The Joe Rogan Experience - #849 - James Kingston

Episode Date: September 20, 2016

James Kingston is a British freerunner, adventurer, and YouTuber, where he can be seen climbing some of the world's tallest buildings and cranes. https://www.youtube.com/jamesmedias

on right yeah and we're live you gotta put that put that thing down wait i want you to focus i want you to focus i gotta get into your head man i gotta find out what you're about your instagram's just at joe rogan right yes okay did you post it posted go go okay turn that over so you can't look at it that's the key silent I wouldn't think that a guy like you would be easily distracted. You can't be. I'm like, I'm just like on different things. If I get on something, I'm on it. And then it's like something else.

And my brain is doing so many different things at one time. How did you get to be the guy that makes people shit their pants when they watch your videos? Because if you haven't seen any of his videos, stop, pause this perspective go look up james kingston what is your youtube i just put james kingston james kingston and uh all forms of social media right you got instagram all that jazz and there's just ridiculous photos and videos of you doing shit that people watch with their friends and everybody goes, Jesus Christ! And they cringe and your asshole puckles up. Like this one. Where are you out here?

Climbing in the Ukraine. That's in Ukraine, yeah. With Mustang Wanted. Is that his name? Yep. So you hooked up with the Russians. You out-Russianed the Russians. Yeah.

I wouldn't say I out-Russianed them, but... But that's what they do, right? That's the whole thing. I think only Russians I out-Russianed them. But that's what they do, right? That's the whole thing. I think only Russians can out-Russian Russians. So he's climbing. First of all, how hard is it to get to this tower? We're looking at this video and I am fucking freaking out. How high are you up here?

This one, I think it was like just over 200 meters. This is Mustang. Oh my God, he's hanging by one hand. This one is the second tallest building in Ukraine, right? Oh my God. And you go in the bottom and it's like a shopping center. And then they took me through all these little doors and then we took a lift down into the basement. And then we walked through the basement and found another lift.

Oh my God, he's standing on the edge here. Who's standing on the edge? You? Mustang again. Oh my, he's standing on the edge here. Who's standing on the edge? You? Mustang again. Oh my, he's out of his fucking mind. Holy fuck, this video is hard to watch, man. So, and he's muscling with your hair. What led you to this and how long you've been doing this? So I've done parkour for nine years. You know what parkour is, right? Sure. Jumping around, all that fun stuff.

They have little classes for little kids now. They yeah it's really cool yeah break their arms and about four years ago i got to a point where i was like satisfied with what i was able to do right but i was still like super scared of heights so i was like okay i know that if i want to get over this fear of heights i need to do it face my fear so is this your stuff yeah this is you yeah so this is you running on trees and stuff yeah the whole idea behind parkour is to use the world around you steps and fences and all kind of crazy shit and to you know you're essentially performing acrobatics with all this stuff yeah just jumping around.

I think the – Now, how do you do this and not get hurt? You just practice a lot. Like the whole idea isn't to go out and just do crazy stuff and risk your life. You start slow. You start with small jumps and then you progress steadily and sensibly. And then eventually you'll get to a point where you can do things that make most people feel a bit sick well what did you start doing did you take gymnastics in school or something no i was like a little fat kid when i was younger not super fat but unhealthy just played computer games that was it how are you able to jump so far too that's another thing that freaks

me out there's one big legs you know i'm six foot three i can jump i know but there's a lot of people that are six foot three they can't jump from one building to a next yeah like i've seen some of the ridiculous ones where you jump from the top of a building to another building like on a very small ledge that you're landing on yeah just practice you start how the fuck do you practice you start with a jump that's like four foot wide right and then as you get but you do that hundreds and hundreds of times until that becomes like nothing. Right.

And then you'll realize that you can now jump five foot and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And my peak's like 11, 11 and a half foot standing jump. 11 and a half foot. Yeah. Wow. Dude, you should be in the Olympics. They're on another level.

Yeah, how far can like a long jumper jump? 20 feet. 20 feet 20 feet something like that i think the record is probably 21 22 without holy shit but still 11 feet in between buildings now when you're jumping and one building's taller another building's smaller it gives you more time to to travel right yeah yeah so So like when you're jumping, I saw this one video of you were on the ledge and you leapt across from one building to another and I'm like, this has got to be Photoshopped. This can't even be real.

The one that you posted. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that one's in Cambridge. That one's actually a small jump because there's quite a big height difference. Right. Massive impact because of the height. Yeah.

And you've got a ledge that's maybe like a foot deep to land on and then there's a scaffolding pole right in front of it dude that you kind of slam into you can see it in the video i slam into that pole jesus but that that's all part of taking the impact to use your arms as well yeah but that's it doesn't seem like something could practice a lot right slamming into something that hard those ones you can't practice a lot, right? Slamming into something that hard? Those ones, you can't practice a lot, but yeah. You figure it out. You figure out how to take impact and yeah. So you started doing this about four years ago, right?

You started doing the height stuff? Started doing the climbing kind of scary stuff. And when did you start releasing videos? Right away? No, not really. I mean, I'd release... this is the one oh this one yeah oh this one makes me shit my pants this is that seems so far that seems so far how far it's not that far like you could jump to the lower bit there quite easily that's what other people have done right into the pool yeah yeah that is bananas dude yeah so how much is the distance between those two buildings

between those probably like 10 foot 12 foot maybe it does not seem like but because it's because there's a big drop as well it's more about like judging it correctly and not jumping too far not jumping too little right yeah i'd see like 12 foot, I think. Run that one more time, Jamie. I just want to see this one more time because this freaks me out every time I see it. Every time I see it, I'm like, he's going to die for sure.

There's no way he can make it. So you kind of like lean forward and then swing your arms and then push off of it. Just like a standard pole jump. Yeah. Because you're already committing to the jump as you're like leaning forward yeah you could see it in your momentum like your head because you

have a gopro on yeah is above it's past the center line of like that that beam that you're standing on and you're you're going out there once you're gone that's it yeah oh but that's the idea like you train you train enough so that when you're stood on the edge looking at something like you have no doubt you can't afford to have any doubt if i doubted myself there and i commit to it and i lean and then i back out i'm dead i had a crazy dream last night man that i'm just remembering yeah i had a crazy dream that i was climbing with alex honnold yeah you know alex um alex has been on the podcast before and and every now and then I'll think about how crazy he is, about how crazy what he does is,

but how mellow and calm he is about it. When he was describing climbing, he's like, it's really actually kind of mellow. It's like if you're really scared, something's gone horribly wrong, and it's really, really bad. It's exactly the same. People think I'm like an adrenaline jumping

yeah yeah it says he fell but unless he just falls i'm sure he pulls it out right there at the end there it is dude all that is this alex that's not him i don't think so no it looks like oh my god look at that oh my god see i'm not into that crazy that's That's too much trust in a backpack. Everything I do is all on me. Interesting. Yeah, not into that. My friend Andy, Andy Stump, he does that wingsuit shit. He's got the world record in wingsuit flying. He's out of his fucking mind.

He just loves to do that. He gets to the top cliffs of the world and just throws his fucking body off. And has like a squirrel suit. Like the close proximity stuff where they're just like we watched one the other day where a guy slammed into a bridge yeah he missed seen it yeah you know yeah the sound it's rough i don't know why i didn't expect it to be so loud the meat and there was people on the bridge oh yeah and his family were there oh yeah that's not good it's not good yeah um do you

worry about that when you're doing these crazy jumps no not at all i mean it's in my mind like if i make a mistake that's it but i don't make mistakes that's that's what you gotta be confident you gotta have confidence in what you're doing otherwise like if you if you're up there and you're scared right the chances of failing are so much higher i think yeah i think with anything i mean you have to be in the moment right well prepared in the moment yeah um how much of what you're doing or is it really you taking a chance and how much of it is just you having a better understanding what your body's capable of than the average person than most people i should say not taking chances maybe like 10 wow that's interesting and that's that's only on me taking chances and trusting structures yeah

like maybe jumping to something that i i'm not able to check first right but it doesn't happen often every time i do it i'm like probably shouldn't have done that it's really interesting also the that you picking this up four years ago is sort of like where social media it's around the time where social media really started to take off yeah maybe a couple years before that it did but like youtube videos of people doing crazy shit really between like six and seven years ago that's when it really is that right am I saying that right yeah like yeah like 2010 ish is it really started to take off yeah so you kind of caught you caught that wave you know i didn't you know i didn't really get anywhere to any kind of good decent like following on youtube until three four years ago that was it

i released my first like crane climb video that that blew up and went super viral and that was that kicked everything off and then because of that video i nailed a tv show in the in the uk on channel four and then that was everything just took off then wow now these russian cats you were hanging out with in the ukraine we climbed up on that tower um there's a lot of those guys like you see yeah yeah i saw a lot of videos yeah like what is it about russ Yeah. Like, what is it about Russians and climbing on? What is it about these crazy kids? Why are they so nutty?

I don't know. That's something I've been trying to figure out. Like, I've only been to Ukraine. I haven't been to Russia. But there's not much, like, there's not much going on there. You know, there's not much to live for in Russia or Ukraine. I don't want to sound mean. I know what you're saying yeah yeah and there's so much kind of they're just familiar with death and violence and stuff like that like mustang he goes out i don't

know every week and goes like organized fights just like street fights and just beats the the hell out of random people like that to me me, is so beyond me because I'm still an English boy. So he does those organized street fights where they're like five guys take on five guys? Just like big groups. I've seen those, yeah. He does that, and I was like, what? So he just does everything crazy. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. Whoa. And he just does it all for the thrill? Yeah, I think so. Damn. What a weird way to live. I know so damn what a weird way to live i know it's a weird way to have your brain wired it was such an interesting kind of insight when i was

there to people like that so how do you make contact with these guys do you speak ukraine or whatever they speak over there russian what do they speak both usually what is it both ukrainian and russian yeah i so it was organized for me to go meet him for the tv show i did in the uk and that was a part of that show was me going to ukraine to meet somebody else that did similar things and that was where i met him so they somehow or another got in contact with him through his youtube videos or something along those lines wow what a strange world we live in now you know yeah you can go to that place and risk your life with a bunch of other crazy people yeah it's nuts it's cool i guess yeah now what has it been like

for you to become famous for being like this crazy risk taker um i wouldn't say i'm like super famous you're pretty famous i know who you are i told my friends they're like oh that dude's crazy you allowed it mean how many millions of hits do your videos have fucking millions i've got a bunch of a million videos yeah that's famous man that's what's called famous yeah right unless it's one dude is watching it over and over again that's just my mom oh my boy he's alive that's cool i i don't know it's a bit weird it's weird yeah you're famous yeah Yeah. It's, I guess it's the same as that, but on a much smaller scale.

Yeah. But you're famous for doing like risk take. I'm just famous for talking shit. Yeah. It's easy to talk shit. You just have to say funny things or be ridiculous. But you're famous for like literally doing something that makes people shit their pants when they look at a video of it. I look at videos of the stuff you do and I start jamie i'll tell you i start squeezing i'm

like fucking contort and i go oh what the fuck is he doing yeah i don't you know i don't have any desire to do what you're doing that's why my dream about alex about climbing with alex like here's one yeah this is the first one so this was the first big one I ever released. This video literally changed my life. Wow. This is, what are we in now? 2016. That's three years ago. Three years ago, yeah.

You're climbing over some water. Was this the first time you had done something like this? No, so I'd done a couple other ones, but this was the biggest, and this was like the first big one that I'd hung off. God damn, dude. Now, are you, your hands? But it's funny, because I live like just next to that now, which is really cool. Oh, wow. Dude, are you... It's funny because I live just next to that now, which is really cool.

Oh, wow. Dude, if you fell, that would not be good. No. Even into water. Oh, look at this. People are like, oh, it's just the water. You'd survive. You're doing chin-ups.

Oh, you fuck. You're out of your fucking mind, man. What are you doing, dude? What were you thinking right now when you're hanging above that water? First of all, are your hands sweaty? No, my hands never really... My hands sweat when I'm not doing anything. But when I'm doing this stuff, thinking right now when you're hanging above that water first of all your hands sweaty no hands is my hands never really my hands sweat when i'm not doing anything but when i'm doing this stuff

question is like who's filming you right now so my friend simon is up there with me and another friend doug was there too what do you think simon and doug would do if you fell would they just hurry up real down and oh jesus you're going one-handed motherfucker dude like what are you thinking while you're doing this you know what just like alex honnold said there's not much going on it's just me in that moment but there is because it's the first time you've done breakfast right yeah but thinking about what you're gonna eat for breakfast you know what most of the time when you get to a situation where you're about to do something that you've never done before and you kind of naturally your brain kind of hypes it up

and makes it seem a lot worse than what it actually is and then you do before and you kind of, naturally your brain kind of hypes it up and makes it seem a lot worse than what it actually is and then you do it and you're like, why the fuck was I scared of that? That was exactly the same.

Well, you were scared of that because if you fell, you're fucking dead. Yeah. I mean, it's not rocket science. That's a thick pole

you're hanging on to. It's not like a small pole. It's like super easy. Can you do a one-arm chin-up? No. I'm not like, I'm not like particular strong. Oh, fucking Christ. At all. Please work on that. You should be able to do a one-arm chin-up? No. I'm not like particular strong. Oh, fucking Christ.

At all. Please work on that. You should be able to do a one-arm chin-up. I've got like massive limbs, man. It's not easy to do one-arm chins when you're this big. But there's got to be some CrossFit guys that can do it. Yeah. I feel like strength isn't in my genes.

No? I just don't have it. You definitely have some strength. Good legs. You were hanging from your fucking... How long did you hang for? So I hung three times, probably like 30 seconds seconds each time it's hard to hang 30 seconds 30 seconds is tough it's not when you like when you do normal stuff is swinging around and all that stuff yeah it's quite easy but most people overestimate the amount of time they can hang

yeah i uh we had this thing on fear factor where people had to hold on to a bar And hang over like a river And girls beat the guys Really? Yeah, interesting Because girls don't weigh as much A white thing, yeah So the girls, you know They would be like 110 pounds

They would be able to hang on for a couple minutes Whereas the guys at about a minute and a half They were all dropping off Yeah Yeah Interesting I weigh 200 pounds That's a lot of weight to carry around in your hands

Yeah But I'm getting fat at the moment Mmm, so that I don't know how you could possibly allow yourself to get fat when you're jumping across like every I think every ounce is Important yeah, like backpackers lose weight. They don't they don't have as much body weight around I need to lose it. I need to sort my life out and start your life. You're doing crazy shit, so you um This is like what you do professionally now right how does that work um like what is a normal day a normal day yeah did you go out jump over a particularly exciting you know the normal day i do a lot of work like behind the scenes just like

editing and emails and just like boring stuff that people don't see administrative duties exactly yeah it has to be done but it just works the same as any other online influencer like you get a big following opportunities come your way and if you do something like that that's a bit different and a bit i guess crazy to most people even cooler opportunities come your way that's that's it right you've got youtube money you've got like merchandise on my website you've got sponsored videos and sponsors That's it. Right. You've got YouTube money. You've got merchandise on my website. You've got sponsored videos and sponsors. That's it, really. So you work directly with sponsors?

You have an agent or a manager? Yeah, I've got a manager, yeah. That's hilarious. Kid, you're going places. Yeah. He's smoking a big cigar. Listen, we're going to have to take it to the next level. Can you walk on your hands?

Can you walk on your hands on top with the Russians? The Russians are walking on their hands. I can't beat the Russians, man. You can't? they go too crazy how many of them die a lot i think there's a few videos floating around of people falling off cranes and shit oh really but it's super like oh that's not nice to look at yeah have you seen those videos i haven't seen you don't want to. Well, the wingsuit guy flying to the bridge the other day, I thought I didn't want to see it, but then I watched it six times in a row. But it blacks out before he hits, right? Oh, no. Have you found the...

Oh, yes. Oh, man, I haven't seen that. Oh, you see him bounce off the bridge, and it sounds like a car accident. It's a bang sound. I've heard the bang, but I haven't seen it. I don't know why I didn't expect a bang but it sounds like a car accident yeah it's fucked up it's the screams afterwards that get me yeah it's all bad yeah all of it's bad the people going oh oh my but that is half of the reason why these people are watching is the

possibility that that could happen even though they don't want it to happen that accentuates the thrill. It's a strange thing, isn't it? Because I hate watching stuff like that, but there's something in me that's like, I can't not click it. How could you say you hate watching stuff like that because you do daredevil videos?

I mean, I hate watching people die. Yes. Oh, I understand that. Yeah. But do you like watching people live? Do you like watching people take risks and live? Or do you go, oh, Jesus. like watching people take risks and live or do you go oh jesus i don't i don't really watch that much stuff so you just do it i just do stuff yeah interesting so do you look at like the competitors like is there like a bunch of you that are like

pushing the boundaries and you're like huh no i literally have no interest in beating other people or making something better or more dangerous than other people i have no interest in beating other people or making something better or more dangerous than other people. I have no interest in that. I'm doing it because I love it. And I love making videos. Did you see those guys that were walking on their hands and they were doing flips and then they were doing hoverboards on the edge of this building? Yeah. That one I have a real problem with.

Yeah, it's rough. Because I've been on hoverboards before and sometimes you fall off. Sometimes they fuck up. Sometimes they stop working. Sometimes they stop working. Sometimes shit goes wrong. You're trusting in some cheaply made Chinese hunk of shit. Oh, Jesus. Oh, you fucks.

I can't. Oh, he's spinning around in circles. This bothers me so much. And he's literally getting to the edge and spinning around. I mean inches from fucking certain death and moving quite quickly by the way I mean, I don't think it's that bad like it's shut the fuck up of course I've been one of those it's quite easy shut it off Jamie. He's got his hands. He's not his hands, dude He's standing on his hands on a fucking hoverboard on a building on the top of the world. Fuck you He's crazy these

people are crazy look my hands are so russian wet russian yeah they're different folk right yeah yeah and they're their own species yeah they're definitely wild folk just the ability to do that and this new thing that we have now where you can take videos of it just upload it instantly you don't have to have any sort of a network or anything that approves it. You put up your own thing and then boom. All of a sudden you're like, you're a one man show. You know what? That's like the most amazing

thing about YouTube is it's like everybody has a job on YouTube. Anybody can go on YouTube, upload stuff, get paid for it, right? It's just so cool. And then if you make good stuff that's inspiring people or people enjoy. Yeah, it's crazy. So cool.

It's very strange, right? It's a completely new world that I don't think anybody anticipated that they were going to have individual content providers are essentially going to be like their own network. Now, what kind of an obligation do you have to the people that are watching your show? Like how often do you post stuff? I have no, like, set schedule. I probably should. I feel like I'd grow a lot more if I had set things. Like, the more I upload, the more I grow, and that's just how it works.

How often can you do that kind of stuff? I climb stuff every day, you know? It's not that simple. So how many days a week? A good month in terms of like video uploads would be like three three or four videos one a week is like good for me that's interesting yeah because some people i'm trying to up it i'm trying to do better but but it's hard though right it's just given the nature of what you do and i live in the uk most of the time and the the

weather there is just like right yeah you can't be hanging when it's raining out right oh and it's always oh fuck that oh you get up there and there's dew but your friends are there with the camera you're like let's towel it off towel it off i've had a few dewy situations oh fuck and you climb and it's normal and then when you get to the top that's what it like, where did this wetness come from? Oh my god. Why don't you put that sticky shit in your hands like football players use? Football, American football.

Sticky shit? Like chalk or? No, it's like tar. Like proper sticky shit. Like glue, they spray glue on their hands. Like stick'em. Stick'em, is that what it's called? Yeah.

Yeah, spray some shit on your hands, make some sticky. Like hmm. Take it into the next level with the sticky but then imagine if you're like hanging and you just can't get off strippers use it too allegedly um it was some stuff uh that you could buy that uh you would uh put on i think they spray on their legs so they could cling on to bars better in their hands yeah yeah it makes sense it also helps not getting like calluses and stuff oh that makes sense no that doesn't make sense because you think like it would you want it to be lubricated

then i mean like um when they start to like get sore and blister if i use chalk i don't get that because they either rip off or they stay yeah i use chalk i use chalk for weight lifting and stuff i sweat a lot though i have really sweaty hands for whatever reason. I'm just a sweaty fuck. So when I watch your videos, I start sweating, man. I start freaking out. Change your clothes. Yeah.

Like, when I used to play pool, I always found it really hard to use a pool cue that doesn't have a wrap on it. You know what I mean? Yeah. And, like, if it's just a piece of wood that had, like, a polish or a finish on it. So what I would do is I would get that stripper stuff and I would put it on my hands. And that way it allows you to like gently hold on to the pool cue. This sounds so dorky. But the stuff, unfortunately, though, gets on your hands and then you could transfer it to the balls and it makes the balls stick to each other.

It's not good. Not good. So that's my knowledge of stripper, gooky stuff that you can hang on with. It's not Stick'Em, though. It's probably something similar. But there's also a product that I've used called Dry Hands that's like antiperspirant for your hands. Yeah? Yeah, I found out about this because I tried just antiperspirant.

Isn't that like liquid chalk? Have you seen that stuff? No, what's that? It's just like, comes out like a suntan lotion. Ah. And then it just rubs in and kind of dries out and makes them pretty sticky. Ooh, I haven't heard of that. Liquid chalk.

I bet it's the same thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's essentially somehow or another they've figured out a way to stop you from sweating if they spray some stuff on you. Like, well, that's what antiperspirant is. That's a big thing that people like, right? They like to not sweat in their underarms. Disgusting.

Yeah. Fuck, man. I really have a hard time just watching these videos. I can't imagine if this is like the world that you've, you know, I mean, this is the path you've chosen. You're in, you know, you're one of the top guys in this madness. I guess. Yeah, you are.

Not for me to say. No, but I mean, in terms of ranking, I'm just saying that it's a crazy path to take with your life. It's unusual, yeah. Yeah, it's unusual. But I've never kind of, I've never fit into like just the normal world. Like I hated school. I ended up quitting school like fairly early.

No qualifications, nothing. How old were you when you quit school? I can't remember the ages, but it was like, what do you have have here you have high school and then you have college college yeah um so high school i quit like two years before the end i think i was like 13 14 wow you're like done yeah fuck this so done really yeah did your parents get mad yeah you're like don't worry mom i climbed trees and shit yeah i put my mom through a lot of shit when i was a kid how old are you now 26 so you started off this stuff really early so at 22 you're out there filming these fucking crazy adventures yeah what did your parents think then well well i started like i started a little bit of filming just the parkour stuff maybe in like 2000.

What are we in now? When I was 17, 18 was when I think I first made a video. And it was me just jumping between railings and small stuff, safe stuff. Mom's like, oh, that's nice. And now, I remember when I first showed her that, she was just like, what the fuck? I think she hit me around the back of the head. How old were you when you showed her the video of you hanging from the crane? When I released it, three years ago.

Right away? Yeah. Like when you were like, check this out, mom. I never show her. She doesn't really know about things until the video's done and it's uploaded. That's a good move. And she's like, what the fuck? Yeah.

So what did she say to you when she saw that besides hitting you? Did she ever sit down with you? She me she was just like i think she was just freaked out blown away yeah but i don't know i can't remember it wasn't like encouraging words it was like what are you doing right why are you doing this and do you remember what you said ah not really i usually just say the same thing i enjoy it just enjoy it that's it now is there any legal repercussions to doing something like that have any has anybody ever gotten mad at you uh yeah in the uk there's not really because it's trespass right and there's no like criminal damage or anything and trespass in the UK isn't a criminal offense. It's a civil offense. So I can only get in trouble for it

if the owner of the property for some reason wants to take me to court. I'm sweating like a pig over here thinking of you hanging from that bar over that water. I'm fucking sweating. My hands are sweating. My feet are sweating.

I'm sorry I interrupted you. So it's just a civil offense? Yeah, in but so it's just a civil offense? Yeah in the UK it's just a civil offense and if they catch you what does that mean? like you have to pay a fine or something? the people that catch me is usually just the police somebody sees me calls the police the police come and they say what are you doing

try to kind of tell me off and then send me on my way because there's nothing they can do which is good for me. What is this, Jamie? He's climbing a tower guard. There's a guy up there, right? Yeah.

So this is the tallest thing I've ever climbed, right? So you get up there and there's a dude up there. Yeah. So I went up and then about 10 minutes after I got to the top, the crane starts powering up like spinning and shit. And I'm like, what the hell is going on? Has somebody got a remote for this crane so i climb back down from the there's like it's one of these right so there's a little kind of thing here and then that's the main arm okay so i climb down from the backside

and then he's in his little room doing his cranny stuff and so you're still climbing even though you know this thing's gonna move so i spoke to him you say hey brother i had a little conversation and i was like can i climb this crane and then i was like can you can you just like leave the crane still lock it off for like 10 minutes while i do it because i've come all this way and what'd he say and he was like yes okay wow what a nice guy yeah i know and there's people down the bottom this is in dubai? This is in Dubai. The marina, yeah. It's really cool. I love Dubai, man. Now, when you're doing this and you're climbing,

were you worried about being arrested? Because if you get arrested in Dubai, that's no joke. Yeah, so they say. I don't know. Dubai's a funny one. I feel like they've got bigger fish to fry and they're kind of dealing with actual serious stuff. This, what happened when I got down, I had to like sit with all the site managers

and everything for a few hours. And the main guy, like the site manager, the main site manager said, if they phone the police, they'll all lose their jobs. Okay. So that's kind of how it works. Oh, okay. So usually they just beat the fuck out of you

and tell you don't come back? They don't, no. Never. No, but I mean, I'm joking, but they can't be happy that you're doing this right they weren't but they also were because it just blew their minds oh i see every time it's the same they're like you shouldn't be doing this they try to tell me off and then when i when it comes to me leaving they're like can we take a picture with you? Yeah. Every time. You're so high up here, man. How high are you up here right now? This is 450 meters.

What in the fuck, dude? It's a serious height, yeah. I'm just thinking of 450 feet's ridiculous. 450 meters, that's insanity. The one over the water was only 300 feet, so this is like four times, over four times the size. It would take you a long time to hit the ground yeah it would so while you're climbing up here what is going through your mind you're just being careful and watching yeah so this one was like really greasy because it's been there for it's

been there for two years i think the driver said said. And it was just coated in, like, grease and dust and the air. Fuck. It was like climbing it like somebody had just smothered it in margarine. Oh, my God. Which is why I'm going slow and I'm getting my feet in the right place. So the feet part is slippery, too? Everything is like butter, yeah. Jesus Christ, man.

James, James, James, James, James. So you get get up to the top please tell me you don't hang from the top of this i wanted to but it was just it was way too slippery yeah oh it was horrible so you made a judgment call while you're there yeah this is such a mind fuck good lord you're up by the way how awesome is dubai it's incredible i love it it what a crazy city yeah that didn't exist just a few decades ago it's really cool man one of my favorite places mainly because you can do stuff like this what do you do when you get up to the top do you just like put throw your hands up like I'm the king of the world or yeah sometimes you ever jerk off up there no I'd be a feat there's a light up there

in case a fucking plane hits it that's how high you are this is so hard to watch so um how many hours did it take you to do to get up there or how long did it take i think this took two hours but it was like so the beginning was that i got there at like 3 30 in the morning and in dubai they work at like 3.30 or 4 o'clock because it's cooler and there's just like hundreds and hundreds of these dudes stood outside the entrance to the site

so I'm like how the hell am I going to get into this place and is it dark when this is all going on? it was pitch black yeah and I managed to find like a little corner that I could sneak in and then sneak over the fence and there's people everywhere and i don't know how i managed to get in without them seeing me and then as soon as i dropped down i just dropped to the floor and they crawled across the floor between like these scaffolding bars and stuff like that and then some tom cruise mission impossible yeah i've had some

like cool situations man some really fun stuff and then i get to the bottom of the crane so the idea is i get to the crane i climb up like a bit of the crane and then i get into the building that's the easiest way and usually because to climb the crane for 450 meters is just like insane especially in that heat it's a killer and i had like just one of these one bottle of water is holding up so you're you're um so it takes you a couple hours and you're going through the building first yeah so it took me a while to get up the crane and then in because i've got a backpack and it's hot and it's like dry and it's hard to breathe and wow yeah it was the wrong time of the year to do it really and then i get in and then it's just

stairs and stairs and stairs that's crazy that you there at 3.30 and everybody's just showing up for work too. So they work 3.30 until like early morning and then they quit. They seem to work nonstop, those guys. I don't know how they do it. It's not good. And they're probably paid like two bucks a day or something. Yeah, there was a whole Vice special on it. Yeah.

About some of the more unscrupulous builders out there. What they do is they go to third world countries. They promise these people a certain amount of money and then they bring them over to a better life. Yeah. Then they're going to be able to send money home and change their family's lives. So they go there and take these jobs and they take their passports away. Yeah. They give them a fraction of what they were offered and then they live in squalor.

I think I've seen it. They live like out in the middle of nowhere and they all have these shared showers and toilets. Yeah, the toilet's like a hole in the ground. It was awful. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's how you get a city built that quick. You've got to do it the hard way. Yeah, it's scary.

It is. But as a completed entity, as a thing, it's pretty impressive. Yeah. As a city. It's pretty impressive yeah as a struck me you know as a city that's amazing yeah this is one of the coolest cities I've ever been yeah they're just pushing they're just pushing you know they're just leveling it up all the time have you seen the new big what's it called big like the London Eye they're building a London Eye in Dubai in the marina and

it's like so much bigger. What is a London Eye? Have you been to London? Yes. Ferris wheel. Big, massive Ferris wheel. That's what it's called, the London Eye? London Eye, yeah.

But they're building a bigger one? They're building that times like five or something ridiculous. Yeah, I've been by that. I haven't been on it. Yeah. Been on the one in Seattle. I want to go there. I want to go there around Christmas when it's cooler and see if I can get.

690 foot high Dubai Eye will be the world's largest Ferris wheel upon completion in 2015, it says. It's not finished. Those motherfuckers. Unions. Last time I saw it, it was just the... They need to get more slaves. They need to kidnap more people. get them to work yeah that's uh that's when you get on a ferris wheel now like do you go to disneyland and be like what kind of bullshit is this the last time i went to disneyland

was here and i went i think two years ago and yeah i was like you'd be like whoo space moon tower of terror i think space mountain was the best one. It's pretty badass. Yeah. It's even better now because it's like Star Wars themed. Is it? Yeah. I don't know if it's permanently Star Wars themed. It's going to be Guardians of the Galaxy. Oh.

They just closed it or about to. Oh. Yeah, they can add graphics and stuff like that. Yeah. Splice it up a bit. Yeah. I like the old teacups. Yeah, those are fun.

They're fun, yeah. But for a guy like you, who experiences real life and death fears, like that Disneyland shit's got to be boring as hell, man. Yeah, it's pretty boring. It's pretty boring, but it's like something you've got to do once in your life, right? I bought like a little Mickey Mouse and done it.

There's an adult version out here. You've got to go to Six Flags. Six Flags, yeah. What's the one that's opposite California something that's right next to Disneyland? Oh, California Adventure. Yeah, that's just a little. Yeah, that's really good. I feel like the rides were better.

Well, they're more adult oriented, but they have a bunch of kids rides there too. Six Flags. Six Flags is way more like some of their roller coasters are just fucking ridiculous. Big time. They're way crazier. Way crazier. But it's a different thing, you know? It's not, it's more like older people.

It's more like high school age and up versus Disneyland is really fun for little kids. Six Flags, like, a lot of shit is not even designed for little kids. Yeah. Some of those ones where you go upside down, some of the roller coaster ones, what is it, X Factor or something like that? X something or another? I should go while I'm here. It's a good one. It's exciting.

But just thinking to a guy like you, that kind of excitement is probably really bland. Yeah, but like I said before, because it's not in my control, it still kind of gets me a bit... Right, of course. So it's good. Scares me a bit. Right. Of course. So it's good. Yeah, it's good.

Scares me a bit. Do you think long term? A little bit. Yeah. A little bit. But like, I mean, do you think long term as far as like how long you can do this stuff? Not really. No.

No? That seems to be the thing that people tell me the most. They're like, well, if this is your job now, surely you've got like a limited kind of time to it. And like I'm 26, I would say I've still got another 10 years of good strength, good health in me. I don't know. I think in that time I can build something else up so I don't need to worry about what happens after. So do you want to stay in some form of entertainment? Like,

you know, I'd like to have like an entertainer, right? How would you consider yourself? I'm sorry to hit you with all this career goal. I'm just a dude, but yeah, entertainment is usually what people call me.

Right. You're a professional dude. Professional dude. Yeah. Yeah. It's a new distinction designation i'd like so after i did the tv thing i've i've really enjoyed it and i've shot like a couple pilots since then for things and i think i'd just like to have my own tv

show hmm well doing what like what would you do do crazy shit well the idea at the moment that i shot the pilot for is I travel the world meeting other extreme athletes and I try out what they do. And that's, yeah. Good luck getting insurance for that show. I know, yeah. That's going to be a problem. Yeah.

You might have to shoot it on your own and sell it to somebody. Yeah. It's a vice. So like, yeah. So if you do something like that and somebody falls. Yeah. Then what do you do? Do you show it?

Like if I was there and I filmed it? Yeah. I wouldn't, no. No? What if you show them falling and at the end you just put a smiley face? Put an emoji? Rest in peace, lol. LOL.

Yeah. I couldn't do it. If you don't see the actual impact, you just see a smiley face. Maybe a bouncing smiley face. Where they were. Doink, doink, doink. And then you hear, ba-dip, ba-dip, ba-dip. That's all, folks.

And you just cut to commercial. By the time you come back, people are thinking about other things already. Their phones buzzing. People are texting them. They're trying to get laid. Pizza got delivered. Whatever. I wonder, man, what would they tell you like if you

were doing something for a production company do you think they would want to include all that stuff like oh yeah surely they're not allowed right i don't know i mean what are they allowed to do and not to do if people died on reality shows before i gotta think they must have i don't know reality shows have been around for quite a long time but it's the kind of thing that would happen and then they'd cut it out it's not live though is it so you can cut it yeah you would cut it out but everybody would find out there was a show footage always leaks as well yeah there's always something but there was a show in the early 2000s where these people were doing some sort of a wilderness adventure type show like a race through the wilderness they were on um rafts or kayaks or something along those lines on rapids and a woman got trapped

um but she got wedged in a rock her boat capsized wedge and i think she died and that was the first one that i had heard of that was like in the early 2000s but there's got to be a bunch of them because there's so many shitty reality shows now too there's so many production companies that are just yeah people are gonna die yeah people that must be dying already but that's is that something you think about when you're doing this show like if you're hanging out with these crazy russian cats and they're they're doing these things it is a possibility if you do it a thousand times there is a possibility that one of those times someone's gonna fall yeah i don't know it's

like i've i've been in situations there was one building in ukraine where i'm sat it's like i think you shared this clip where i'm sat it's like i think you shared this clip where i'm walking across the white beams and there's like nothing underneath it um and we both walk out to the edge and then mustang climbs down and hangs off it and i'm looking down at him and i'm thinking like i can i can create the image in my head of him slipping and just disappearing yeah i've i've had a few moments like that where i've just kind of tried to imagine what it would look like but it's not a nice thought no it's definitely not a nice thought no but that's the whole reason why it's interesting it's because

it's possible like if i was doing a video in here of me hanging from a chin-up bar that's only a foot off the ground nobody would give a shit yeah if i'm there look everybody one arm yeah i'm just like james kingston i'll do a fuck i'm crazy no there's a floor below me even if i perform the exact same movements that you do yeah if i'm not my life isn't in danger it's not even interesting at all the only reason why it's interesting is because your life is in danger yeah but that's that's like one of the funny things about it because it is as simple as hanging off a bar yeah but people are just like what yeah like if there's a small ledge oh jesus there you go barefoot huh how can we decide to go barefoot you get better grip barefoot

jesus son this is that moment yeah so you're standing up there looking at him. So I'm just looking down on him. And he's hanging. And then he, like, does his stuff. Oh, he's going one-handed. Oh, Jesus Christ. He only goes one-handed for a little bit. Then he goes back to one-handed. Oh, you fucker.

You fucker. You're freaking me out. You're freaking me out. He's just hanging there, too, by the way. He's hanging there. He's still hanging there. He's one-arming it the entire time, folks. Meanwhile, there's security, like, patrolling He's hanging there. He's still hanging there. He's one-arming it the entire time, folks. Meanwhile, there's security patrolling around the bottom.

No idea that we're there. Yeah, the clang of his body when it hits that ground. Yeah. Fuck. And he's laughing and smiling. What is he saying? His hands are slippery? Yeah, it was a strange color.

You'd end up with chalky hands, but it was a purpley kind of color. From the paint? Yeah. Wow, dude. You guys are out. out and he's wearing sneakers there's a security down there look oh jesus and they got dog as well jump on that dog right from there dude um do you have this uh desire to like keep upping the ante is that an issue um not really no i just like ultimately i just like creating stuff and i like making videos and i like exploring places i like heights i like jumping between stuff and like the natural progression for me is to is to get higher and things get bigger that's just how it is so it just happens but right but i'm not thinking about it i'm

not thinking like okay i've just released this so now i need to do something bigger like it's just how it is so it just happens but right but i'm not thinking about it i'm not thinking like okay i've just released this so now i need to do something bigger like it's just there it's just natural so how do you go about making a video if you decide i'm going to make a new video like do you have a thought in your head like i need to get on the eiffel tower like what do you how do you do it you know the eiffel tower was never never a plan i never thought let's go to paris and do the eiffel tower did you do the eiffel tower yeah so how do you do it if it's not a plan. I never thought, let's go to Paris and do the Eiffel Tower. Did you do the Eiffel Tower? I've done the Eiffel Tower, yeah. So how did you do it? If it's not a plan, how did you do it?

So I was in Denmark just traveling around with a bunch of friends. And instead of getting in the minivan and driving all the way back to London, I was like, no, I don't want to sit in a van for 15 hours. Let's just fly somewhere and continue this adventure. So me and my friend flew to Paris. And then the next day we ended up climbing down for tower do you think this kind of stuff was being done before people were videotaping it like was this must have been it must have been i feel like for

certain people it's just uh it's just in them to kind of explore places you shouldn't really explore and i think it's yeah well for you it seems like something that was fostered though, right? Because you started off just doing the parkour stuff and then this became of it. But you know what? When I was a kid, I was a naughty little kid. I was always trying to do things that I shouldn't. Naughty.

Yeah. And I think now I'm just a big version of what I was then. Wow. There's some pretty cool videos if you look up on youtube of like urban exploration and people are finding weird pathways and like oh shit looked on 60 feet underground we made it and there's this shit that's been buried under here wonder why it's buried and look old electronics so 50s and stuff like that like under like uncovering the hatch and lost sort of sort of like that i can find stuff like that. Well, that's very interesting to me.

But what I'm really most fascinated by is this willingness to put your life in mortal danger. And then how exciting this is for people to watch. Like what's the most viewed video that you have? How many hits does it have? I think just over 4 million. That's a lot of fucking people yeah this one's got a few million i think oh this is you you get up so we climbed and we went we just pushed it too far like we went up to the very top platform have you been to paris no you've been to

the alpha tower so you can take the lift up right you can you can walk you can take the stairs to the second platform that's the highest you can take the stairs to there is stairs to the top but they don't allow it because they're like weird and narrow and so you take the lift to the top and then there's like a door that's always manned by a security guard that is the door to that staircase and that's where we came up from the back side so we we went up and for some reason we just had the urge to just go inside even though it's lit up even though this camera's everywhere and we open that door i step in to the top platform and then i just hear this this walkie talkie just go like like go crazy in french and i was like shit we've definitely been seen let's disappear so then we ran down we climbed out of the staircase and then on each on like opposite

corners of the tower in the main beams there's like kind of like a little pocket inside the beam that you can jump into it must be like two by two like size i barely fit into it right because i'm huge my friend is small so he just like disappeared into this hole. And then we sat on opposite ends of the tower and hid. And the lifts, you start hearing lifts coming up. You start hearing people running up and down the stairs. You see torches. Everything's kicking off. And we're hidden in these little holes.

And they're searching for us. And I'm just like hiding in this hole. I'm like, I've got one shoe off because it wouldn't fit in. I've got my knee resting on my shoe. I've lost all feeling in my leg because the blood circulation's gone my head's sticking out the top and i've got like my t-shirt over my head like a little ninja and there's people with torches going up and down looking for us so what do you have video that little pocket that you were in? It's not in this. No, I do have.

It's only on two sides of the tower, which is strange. But it's kind of similar to this gap here. Oh, I see. It's there. See on the right? It's in that corner there. I see, yeah. And it's like a foot and a half by a foot and a half, I think.

I barely fit in. So how long did they wait? So we were in this hole. The lift's coming up right now. Yeah, this is when it was starting to open up. This was like as we... So this is like right where you're here. This is just before we got caught.

Where you tucked in. Yeah. So we tucked in. This was just before we got caught. So how'd you get caught? Because the lifts start coming up because the staff start coming up to work or to clean or something. And they just saw us. We're just like running around these beams and there's lifts everywhere so what happens then so we're like so we're still in this hole and we sit in this hole

for like two hours at least two hours where they're going up and down it goes quiet so i jump out the hole i have a look around i go and see stevie stevie's like half asleep just chilling in the hole and then um come back to the hole i'm like yeah this seems like pretty clear now i think they must have thought that we jumped off with parachutes and we were gone right because they couldn't find us and then i was like yeah this seems pretty clear and then every single light on the tower goes the whole thing lights up and this isn't like the twinkly lights that they have on every hour at night. This is like internal lights that are like this big,

light the whole fucking tower up. So I jumped straight back in the hole. I'm like, shit, what's going on? And then lifts again, people up and down the stairs again, looking for us. So we're sat in these holes again for ages. And then it finally goes quiet, but the lights are still on for a little while and then the whole thing just shuts down and i think

that was it so i jumped out had a look around went and got stevie and then it was ours again and then we were up there until like 9 a.m i think it was how long was that how many hours uh 1 a.m till 9 a.m wow so you were was how long was that how many hours 1 a.m. Till 9 a.m. Wow So you were climbing around I think for eight fucking hours. That's nuts. Yeah Running on some little French chocolate bar, which is really good. Oh, that's all you eat. So we had yeah So you came down because you were hungry. We came down cuz we got caught now And so you would have stayed there for the rest of the day now because we got caught now and so you would have stayed there for the rest of the day um the idea was to like wait till it opened and then get into a place where you could hide like near

the second platform and then just drop into the second platform and just merge in with like the tourists but we didn't get that far that would have been cool so the plan was to wait for it to open and sneak out with the crowd just jump out of the beam into the crowd, disappear into the lift, done. So when you get caught, then what happens? So we got seen by a big group of people in one of the lifts. And we're just waving. And they're like angry-looking people. Well, angry people and happy people.

They're like, what the heck's going on? And then we were like above slightly above a maintenance platform where they have like lifts that take workers up and then so we had to climb down we met people on the the maintenance platform getting the lift there's like five of us like two me and stevie and then like a few other people security just like private security for the tower and then we come down to like the basement lifts open there's just like a room full of policemen and we're like you're seeing the movie and what they do they tackle you film that bit i had to hide every single sd card and everything

that i had on me how'd you do that three cameras up your butt no no it was an option that is the only option yeah i haven't had to do that yet but you need a condom you tie it in a knot yeah put them in the condom put your finger up your bum that's right all right so how do you um hide the sd cards i mean they must have went through your stuff with a fine comb i thought they would but they didn't i don't know paris they don't give a fuck they're trying to be laid drink wine so i had like i had like a big 5d like a big dslr and then i had i think two gopros and so two micro sds and one like cf card from the from the big one and i had like this bag that had like little tiny pen pockets like really thin pockets right and i just stuffed the micro sd cards down there and i had like a a little rip in the back padding of the bag so i just threw the micro sd cards down there and i had like a a little rip

in the back padding of the bag so i just threw the cf card in the back of the bag and it just fell down and i just hoped and then when like we got to the police station they were like you have so many cameras on you clearly you've been filming and i was like no forgot the SD cards cameras died and they They believed it. I had to surrender everything on my phone. I You had to surrender everything in your phone. Yeah, so I had three cameras, right? So I was like I had three cameras and my phone so I'm gonna have to Give something up to try and save the most valuable the most valuable footage So I was like they were were like, did you film?

I was like, I only filmed on my phone because my cameras died and I forgot my SD cards. And then they went through like the footage on the phone and just made me delete it all. Oh, that's cool. So the footage in the phone was like a ruse. The footage on the phone was like me in the little hole. Right.

Filming, talking to the camera and like filming the people looking because I was like this and I put my phone out. That's great that you had something to give them. Yeah. Yeah. So then what happens? How long do they detain you? We were there for like eight hours.

So another eight hours. Eight hours, yeah. So when you're eight hours up there climbing around, how do you pee? You pee off the edge of the tower. Oh, my God. That's probably why you got arrested. You're pissing on these French people as if life hasn't pissed on them enough.

Yeah, I think by the time it gets to the ground, it's kind of all spread out. Or not. Or it's a fucking raging river of piss right on some little old lady's head. Yeah, I had to. Why don't you just pee on the tower? That way it dribbles down slowly

and doesn't hit anybody in the head. I mean, if you were stood on the Eiffel Tower and you needed to pee, there was no one below you because it's like 4 a.m okay you'd pee off the edge maybe you peed on a homeless person that's even ruder yeah i'm sorry tough enough person if i did pee on them maybe it's a romantic couple going for a walk maybe it would have really worked out all of a sudden the girl goes to light her cigarette and you piss right on her head and she gets mad and the fucking evening ends poorly and they could have it could have been a perfect relationship but you ruined it i killed

it yeah so you come down and then another eight hours of detention yeah and what do they do to you handcuffed us to a chair we just sat in the middle of this police station there's like cells behind us with people going crazy and like people bleeding from their eyeballs and we're just sat there like people bleeding from their eyeballs from other crimes from like nighttime fights and stuff like that and just drunk people and we were just sat there for ages and then we finally got taken into like separate rooms where we were questioned by some high up i had a woman he had a dude and we were both questioned for a couple hours and then we were back out handcuffed to the chairs again and then they took all of our stuff and they searched it and i was like fuck if they find it they're gonna be like okay you just told us that you filmed

nothing and we've just found hours and hours of footage like what's the deal so i was like fuck please don't find the cards. Yeah. And then they finally brought the bags back. Like, it must have been an hour they had them for. And I thought they were going to go through everything. But they brought it back. I checked it. And I was like, Stuffy, the cards are still here.

And then we just lost it. We were so happy. But the policemen had no idea what we were doing. God. So do they kick you out of the country? No. No record? Nothing?

Nothing at all. So we go back in that room. I had to sign an agreement that said, I promise I will not climb the Eiffel Tower for three years. For three years, that's it? That was it, yeah. Random, right? How come they don't say forever?

They must like it. Yeah. You know what? The woman that was interviewing me loved it. She did? She was like, you really shouldn't be doing this, but how did you do it? It's incredible. Like, she loved it.

Wow. She low-key loved it, yeah. Well, I think once they realize that you're polite, you're a gentleman, you're a very nice guy, you're just a thrill seeker, they're like, okay, this is not a threat to society. Yeah. This guy isn't a gentleman. You're a very nice guy. You're just a thrill seeker. This is not a threat to society. This guy isn't a terrorist. Yeah. The second question she asked me was, did you leave a bomb up there? Oh, God.

And I just laughed. I was like, what? Come on. Oh, wow. Well, that's something they have to take into consideration. They have to actually trust you, right? If they let you go and it turns out you did leave a bomb up there, then they would have to comb over the building with a fine-tooth comb. But who's going to say? Who's going to be like, yeah, you know what? I did. I left a bomb up there? Mm-hmm. Then they would have to comb over the building with a fine-tooth comb.

But who's going to say? Who's going to be like, yeah, you know what? I did. I left a bomb up there. No, no one would, right? Yeah. So they really have to trust you. Yeah.

Fucking Europeans. Ridiculous. Ridiculous people. Three years. Fuck you. You'd be in jail forever. If it was America, they'd put you right in Guantanamo Bay. Get in there.

Get in the hole. They'd throw dogs in there with you. You'd be in jail forever. If it was America, they'd put you right in Guantanamo Bay. Get in there. Get in the hole. They'd throw dogs in there with you. Yeah, it just seems like they're a little bit looser over there. A little more relaxed about things like that. They are, yeah. It's probably better. I was driving from LA to San Fran a couple weeks ago. Up the one.

Is it the one? Mm-hmm. Amazing drive. And I found like a couple of cranes i went and saw like some elephant elephant seals and then shortly after that i just found like a building site on the site like near the beach like 100 meters back from the beach and i was like of course i need to stop and just do this because it's dead it was um what weekend was it a holiday weekend right so i did it and i stopped and i climbed it and then i'm at the top and i

looked down so i had like a rental mustang and i parked the mustang in the site like on the top of this peak it looked really cool but you could see it from the road so a cop's driving past he sees the mustang he's like what's going on so he pulls in and he's walking around looking and then he looks up and he sees me at the top of this crane and he's like you get your ass down here right now and i was like fuck this is the first time i got caught in the u.s i was like shit what's gonna happen well you're in california it's better than getting caught in like arizona yeah yeah this is play texas that should shoot you just shoot me yeah okay i'll bear that in mind that's what i'm scared of that's what i'm scared of because in the uk what we know the

cops over here to be like is they just shoot people that's like what we're told you know that's what they feed us you're white you're gonna be okay true um so the guy gets you down the woods tells you to get out of there he shouts at me yeah i've got this all on video as well he shouts at me i come down and then he just lays into me. Yeah. And I have to give him my- You tell him you're from England. You don't know any better. Exactly.

Yeah. I was like, oh, in England, it's not actually illegal. No vitamins. He's like, well, you're not in England. You're in the United States of America, boy. And you need to do what you should do. So, yeah. So he took my passport.

He took my passport. He took my passport. He took my driver's license. He checked all my stuff. And then he was like, okay. He came back after like 10 minutes he was like okay so i've made a decision and i'm gonna leave this in the hands of the site manager so he goes and he tries to find a site manager but it's holiday weekend nobody's there so he goes to the office he phones up some number on the on the door and he speaks to the site manager and the site manager's just got back to LA

from where he's working. And he was like, you know what? I've just got back home. I cannot be bothered to deal with this. So just let him go. And then we just got to go and that was it. What is the worst you've ever got in trouble? There's nothing, you know.

Nothing? There's nothing like like, bad. Are you worried now, though, that with your internet fame, that now you're getting millions of hits in these videos, that people are going to, they're going to recognize you

and maybe even, like, target you? Yeah, set an example. Yeah. I don't know. I've thought about it, but it doesn't seem to... Happen. Happen.

It seems to be getting easier. Because they're like, oh, shit, you're this guy. Like, can i take a picture like that's just how it works do you worry that you're encouraging people that are not as competent or thoughtful as you um i worry that somebody that is a bit silly you might see it and think oh i need to do this to to be cool or to to look cool in front of my mates like young kids, right? I'll worry about that, yeah, but there's not much I can do. There's so many more things out there that are so easily available on the internet that kids could watch and be inspired by.

I always make it clear that what I'm doing is just, what I want people to get from this is like, I'm just going out exploring the world, living my life in a way that I enjoy. Doing things that make me happy, pushing myself, developing myself, becoming a better person, a stronger person. And that's it. And climbing and jumping around is just my way of doing it. Like we all have our own little passions, right? That's just mine.

Yours might be badminton or like something ping pong. That's another thing that's interesting that's happening now with the larger number of content providers, like so many people like yourself that are doing things like this, the idea that one person is responsible for their influence becomes less and less plausible. It becomes more like, well, what is he representing? Well, he's representing a 26-year-old guy

who absolutely knows how to do that. You know, it's not, you don't have to do what he's doing, but he can do what he's doing. So are you supposed to stop doing what you're doing, which you're obviously very capable of doing because you're not a good example? Well, you're the perfect example of someone doing it correctly. Yeah, exactly. But some people just don't, they just don't get that. Well, the idea that you're influencing people is always, it's always very tricky because

well, what are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to live your life in a cushioned room so no one gets injured? Because that's the only way to influence people positively, you know, in terms of, like, if you're going to do risky things, you could always be an example or be an inspiration to someone who's not as competent as you, and they could risk death or injury. Yeah. I don't think, honestly, I don't think anybody is stupid enough to see it, go out and try it. Like most people on earth, right?

You put them up a crane and they'll shit themselves, yeah? Right. I don't think any 12-year-old, 14-year-old kid is going to see it and be like, Oh, climb a crane, hang off it. I just don't see that happening. Oh, they're definitely going to do it. I disagree. There's going to be a bunch of them.

Yeah. There's a lot of crazy fucks out there just like you pal yeah i don't know it's beyond me like i can't russians have been doing it longer than i have like did they start this stuff yeah from as far as i know yeah they went up there with big ass heavy cameras first stuff i saw was russians big ass fucking boombox cameras yeah i wonder who the first guy was to climb up on top of some beam because i saw one where there was a a steel girder that was extended out into the forest it was like rusty right yes trees everywhere that's probably the first one i saw it might have been the first one yeah see if you can find that one he's doing push-ups on it yes

yes that fuck yeah russia Russia. That's Russia. It's so high. I want to go there. I really want to go there because it's still there. Oh, no. Don't do it. And he's got that picture where he's like this. It's epic, man. Yeah, here it is.

He's hanging upside down and he's extending his legs. This guy is out of his fucking mind. He's doing flips and he's doing chin-ups and he's letting go of his hands he's doing chin-ups and he gets to the top he lets go of his hands and he's doing several of them he's doing one leg with one leg crossed over the other one look how windy it is oh my god they're they're balancing on their hands over these beams that's the one fucking jesus Christ this is driving me nuts but you see like there's a bunch of videos of dudes in this place I know

well how many people have died from this place must be a few oh my god look at this guy gripping oh this is so scary mmm good lord this is so scary. As I'm watching this, though, this video isn't that old. Do you think this maybe started once the cameras became portable enough to get up there? Like the small little flip cams and blogging cams? Maybe you weren't capable of taking a big-ass VCR camera. Like you had a drone in one of yours, I saw. And drones are being able to do live video now.

Look at my hands. I could ring them out in a glass right now. I'm watching this video and I'm freaking out. And these guys are doing it and they're laughing. You know, they're so high up. Look at that forest below them. Yeah. I think you're right that people have always probably done this.

Yeah. Amazing feats of athleticism too. If you look at this guy balancing his hands, his feet up in the air. That's like full pl have always probably done this. Yeah. Amazing feats of athleticism, too. If you look at this guy balancing his hands, his feet up in the air. That's like full plucks. That's strong. Yeah. Full plank, hanging off. Look at this guy.

I mean, that is some serious fucking strength. I mean, it's just such a crazy endeavor. Were you doing some of this before you could film it? Like before you even had a camera yeah so it's not just about showing people no not at all okay do you know anybody who's fallen and died um no none personally no there was a there was a parkour guy that fell off a rooftop he was doing a back somersault on the edge of a rooftop probably like a wall like this which is like an easy thing to do but something must have

got to him and he fell off and he died yeah 16 stories i think and this is recent a couple years ago i think we're already far what place yeah uh i think it was russia pretty sure it was russia you google it you'll find it so it's deaths. Yeah, that we know about, that are publicized. I don't see that many. Yeah, which is good, I guess. Yeah, for sure. So that leads me to believe that people aren't stupid enough to go out and mess up. Well, it's such a scary thing to do.

It just takes a very small percentage of people Yeah, and it grabs a hold of them and says you got to do this too. Yeah, there's a video that's actually on YouTube that probably shouldn't be on YouTube of somebody filming from the ground up at a crane and a guy like walks across the top beam of the crane and falls and you just see his body just oh God and that yeah and yeah it disappears behind some other building well i think as long as it doesn't hit the bottom they'll let you show it yeah isn't that weird we have rules like that like you'd know the guy died yeah but you can't see it

yeah strange so 10 more years of this i don't know i don't know you're not thinking about the future you're just a wild man i'm just a wild man yeah living on the edge yeah just wake up like yeah wow there's no point in thinking that far ahead you know i could die tomorrow we could all die tomorrow we could all get hit by a bus or we could live and then you go fuck why didn't i think about tomorrow yeah it's not a bad idea to plan. Assume you will live. Police release horror video

of school boy falling 100 feet to his death as warning to daredevils. Police in Russia have released a horrifying video

at Russia. Yeah, we don't need to see this, Jamie. This kid's going to fall and I'm going to freak out even further.

I think I've seen this, yeah. What other interests do you have besides doing this kind of crazy shit? Do you other interests do you have besides doing this kind of crazy shit uh you know what my do or no no other sports really i just love filmmaking i just love making videos i love filming stuff i love taking pictures i love creating these little

films and it's like both of my passions just work hand in hand i've got the parkour and the climbing stuff and i've got the filmmaking it's do you ever film stuff that's not scary and daredevil stuff yeah and do people need to do more of that do people respond to that yeah i um so i put out a video a couple months ago of my new car like my new car video so it's basically like a car review right and people love it oh i think i might have seen that do you have an m3 and m4 a new one? Yeah, I did see that. People like it. It's quite a 200 and something thousand views. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great car, isn't it?

It's an amazing car, yeah. And you got that car for money that you made from risking your life? Yep. Wow. Yeah. From like YouTube ads and stuff? Is that what it is? YouTube money, sponsorships, everything.

That's a beautiful car. They're so well engineered. Yeah. Look at it, man. It's a piece of art. It is. I had an M3, the last one. Yeah, I had the old one, the old V8.

Yeah. Yeah, this is interesting, the V6 turbo, right? You like it? Yeah. Or the straight six. Savage, man. Yeah. It's a completely different sound, but I like it.

I used to have a turbocharged car before the V8 M3, and I missed all the little hisses and the wobbles and i missed it so now i've got it back that's so much faster a lot of people like the roar of the v8 yeah it's the big complaint about the m3 yeah so it doesn't the m4 rather it doesn't have that roaring it doesn't it's completely different but i wouldn't i wouldn't compare them i wouldn't say oh the m3 is better it's just a different it's a different breed you know it's like well we're getting used to cars that don't make any noise, right? Those electric cars, which are more and more prevalent.

I saw the Tesla numbers the other day, Jamie. It's 2.5 seconds. It's so less than three. It's 2.5. And that's in like the Model X, like the big one, as well as the other ones. Oh, really? I think the big one's a little slower. It's sub three.

They just updated them this week, too. I wonder if they updated the speed, too. Like the software update. It's like a firmware update just updated them this week too. I wonder if they updated the speed too. Like the software update. It's like a firmware update. Add speed to your car. Yeah. Isn't that nuts? Yeah.

Elon Musk, man. He's killing it. He's on the spectrum for sure. Right? Gotta be. Super wizard. Yeah. He's an alien.

He's probably. Yeah. Those people, those like people that push things like that, what is this? 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds has 315 miles of range. Dude. Eh, not if you go that fast. It's 289 miles. What is that?

Stop lying. What does it say? Is it a different one? No, it's the same one. It's the same model. Do they make that sweet one Is it a different one? No, it's the same one. It's the same model. Do they make that sweet one, that little tiny one? Do they still, does Tesla still make that little sports car one? No, they don't.

They release them in limited numbers. The little tiny one? Yeah. The little Lotus-looking one? Yeah. Yeah, that Lotus-looking one was beautiful. Yeah. That was one of their first, wasn't it?

Yeah, but it is on skinny tires. Yeah. And apparently the weight's all fucked up.'s like porsche 911 but way to the extreme because all the weight's in the back yeah just like a porsche but way more weight yeah so it's like if you go around a corner and the ass end kicks out on you you just or if you're going around a corner and you're hitting the gas and you let off the gas you know you get that that tail end sort of pendulums out on you yeah but they're beautiful cars man do you cars are fun yeah me too i'm a big fan a big fan of engineering drive um my favorite car i have a porsche 911 gt3 rs yes dude yeah i have an older one a 2007 when they were still manuals they don't make manuals anymore.

Now they're all those paddle shifts, which is, they're really fun, but it's just not as fun. Yeah, it's different, isn't it? Yeah. I'm a big fan of clutch. That's one thing I like about the M4. It's one of the few high-end sports cars where you can still get that clutch. All the American cars do it, like Corvettes, you can still get it with a clutch. That clutch.

All the American cars do it, like Corvettes. You can still get it with a clutch. But like Porsches, the GT3 and the GT3 RS, now you can only get automatic. Ferrari, only automatic. That's my car. That was before I took the painting off the wheels or off the side, the GT3 RS logo. I'm like, that's a little schoolboy racer. Now it's just white.

But those are, what I like about those cars is not even really growing that fast. It's the connection. Like when you're going around corners, it literally is like a ride. It feels like a Disneyland ride

because it's so, yeah, and it's also the engineering. Like you can appreciate the amount of thought and trial and error and calculation that's involved

in creating something that's so capable you know when you drive a regular car you know it's just a car you're driving around you drive one of those things around you're on a ride yeah you know yeah i love it so fun yeah me too i'm a big fan so do you this is like all your life. You just enjoy making videos, taking photos, and doing these crazy stunts and filming them. Mm-hmm. And you're just living day by day,

keep on keeping on. Living the dream. Yeah, you are in a lot of ways, man. I mean, there's a lot of kids that are going, wait a minute, you could just do chin-ups on a crane? You could get a fucking BMW? Yeah.

Yeah, you'd be surprised how many people are like you don't deserve this oh fuck those people you're risking your goddamn life what you do is all you do is climb ladders and listen people watch the videos it's just jealousy it's just jealousy of course you're always gonna have that yeah you're always gonna have haters do they motivate you nah they just make me laugh haters do yeah do you have a place that you want to go hong kong oh chinese don't fuck around dog but if you look at some videos from hong kong man it's the place to be but if you get caught over there they might throw you in a hole i don't know i don't know i think a few people have been banned from hong kong for like some years or forever i've not heard anything bad i mean i would imagine that anytime

you get arrested in a foreign country is this hong kong oh jesus high-rise hong kong this guy's walking around with a selfie stick sponsors oh my god he's showing his sponsors. Who the fuck? Wait a minute, back up. Back up. His sponsors. Yeah, back up. Hold on, click, pause. What is this? Flight search engine.

Jet radar flight search engine. Hotel look, hotel search engine. Those are his sponsors. What's happened here is he's been like, okay, I need to get to Hong Kong, but I don't have money. I need to get a hotel in Hong Kong, but I don't have money. I'm to get a hotel in Hong Kong, but I don't have money.

I'm going to contact a flight company and a hotel company and see if I can get them to give me both for a video. But how insane are those companies that they're like, what are you going to do? Some illegal shit in China? Yeah, I'm in. I'm in. Put my name up there. I want people to know. 1,100,359 views. That's why. They're like, fuck it. A lot of those people are going to use our service look at all those buildings i guess if the guy lived it's not negative right yeah if he made it through doesn't live it won't get released yeah exactly it's like

yeah that's the deal if you uh oh my god this is so bananas. He's got his gloves. Oh, he's got gloves on. You think he's a pussy for wearing gloves? Yeah. I mean, but that's like coming from a parkour background where the idea is to not have to rely on anything. Like, you build your hands up so that you can do shit like this and not have to worry about cutting your finger. Now, when you were doing parkour stuff, were you doing, like, backflips off buildings and stuff?

Yeah. Have you ever seen that video where this kid in the ghetto, he's on a second floor roof roof and he does a backflip and lands on the ground? Yeah, probably. I've seen some seriously high ones. Fucking crazy. Like, how does a guy live from that far away? You just learn how to land.

How does he learn how to land? You land in a way, right, that your legs take as much of the impact as they physically can and then you smash your bum into the, and then you just do a backwards roll. That's it. Watch this guy. And if your bones are strong enough, you take it. Crack head, backflip off the 40-foot roof.

I think this guy smashes his head. Yeah, for sure. But what's crazy is he actually did this. He did a backflip. Yeah. Like somebody gave him something, like a dollar or something crazy, right? Wasn't it like 20 bucks or something ridiculous but this dude like he's standing there and this is no one had to please don't hurt yourself please look at this

i'm gonna say a prayer you hear that i'm ready i don't even want to look at that well you're not going to turn a prayer. You hear that? I'm ready. I don't even want to look at that. Well, you're not going to turn away either, though, are you? You want to be there. So this guy is standing there with his back. He's building hype right now. Here he goes.

Smash. And he made it. Oh, my God. You all right, bro? I'm good. Are You all right, bro? I'm good. Are you all right, bro? I'm good. Good. Holy shit.

He's got strong bones. I guess. Otherwise, his arm would be snapped. Yeah, that is. And that was a hard surface he fell onto. Yeah. You would just think that if someone just jumped, like, is the flip helping at all? You know what actually does, yeah.

How's that? Just because the momentum is going this way instead of just going slam straight down. Oh, that makes sense. You can convert some of that into that, which is like, you know, when you see people jump massive roof gaps and they land and they roll. That's converting all this downwards momentum into forward. And that means you can jump a lot further than you think oh that's interesting so but how do you if you have to jump straight down what do you do uh you

land and you just slam your hands into the ground as well spread out the impact as best you can yeah rolls are only good really if you're going forward quite a lot right if you're running so if you had to jump off of that 40 foot high wall that guy was on, how would you jump? I'd probably hang off the edge and just straight drop. That's not that high. What the fuck are you saying? You don't think you'd have a problem making that jump? No.

Really? Yeah. I've done big drops. It helps that I'm big as well. Does it? But it makes it, you're heavy too right yeah but my legs i've got good legs man my legs are like my strongest thing do you exercise or do you just do a lot of that just the exercise comes from doing it that's it and how often do

you do it now not so much i used to do it a lot like i used to go out every day and train all day and just repeat jumps and everything now it's kind of like built in me but it doesn't have it's not a problem like is the more famous you get the more obligations you get the less time you have to practice and the more people expect of you yeah so if you do crazier shit it's a problem yeah but fuck yeah don't die dude you seem like a nice guy no i won't die please don't it'll be it'll be a wonderful story if you made it through this thing. Yeah. With no problems at all. And, you know, people will be like, look, the only thing you have to fear is fear itself. Yeah.

It's true. Anything else to add to the people before we get the fuck out of here? No, not really. Thanks for watching. Thanks for watching. Thanks for having me on. Please, my pleasure. Finally, we made it happen.

I'm glad we did. I'm glad I got to meet you. You're a normal guy. It's perplexing. I look in your eyes. You look totally normal. I'm looking we did. I'm glad I got to meet you. You're a normal guy. It's perplexing. I look in your eyes. You look totally normal. I'm looking in your eyes. There's nothing crazy going on in there.

You just assume. But you look at some of these Russians, and you look in their eyes, and you just see death and life. It's different. Whoa. So they're the kings of this shit? I guess, yeah. Man. So they're the kings of this shit? I guess, yeah. It's a weird thing to do.

It's a weird thing to do. What do you have planned that people can look forward to? I've got quite a lot going on, actually. I've got a couple of huge videos to release from Dubai. I'm doing something here next week involving a helicopter. In America? America, yeah. What part of America, should we say? LA. Uh-oh. Downtown LA.

Hollywood sign. Do people know about it? No. Shh. Yeah. Just saying, helicopter. Just saying. I'm working on it. You're doing it from a helicopter? Yeah. Dude, don't fall. If you fall, people are going to get mad at me. For sure. Yeah. You encouraged them. You are going to get mad at me. For sure.

Yeah. You encouraged them. You told them to go further. You made them want to do crazy shit. Yeah, so I've got a few big videos. I've got a book coming out, which is cool. Oh, okay. Which is mad. What's your book?

Photography and stuff? No, it's like a life story. Oh. Yeah, it's like my beginning, how I discovered parkour, how I started climbing, and then like a few select big climbs that I've done. Did you write it or did you talk to someone? This guy's written, so it's based off interviews. I'm not a writer.

I can't write a book. But a couple of big interviews and then he converted it into a book. And then a bunch of pictures as well, which is cool. Wow. Yeah. Listen, you've scared the shit out of me on numerous occasions. So in a way, you've absolutely entertained me so i appreciate it man and uh it's very nice to meet you and continued health and success to you please thank you very much you're a nice guy i don't want anything bad to happen to

you man just be careful out there thanks bud james kingston ladies and gentlemen what is your uh instagram and your instagram is the james kingston. And do you have a Twitter and Twitter? The same James Kingston. You put James Kingston anywhere. You'll pop up straight. Thank you, brother. Very nice meeting you,

man. You too. Thank you. Good night. You fucks. See ya.