Kyle Forgeard Net Worth Is $25 Million — But That Number Hides the Real Story

Most people still think of Kyle Forgeard as a prank YouTuber who does dumb stuff on camera with his boys. That’s fine. That’s also exactly what he wants you to think while he quietly builds a beverage company worth a quarter billion dollars.

He dropped out of Ryerson University to make prank videos. He’s now worth an estimated $25 million. Forbes put him on their 30 Under 30 list in 2022. And the YouTube channel that started all of this — the one that got demonetized by the platform itself — ended up being the least important part of his income picture.

That’s the actual story of Kyle Forgeard. Not the pranks. The pivot.

Table of Contents

Quick Bio

Detail	Info
Full Name	Kyle Forgeard
Born	July 12, 1994, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Age	31 (as of 2026)
Parents	Rick Forgeard (father), Gayle Forgeard (mother)
Sister	Chantal Forgeard
Education	Ryerson University — filmmaking (dropped out)
Co-founded	NELK Boys (2010, originally NelkFilmz)
NELK Co-founder	Jesse Sebastiani
YouTube Subscribers	7+ million
Forbes Recognition	30 Under 30 (2022)
Key Ventures	Full Send (apparel); Happy Dad Hard Seltzer; Full Send Podcast; Full Send Metacard NFT
Real Estate	~$9 million Newport Beach property
Estimated Net Worth (2026)	~$25 million (unverified; range reported as $25M–$30M)
Happy Dad Valuation	~$250 million (brand estimate, not Kyle’s personal stake)
Full Send Merch Revenue	~$70–100 million annually (estimated)

The Number Everyone Gets Wrong

Let’s start here because it matters. You’ll see “$250 million” thrown around in connection with Kyle Forgeard’s name, and you’ll see “$25 million.” Those are two completely different things.

Happy Dad Hard Seltzer is estimated to be worth $250 million as a brand. That’s the company valuation. Kyle’s personal net worth — his actual stake in that and everything else combined — is estimated at around $25 million. His ownership percentage in Happy Dad has never been publicly confirmed.

So when an article says “Kyle’s Happy Dad makes him worth $250 million,” that article is doing math wrong. His share of a $250 million company is worth something. We don’t know the exact number because Kyle has never published his finances. He runs private businesses and has no legal requirement to tell you anything.

What is confirmed: he’s significantly wealthier than a typical YouTuber. And the gap between $5 million (what was being estimated in 2024) and $25 million (the 2026 estimate) is real — and it was driven by his businesses, not his views.

It Started as a Campus Prank Channel in 2010

NelkFilmz. That’s what it was called at the start. Kyle was a teenager in Mississauga — a suburb of Toronto that is famously and unapologetically not exciting — and he and his eventual co-founder Jesse Sebastiani were making prank videos for YouTube.

He enrolled at Ryerson University to study filmmaking, then left before finishing. Which, in retrospect, was probably the most financially sound decision of his life — though nobody would have called it that at the time.

The channel ground along for years before it popped. Then 2015 happened. The Coke Prank on Cops video went up. It showed someone pretending to snort cocaine in front of police officers — who then had to look closer and realize it was actually a powdered candy. The video hit over 44 million views. The internet lost its mind. NELK Boys was suddenly a very real thing.

That video changed everything. It wasn’t just that it went viral. It established a specific aesthetic — chaotic, irreverent, vaguely illegal-feeling without technically being illegal — that would define the brand for years.

YouTube Tried to Kill the Channel. It Didn’t Work.

This is the part of the story that actually matters for understanding the money.

In 2020, NELK showed up at Illinois State University during COVID restrictions and threw massive unmasked parties on campus. Multiple students faced disciplinary action. Illinois State cooperated with police investigations. There was real heat — public outrage, calls for platform bans, legitimate criticism about promoting pandemic-era irresponsibility.

YouTube responded by suspending the NELK channel. Not permanently, but meaningfully. The monetization situation had already been rocky — prank content that pushes legal limits doesn’t exactly attract advertiser enthusiasm. When YouTube tightened the screws, ad revenue dropped significantly.

Here’s what Kyle did: he stopped relying on YouTube money. That’s it. That’s the whole strategic move. He stopped treating the platform as an income source and started treating it as a marketing channel. The actual money would come from what the audience bought — not what advertisers paid to reach them.

Full Send merch. Then Happy Dad. Then the podcast. Then NFTs. The YouTube channel became a funnel, not a business.

Full Send: The Clothing Drop That Prints Money

If you’re not familiar with Full Send as a clothing brand, here’s how it works. Drops. Limited edition releases that sell out fast — sometimes within hours. Hoodies, tees, hats, accessories. The aesthetic is that specific early-2020s frat-adjacent streetwear that NELK’s audience absolutely eats up.

Full Send merchandise is estimated to generate somewhere between $70 million and $100 million per year in revenue. That is not a typo. That’s a clothing brand built on drop culture and a loyal base who genuinely identify with the brand — not because of algorithms, but because Kyle and Jesse built something that felt like belonging to a specific type of person.

Kyle owns a significant stake in Full Send. The exact percentage isn’t public. But even a conservative cut of $70–100 million in annual sales adds up fast.

The brand expanded beyond clothing too — Full Send Entertainment runs their content operations, Full Send Podcast is a separate revenue stream with high-profile guests and sponsorship deals. It’s a whole ecosystem built off a YouTube channel that can’t even run ads consistently.

Happy Dad: The Beverage Play That Made Everything Bigger

In 2021, Kyle co-launched Happy Dad Hard Seltzer. The timing was intentional — the hard seltzer market was booming, White Claw had proven the category could scale massively, and Kyle had something White Claw didn’t: seven million YouTube subscribers who would try anything their favorite creators promoted.

By 2023, Happy Dad had cracked the top five hard seltzer brands in the United States. The brand is now distributed across multiple states and is estimated to have crossed $120 million in cumulative sales since launch, with annual revenue in the $80–100 million range based on industry estimates.

The company valuation sits around $250–300 million. Which, again — that’s the brand. Kyle’s personal stake is some fraction of that. A significant fraction, presumably, given he’s a founder. But unknown exactly.

What’s not unknown is the impact it had on his overall wealth picture. This is the venture that likely pushed his personal net worth from the $5 million range to the $25 million range faster than anything else could have.

The NFT Drop Nobody Remembers Correctly

In 2022, NELK launched the Full Send Metacard NFT collection. Ten thousand limited-edition digital cards, offering holders exclusive access to merchandise, events, and other perks tied to the Full Send ecosystem.

It sold out fast. The total revenue from that single drop was estimated at $23 million.

Now, this was at the peak of the NFT market — right before the thing crashed. Kyle has been openly cautious about how much of his wealth is tied up in NFTs since then, and the market has cooled dramatically. But as a one-time windfall that came from basically printing digital cards? Twenty-three million dollars in a single drop is not nothing.

The question of whether the NFT holders received value over time is very different. What it did for Kyle’s bottom line in 2022 is clear.

Newport Beach and the Real Estate Piece

The NELK group purchased a roughly $9 million property in Newport Beach, California around 2021. Multiple analyses of Kyle’s wealth include this as part of his asset base, and some reporting suggests the property also functions as a content creation and business space — which, if structured correctly, creates some interesting tax efficiency.

It’s not just a flex. It’s also a business asset. Which is very much on-brand for someone who figured out early that owning your infrastructure beats renting it.

Real estate also represents the kind of wealth that doesn’t fluctuate with YouTube algorithm changes or seltzer market trends. Kyle’s diversification strategy isn’t accidental — it’s a deliberate hedge against the fact that internet fame is famously fragile.

The Controversies That Kept Happening

Let’s be real. NELK’s brand is inseparable from the controversy.

The ISU COVID party situation was legitimately problematic, not just a bit edgy. Students faced real disciplinary consequences. Kyle and the crew showed up, created chaos, and left. The people who lived on that campus dealt with the fallout.

There’s also the broader “Full Send” lifestyle promotion — the unapologetic glorification of drinking, partying, and treating rules as suggestions. Happy Dad exists in that ecosystem. Criticisms that the brand promotes alcohol irresponsibly, particularly to a young audience, are not baseless.

Steve Will Do It — a longtime NELK collaborator — got arrested at Universal Studios in July 2024 while wearing a fake mustache, having snuck back into the park after being banned for filming there. He pleaded no contest to misdemeanor trespassing in November 2024. That’s the brand’s energy, condensed into one mugshot.

Kyle himself has largely avoided personal legal issues, but his channel is the engine that made all of this happen. You don’t get to fully disown what you built.

Forbes 30 Under 30 and What It Actually Means

In 2022, Forbes put Kyle on their 30 Under 30 list. People either treat this as a huge deal or dismiss it as a PR exercise. The reality is somewhere in between.

The list is not curated on pure financial merit — it factors in cultural impact, social reach, and entrepreneurial innovation. Kyle qualifies on all three. He built a brand with real revenue outside the traditional entertainment system. He did it without a label, a studio, or a traditional media company backing him.

That matters. Not because Forbes says so — but because the business model he built is genuinely replicable and genuinely innovative. You don’t get to $25 million by being lucky. You get there by treating your audience as customers, not just viewers.

Final Words

Here’s my actual take on Kyle Forgeard.

His content? Not for everyone. If you find prank videos juvenile and the “Full Send” lifestyle exhausting, that’s fair — the world contains multitudes. The criticism of how that content affects impressionable viewers is worth taking seriously.

But the business he built? Genuinely impressive. When YouTube started cutting off his money, he didn’t complain on Twitter. He built his own revenue streams. He didn’t license Full Send — he owns it. He didn’t partner with an existing beverage company for a cut — he launched his own brand and scaled it into a top-five market position.

That’s not influencer thinking. That’s entrepreneur thinking. And the $25 million net worth — even with all its estimation caveats — reflects that.

He dropped out of Ryerson to make prank videos. He’s now worth as much as some of the professors who would have taught him. You can debate the cultural value of what he makes all day long. The business results aren’t really up for debate.

FAQs

1. What is Kyle Forgeard’s net worth in 2026?

Estimated at approximately $25 million, with some sources ranging to $30 million. None of these figures are verified by public financial disclosure — Kyle runs private companies with no obligation to publish financials. The estimate reflects his stake in Full Send merch, Happy Dad Hard Seltzer, podcast revenue, and real estate.

2. What was Kyle Forgeard’s source of income?

Multiple streams: Full Send clothing (estimated $70–100M annual revenue), Happy Dad Hard Seltzer (brand valued at ~$250M), the Full Send Podcast (sponsorship income), the Full Send Metacard NFT drop (~$23M in 2022), and real estate including a ~$9M Newport Beach property. YouTube ad revenue is minimal — demonetization pushed him to build these alternative income streams.

3. Is Kyle Forgeard a billionaire?

No. His estimated net worth is around $25 million. Happy Dad Hard Seltzer is sometimes valued at $250 million as a brand, but that is not Kyle’s personal net worth — it’s the company valuation, and Kyle owns a portion of that.

4. Who co-founded NELK Boys with Kyle Forgeard?

Jesse Sebastiani. The two started NelkFilmz together in 2010 and built it into the NELK Boys brand. Kyle is generally described as the primary creative and business lead.

5. What is Happy Dad Hard Seltzer?

A hard seltzer brand launched by Kyle, Jesse, and the NELK team in 2021. It became a top-five hard seltzer brand in the US by 2023, with an estimated brand valuation of $250–300 million and cumulative sales reported to exceed $120 million since launch.

6. What is Full Send?

The lifestyle brand built out of the NELK Boys brand. Full Send operates as a clothing label with limited-edition drops, and as a broader media brand (Full Send Podcast, Full Send Entertainment). The apparel business generates an estimated $70–100 million annually.

7. Did Kyle Forgeard appear on Forbes 30 Under 30?

Yes — in 2022, recognizing his entrepreneurial work building Full Send and Happy Dad into major consumer brands.

8. Where does Kyle Forgeard live?

He’s based in Southern California, primarily Newport Beach, where he owns a property reported to be worth approximately $9 million.

9. What happened when YouTube suspended NELK?

In 2020, after the ISU campus party controversy during COVID restrictions, YouTube took action against the channel. Rather than collapsing, this pushed Kyle to accelerate building revenue streams outside of YouTube — a pivot that ultimately made him significantly wealthier than ad revenue ever could have.

10. How much did the NELK NFT drop make?

The Full Send Metacard NFT collection, launched in 2022, generated an estimated $23 million from its initial sale. Since then, the NFT market has somewhat cooled.

11. What is Kyle Forgeard’s hometown?

Mississauga, Ontario — a suburban city in the Greater Toronto Area of Canada. His parents, Rick and Gayle Forgeard, raised him and his sister Chantal there.

12. Is Kyle Forgeard the richest NELK member?

Based on available estimates, yes. Kyle’s ~$25 million net worth is typically reported as the highest among NELK members. Steve Will Do It (Steve Deleonardis) is estimated at around $10–12 million.

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