Clout to Cellblock: Vitaly Zdorovetskiy Faces Philippine Jail Time After Livestream Rampage

Manic stunt-YouTuber Vitaly Zdorovetskiy’s self-styled “villain arc” just hit a brick wall of reality in Manila. Philippine Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla confirmed the 33-year-old Russian-American was yanked off the streets by tactical police after a week-long livestream spree that saw him grope a mall guard, lunge for the guard’s pistol and film strangers without consent across Manila, Boracay and the Bonifacio Global City business district. Authorities have branded him an “undesirable alien,” slapped him with at least six criminal counts (from molestation to illegal vlogging) and ordered him held in the Bureau of Immigration’s high-security detention centre in Muntinlupa while prosecutors rush the file to court.

Zdorovetskiy’s arrest capped a surreal news conference in which he appeared in cuffs, snatched a police officer’s cap and flashed an “L-for-Loser” sign at cameras even as Remulla reeled off the charges. Screenshots from his now-deleted Kick stream show him shoving cameras into commuters’ faces and taunting guards with “You can’t stop me, I’m live!”—footage that investigators say will form the spine of their evidence. Kick quietly nuked his channel minutes after police confirmed the arrest, and streaming-industry analysts say a permanent ban is likely.

For the divisive prankster—long notorious for scaling the Hollywood sign in 2016, climbing Egypt’s Pyramid of Khafre in 2020, and serving jail time in Miami for a vicious, unprovoked assault on a female jogger—the Philippine charges could be the first to expose him to a multi-year prison term abroad. Under the country’s Safe Spaces Act and the Anti-Voyeurism Law, each non-consensual video carries up to seven years, while assaulting a security guard—a public-service officer—adds another six.

Diplomats tell the BBC that Russia has so far shown “zero interest” in repatriating its wayward citizen, leaving the U.S. embassy scrambling to secure consular access. Meanwhile, Filipino netizens—still reeling from Saturday’s deadly car-ramming at Vancouver’s Lapu-Lapu festival—have flooded social media with memes crowning Vitaly “King of Clout-Chasing Failures,” while local lawmakers push for even stiffer penalties against “abusive foreign content creators.” Court arraignment is expected within 10 days; until then, the self-proclaimed villain will remain offline, off-camera and, for once, out of tricks.