not even about gay sex.

@hansadat NOOOOO WHAT ON EARTH #nair #nairvideo #kevinleonardo ♬ original sound – Hani P

Q: Before the Nair video, what was the trajectory of your content creation career like? When did you first start to gain a following?

A: So there were a few moments on TikTok that I would get traction. I think it started in 2021 when I was talking about my relationship with this person and also when I was giving tips for the first time. I wouldn't say I went viral because I feel everyone kind of got popular on TikTok back in the day and it wasn't like I was getting millions of views, it was just in the hundreds of thousands of views range. It was just basically me giving tips for bottoms and tips for tops. That was the first thing that gained traction.

Then last summer, I started to talk about shaving your butt and using creams on your butt and that got more traction. Then this year, it was earlier in the year, I started to make my videos more captivating in the first 3-5 seconds because I liked a good hook. I like to pull people in and so I started to make all of my videos with the wildest introductions and people started to catch on and they'd be like, "Why is that in the first three seconds? Can we get a hi? Can we get a hello?" People thought it was funny, so I just went with it and that started to pick up, then there was the Nair video.

Q: So for those who don't know, what is the so-called "Nair video?"

A: The Nair hair video is a video that I posted a couple of weeks ago. It is a video in which I show people and teach people how to remove your butt hair using the Nair cream. For people that don't know, the Nair cream is basically a hair removal cream that you put on your skin and if you wait a few minutes, the hairs disappear. So in the Nair video I did that on my butt hairs, but uncensored. So you can kind of see the whole thing. No shame, we all have buttholes. You go to the gym, you see buttholes. It's not a big deal.

Q: Is this the first time you've posted a graphic tutorial like this to YouTube?

A: No, that's the crazy thing. Last summer, I did a butt shaving tutorial with a razor and it didn't go super viral or anything. This is not the first time I've done this, but I would say this is the second time. This is number two of me doing that, and this time I edited it in a way that is kind of funny too.

@chung_a_lung Why is it breathing at meeeee!!😩😩 #reactionvideo #kevinleonardo #nairhairremoval #whatdidijustwatch #rinsemyeyesout @Kevin Leonardo ♬ original sound – Chung

Q: Before posting the video, were you worried it might be taken off of YouTube because of its graphic nature?

A: I wasn't worried this time because I knew that last year I did the same thing and they were fine with it. The only reason why I'm worried now is because this video kind of went viral. There are people reporting the channel and a lot of my other videos from the past. I got a few violations for thumbnails that I posted in the past, so that got me a strike on my channel. So that's kind of the big worry.

This video was fine because YouTube literally responded to some of these reporters and they were like, "This video is fine." I saw a tweet. They tweeted like, "This video does not violate any guidelines," so I know that this video is fine. But I did mess up because initially, the first thumbnail that I put for this video was my butt, and you're not supposed to put anything explicit as a thumbnail, so that was my mistake. So yes, I did get in trouble for certain thumbnails that I had posted in the past and with this video, but I am not worried that they're gonna take it down because they are not taking it down, it's been weeks.

Q: The video has over 20 million views right now. What's been your reaction to the virality of it and that so many people have seen you so exposed?

A: I love attention. I'm very much an attention seeker. I love being in front of the camera and I love talking and I love being talked about. It feels good, if I'm being really honest, it feels good. Also, the reactions are so funny. I've been seeing the funniest reactions on YouTube, on Twitter, on TikTok and they're absolutely hilarious. I did not expect it to be this big, but it's insane and it makes me feel like low-key proud that I made that video. I'm owning it. I'm not ashamed at all.

Q: While there's been a lot of great, positive reactions to the video, there's also been some haters who don't seem to agree with the content being on YouTube. What do you think of those kinds of comments?

A: Well, with comments like that, it's interesting because people are like, "Hey, I've gotten videos down for like much less," that's a universal thing. I've gotten thumbnails taken down. You know what I mean? I've made mistakes too. You just have to know what the rules are to get by. We all have to deal with the guidelines.

But I saw a few other angry reactions from people online, like, "How is this allowed?" "There are children on YouTube." To that I say, well, the video is literally age-restricted. I don't know why it says YouTube made it age-restricted, I literally age-restricted it myself.

There was a guy on TikTok that was like, "Oh, this video is only still up on YouTube because Kevin is fair-skinned, and he's white-passing." I was like, "Excuse me, white-passing? I literally look I'm straight from China. There is nothing white-passing about me, literally zero percent white-passing." That video got thousands of likes and I was like, "How, in what world is this race thing?" I don't know. I just was so confused as to why someone would say that.

So a lot of the angry reactions are actually not very smart because you can refute all of their points. "There are kids on this app." Well, it's age-restricted and also I'm not responsible for what kids watch. Two, it's like, "Oh, I've gotten other videos taken down [for less.]" Well, same, you know what I mean? You just have to know what is allowed.

The most common one that I've seen is people finding other issues that they've had with me from other TikTok videos or other YouTube videos that I've had in the past that have gone semi-viral, and they're like, "Oh my God, isn't this the guy that did X, Y, Z?" I'm like, "Okay, well, that's what happens to everyone when they go popular." People start to take three-second clips and then they're like, "Oh my God, this guy is so horrible." I'm like, "If you watch that clip for more than five seconds, you'll understand what I'm trying to say."

So all of these points are refutable, I think people just need to take a chill pill, to be honest. You have a butthole too. We all have hair. Sometimes you don't know how to get rid of hair. There are a lot of people that are like, "Hey, thank you so much for this content because I was scared that the cream would hurt me or it would burn or that it would sting". I'm like "You're welcome."

@haleyybaylee My eyes ARE BURNING WHAT IS HAPPENING YOU GUYS #kevinleonardo ♬ original sound – haleyybaylee

Q: There are also some people who think you posted the video for sexual purposes. How would you respond to those claims?

A: That's crazy, too. I've gotten so many unsolicited nudes and so many people have been asking me to make an adult channel or like an OF account and then there are people that are like, "How can you post pornographic content?" referring to the Nair video.

There is literally, like literally nothing arousing about any of my videos. I can't understand how you can watch one of my videos and think, "Oh, my God, he is so sexy". I've never been like, "Oh, my gosh, guys look at me. I'm so hot." Never in my life have I ever posted a video like that. All my videos are like, "Oh, look at my butt hairs." None of that is arousing. I don't get how someone could watch my videos and be like, "Oh, my God, I kind of want to smash."

If you think I'm cute, great, but it's a butt hair removal video. If you find that arousing, that's not on me, 'cause it's not like I'm like, "Hey, guys, look at my crack. It's so sexy." It's literally like, "Hey, guys. This is how you remove the hairs with a cream." I wasn't cute in that video, you know what I mean? It's wild to me that there's that narrative going on. Who in their right mind would want to post a butt hair removal video to arouse? Imagine seeing that on Pornhub. Who would watch that? I wouldn't.

Q: So when did you first notice the video was going viral?

A: I had gone semi-viral on TikTok the day prior to the [Nair] video being posted and some guy, a random guy, stitched one of my videos and in that stitch, he said, "Who's going to tell me that this guy posted a video of him shaving his hairy butthole last summer and his whole crack is on camera?" So when he made that stitch, I saw people going onto my YouTube and watching that first video, the first one from last summer.

When that was happening, I had already made this new Nair video and I had already had this new course that I was going to launch and that I was going to plug in the Nair video. And so I was like, what perfect time to just release that tomorrow morning because all these people are coming in to watch the hair video from last year. Keep in mind, I was also annoyed because I knew that I could do better than the video that I made last summer because in that video, the initial video, I was still really hairy at the end. So I was like, you know what? There's a better way to remove your butt hairs than using a facial razor. I know that [Nair] is going to make me hairless and I can introduce it to people better.

So I posted that video and it immediately got views because people were already coming on to that channel to watch the butt-shaving video. So in a day, it was already very popular and in the next week, it became even more and more popular. My reaction to that was, well, one, I kind of planned it, so good for me 'cause I put it up at the right time when people were coming onto my channel.

But two, my reaction was like, wow, I did not think it was going to be this big to the point where people are posting reactions to it. To the point where other famous YouTubers and other famous TikTokers are watching this video and people that I know, people that I've watched and people that I follow. I'd be like, "Wow, thanks for watching my hairy butthole on camera." I feel like we're friends now. I feel like we're more than acquaintances. We're more than friends. If you've seen my hairy crack, we're more than friends.

Q: What are your favorite types of reactions people have posted to the video?

A: My favorite would definitely be the ones where the first clip is me talking over music and then the caption is like, "Kevin Leonardo's victims," then it would show a fan cam of people screaming.

@yuszulkiflii Yes, everyone was shocked! 😂 #foryou #fyp #foryoupage #kevinleonardo ♬ Funny – Gold-Tiger

Q: How has the video impacted your career online?

A: I've made more money in the last two weeks from social media than I did literally all year from social media. I'm not even kidding. I'm not saying, "Oh my God, I'm a millionaire, Kylie Jenner." I'm not at that level obviously, but I've been working on social media for years, I have never made this much money in two weeks ever from social media.

I went from 9,000 subscribers to, right now, 152,000 subscribers [on YouTube] and it's still going on. On my TikTok, I went from like 300-something-thousand to now 500,000. I've gotten so many more followers, I've gotten so many more subscribers, money. In terms of my own personal website, my own personal sales and my own personal followings, they've spiked like insane. I've never seen a spike this big ever.

Q: Are you planning on posting more in-depth tutorial videos like the Nair video?

A: Absolutely, 1000%. I might wait until this strike on my YouTube is out. So I might wait a few months because I don't want to get in trouble with YouTube or anything. I'm sure that it won't be an issue because I know that it's fine, but I wanna lay low for a bit. I wanna wax my butt and show people how to wax my butt. I wanna show people how to douche your butt visually. There's a lot coming for sure. This is not the last butt video.

@deesonextdoor kevin leonardo victims | #kevinleonardo #nairvideo #nairvideotramma #nairvideokevin #fypシ #deesonextdoor ♬ original sound – dee

Q: Beyond the Nair video, you're also going fairly viral on TikTok for reposted videos from your TikTok Live streams where you pick your preference between two given options, those options usually being "Taylor Swift" and something controversial. What's the story behind these videos?

A: So that one's kind of a tricky subject. In May or in April of this year, I made a separate TikTok account called "The Swifty Kev." I was just making videos about Taylor Swift, 'cause I'm a huge fan.

People were upset about 1989 by Taylor Swift winning over Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly. There was a… Okay. So in 2016, Taylor Swift's 1989 won over Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly at the Grammy's and people were complaining about it. So I made a video and I was like, "Hey, let's not complain that she won," because people love to say, "Oh, Taylor only wins stuff because she's white and it's mediocre. To me, I think that's really rude. So I made a video and I was like, "Hey, she won because she deserved it. She didn't win because she's white." I like the other album too, but let's not put people down just to bring other people up.

So that went semi-viral online and people were like ragging on me and they were calling me racist, homophobic names. I was like, "Oh my gosh, that's a little too much." But people were really mad at me for saying that this album deserved to win. So after that video was made and kind of went viral, whenever I went on a live stream, people started to ask me [these questions]. First it was obviously 1989 or To Pimp a Butterfly, then it was like, 1989 or another artist, then it went to like 1989 or Civil Rights, 1989 or Christmas, 1989, or your parents.

Then recently after Nair, it went even more crazy. Now it's Taylor Swift or Rosa Parks, Taylor Swift or 9/11, Taylor Swift or the Holocaust. I'd be like, "What is going on? What is happening?" I literally would get the craziest questions, like 1989 by Taylor Swift or the Nair Cream, or 1989 by Taylor Swift or big oily Jewish men 'cause I love Jewish men.

My viewers are so funny and so crazy that they would ask me these questions and then they would screen-record them and then speed it up and make it sound so crazy on TikTok and I would like all of them 'cause they're so funny. They're the funniest videos I've ever seen, to be honest. But yeah, those questions are insane and I would always answer truthfully. I would never lie about it, you know what I mean? They'd be like Taylor Swift or Pride Month and I'm like, "Well, I listen to Taylor Swift more than I celebrate Pride Month, so Taylor.

@chloemaress hes a social experiment #fyp #kevinleonardo #taylorswift #1989 #taylornation #speaknow ♬ original sound – Chloe

@kevinleonardo1fan We listen to taylor every day!! 😇 // #thecoolestkev #lgbt #kevinleonardo @Kevin Leonardo ♬ original sound – KEVINS 1# FAN

Q: Do you have any advice for aspiring content creators?

A: My advice would definitely be "don't restrict yourself." Don't try to be someone that you're not. Try to be fully yourself. When I was first starting out, if I was following trends or trying to be someone that I wasn't, I was never successful. I only became more popular and more popular when I started being true to myself and being honest with my thoughts and how I wanna be portrayed.

You can put up a character, you can put up certain things in your personality that add flare and stuff, but don't be so far away from who you actually are because you won't be consistent with that. You have to be consistent when it comes to social media. While people might think that the Nair video is an overnight success, it's not because I've been making videos for three years. So don't do it in a way that's like, "Oh yeah, one video will make me popular and then I'll be set for life." You have to make videos and you have to put stuff out even when you're flopping, even when you're getting zero views in a week. I've gone through weeks where sales are down, views are down, no one cares about me, but I still have to go and put stuff out. So sticking to yourself and being consistent, I would say are the two biggest things for me.

A big thank you to Kevin Leonardo for talking with us. You can follow Kevin on TikTok @thekewlestkev and on YouTube @thecoolestkev.