It’s been almost a decade since Lucas Cruikshank became the first YouTube celebrity with his Fred Figglehorn character. The squeaky-voiced character with anger management issues first appeared in a Halloween-themed video and 2006, and over the next few years would become the most subscribed YouTube channel at the time, and lead to spin-offs including a TV show on Nickelodeon.
It’s been a few years now since the last video, which has people wondering: What happened to Fred?
Fred Figglehorn – What Happened To Him?
Fred Figglehorn wasn’t the first character Cruikshank tried out. Through the summer of 2006, Lucas Cruikshank was working with his cousins Jon and Katie Smet on their YouTube channel, JKL Productions. They released several videos, though unfortunately none of them are available on that old channel.
On October 30, 2006, JKL Productions uploaded the first Fred video, called “Fred on Halloween.” The video established Fred Figglehorn as a character. Although Lucas was 13 in real life, his character was (and is, as the show uses a floating timeline) six years old. The character lives with his abusive mother and grandmother, though neither are shown on-screen for the first 3 seasons.
JKL Productions created several episodes over the next year, such as “Fred Goes to the Park” and “Fred Gets Babysat.” In later interviews, Cruikshank said that people either loved or hated Fred Figglehorn, but there was no in between. Most episodes consisted of Fred speaking directly to the camera about what is happening in his life, which Cruikshank has said is a parody of many early YouTubers who, in Cruikshank’s words, “think that everyone is so interested in them.”
After the eighth episode, the shows had gained enough viewers that Cruikshank migrated them onto their own channel. The channel was set up in 2008, and within a year had one million subscribers, making it the first YouTube channel to hit that landmark. Shortly before hitting that landmark, he appeared in an episode of Nickelodeon’s iCarly, “iMeet Fred.”
That September Nickelodeon helped him film Fred: the Movie, and he appeared in an episode of Hannah Montana a few months later. He was at both the 2009 and 2010 Kids Choice Awards as a presenter, as well. (Notably, Lucas Cruikshank has never won a YouTube Award, even though the Awards have been given since 2007.)
Two more Fred movies came out, Night of the Living Fred in 2011 and Camp Fred in 2012, and Cruikshank even had a show on Nickelodeon for one season that year, which marked the end of the main Fred series on YouTube. However, three “sequel” series have been produced. Figgle Chat had him interviewing Internet celebrities, It’s FRED! Was a short animated series, and the New Fred Saga, where Cruikshank’s YouTube channel was fictitiously taken over by a Korean chaebol.
Despite being out of production, the Fred channel on YouTube continues to rack up subscribers and views. However, in the modern era of YouTube stars, the videos and their production quality, have not aged well.
What Is Lucas Cruikshank Doing Now In 2024?
He and Jennifer Veal worked on a number of YouTube videos together between 2013 and 2014. The former eventually left the channel in 2014, which prompted him to change the channel name back to “lucas” ((they had renamed it to “Lucas and Jenny” previously for their videos).
Since then, he has continued to post YouTube videos on a regular basis (at least once a week). As of 2024, his channel has more than 3.31 million subscribers and over 223 million combined views.
Some of his most popular uploads from the recent years include Guy who was on Nickelodeon 10 years ago part 2 (3.6 million views), The Dark Side of Butt Injections (1.8 million views), Playing Apps Made Only For Straight Guys (1.7 million views), and Playing the most disturbing episode story (1.5 million views).
In June 2018, he was also featured on Brandon Roger’s Youtube video, Four Million Subscriber Freakout. That’s not all, he also hosts a podcast with his brother Jacob, which is available on Youtube under the name “Lucas & Jacob: The Bro Show.” Launched in September 2018, the podcast is currently updated every Tuesday.
Aside from that, he’s also released a few singles. In 2020, he came out with “Shargay Evans”, a parody revamp of the High School Musical character originally portrayed by Ashley Tisdale. The following year, he was featured in “All Night (with Zhone and Fraxoim)”, a track from the hyper pop mixtape, Mutants Vol. 6: Home.
And more recently, he was featured in the track, “The Climb (cover) (with Molly Cruikshank)”, a track from the 2022 album Best of Both Worldz.
In terms of his personal life, he’s been dating Matthew Fawcus, an Australian model, since March 2013 (he had previously come out as gay in a YouTube video in August 2013). They two were introduced by a fellow gay Youtuber after having met “from afar” at a local gay club.
For those who’d like to know what he’s up to, you can check out his social media accounts. He has an active Instagram account (@lucascruikshank) with over 488K followers as well as a Twitter (@LucasCruikshank), though the latter isn’t updated as frequently.
Not only that, but he’s also active on TikTok (@lucascruikshank) which isn’t surprising seeing as how he’s known for his videos. As of 2024, he has more than 598K followers on the platform. If anything, it’s even more active than his YouTube channel.
I’m so sad to hear that Fred from Youtube has passed away. He was such a great creator and I’m sure his fans will miss him.