Khaby Lame Granted Italian Citizenship After 21 Years Living In The Country

TikTok Star Khaby Lame Granted Italian Citizenship After Living In The Country For 21 Years

Khaby Lame, the 22-year-old TikTok star whose ironic, speechless clips have earned him more followers than anyone else in the world, has become a citizen of Italy.

“I swear to be faithful to the Republic and to observe the Constitution and the laws of the State,” Lame declared this week to officials in Chivasso, the city near Turin were he and his family settled after leaving Senegal when he was just a year old.

His rise to digital stardom in the two years since has been meteoric, quickly catapulting him to 148 million followers and first-place in the world of TikTok creators.

 

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“It’s not right that a person who lives and grows up with the Italian culture for so many years, and who is clean, still doesn’t have the right to citizenship,” he recently told the Italian daily La Repubblica. “I’m not just speaking for myself.”

The issue is a political hot potato in Italy. Attempts to pass laws granting every child citizenship at birth in the country, regardless of their parents’ citizenship, have floundered repeatedly.

Lame has said fame has made his life “completely different” from the one he previously knew.