The relationship guru who preached traditional gender roles

Kevin Samuels 1965–2022

Kevin Samuels gave blunt lifestyle advice that more men and women should hear, his fans argued. To critics, the Black life coach could be cruel and misogynistic, spouting outdated views on gender roles. His YouTube videos—with titles such as “Women Should Let Men Use Them”—racked up over 295 million views. Known for being outspoken and favoring tailored suits, the twicedivorced Samuels began cultivating a social media following in the mid-2010s. “If you have made it to 35 and you are unmarried, you are a leftover woman,” Samuels said recently. “Men know that there is likely something wrong with you.”

Samuels “had an early interest in fashion,” said The New York Times. He said that as a child, he “laid out my pajamas and made sure they were pressed.” After graduating from the University of Oklahoma, Samuels worked in marketing and started consulting in 2013. While his initial advice focused on clothes, he “discovered a formula that would help his following skyrocket based on harsh assessments of modern women.” In one of his first viral videos, in 2020, he assessed one woman as “average at best.”

“His popularity rose quickly” after he began doing call-in shows on Instagram and Zoom, said NPR.com. Men should be assertive and dominant, he said, while women should be valued for their looks, youth, and willingness to tolerate infidelity. “Successful men cheat,” he wrote. “Either you will deal with it or not.” By the day of his death, more than 30,000 people had signed a Change.org petition asking YouTube and Instagram to ban Samuels, saying he had “galvanized a community of men” in “the outspoken hatred of women.”