| About Jonathan Grant Thompson | |
|---|---|
| Known As | The King of Random, Grant Thompson |
| Age | 38 Years |
| Birth | November 21, 1980 Calgary, Alberta, Canada |
| Death | July 29, 2019 Washington County, Utah |
| Gender | Male |
| Spouse | Janae Vilate Christensen September 2007 - July 2019 |
| Siblings | Mark Thompson |
| Address | St. George, Utah |
| Country | United States |
| Job | YouTuber |
| Cause of Death | Paragliding Accident |
The YouTuber community has been rocked by the tragic death of 38-year-old Grant Thompson. Known for his popular YouTube channel, The King of Random, he and his cohost, Nate, had gained over 11 million subscribers by posting videos of cool life hacks and experiments. Thompson had recently taken a break from hosting YouTube videos to focus on his family before he died in the fatal paragliding accident. Our Grant Thompson wiki pays tribute to the life of this YouTube legend.
Grant Thompson Was from Canada
Jonathan Grant Thompson was born on November 21, 1980 in Calgary, Canada. He was raised there for a few years before he came to the U.S.
In his YouTube videos and occasional interviews, he described going to school in a small-town environment. He said he experienced a lot of bullying growing up.
Reportedly a practitioner of the Mormon faith, he also spent two years in England on a missionary trip. Instead of going to college, he deliberated over his future prospects while working on an oil rig in Northern Canada.
Thompson Was an Airline Pilot
When he was 14, Thompson’s father got him a present that changed his life. It was a ticket to fly in an ultralight glider, which would be young Thompson’s first time flying.
It also changed his perspective on life, particularly the bullying experience. He decided to do what made him happy, including his missionary work.
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So, he first got his driver’s license and drove school buses, ferrying kids on their school trips. He then started driving buses for rock bands on tour.
While working on the oil rig, Thompson saved the hotel and food allowance his employer provided by living in his car. Eventually, he had saved enough money to buy a small plane, which was the start of his dream to be an airline pilot.
To work on this dream, he came to Hawaii where he got a job as a cargo pilot traveling among the many Hawaiian islands. After a year, he got a job as a commercial airline pilot and stuck with that for 11 years.
Thompson Has Four Kids
When he got the job as an airline pilot, Thompson moved to the mainland and bought a home. That’s when he met Janae Vilate Christensen, the woman who bought the house next to his.
Christensen and Thompson reportedly married on September 7, 2007 and lived in Utah. They had been together for about 12 years at the time of his death.
She featured often on his YouTube and social media accounts. However, Thompson kept details of his family private.
Mrs. Grant Thompson is heavily outnumbered in their household, being a mom to four boys. Their youngest son was born in 2017.
Thompson Worked in Real Estate
Thompson and his wife met when they bought homes right next to each other. When they got together, they kept both houses, fixed them up, and rented them out.
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Seeing that they’d made a good investment, they kept buying and renting out properties until they had 11 of them. That’s when they established their real estate business, which more than supplemented Thompson’s income as a commercial pilot.
They, however, sold all the properties during the 2008 housing market crash. They invested that money and lived off their respective interests.
Thompson and Nate Share Life Hacks on “The King of Random”
With a comfortable life and no real estate business to run anymore, Thompson had a lot more time on his hands. “Now I had the opportunity to say, ‘What have I always wanted to do with my life?’” he said in a YouTube video.
After discussing it with his wife, he decided to do the things he loved and make videos of them. But first, he learned skills that would help him, like welding and building circuit boards through an online course while practicing at home.
What he learned and experimented with wasn’t limited, so long as he could acquire as much knowledge as possible and work or talk about his random projects. That’s how “The King of Random” came to be.
Seeing as the skills he was learning online weren’t, in his opinion, presented in a very learner-friendly format, he decided to make YouTube videos of his own in a way that anyone could understand. Since 2010, Thompson, along with Nate, had been posting all sorts of life hacks and experiments on their YouTube channel, The King of Random.
He further marketed the videos by writing similar articles for websites and publications. From a modest 50,000 subscribers in his first year, the channel has now grown to 11 million subscribers.
Grant and Nate have created videos like “How to Make Gummy LEGO Candy,” which is their most popular video to date, with over 34 million views. Since it was established, the channel has amassed over 2 billion views in total.
He was able to monetize fame with great marketing strategies, including Amazon’s affiliate marketing. The channel earned the duo over $3.0 million a year.
In addition to YouTube, he ran a website selling King of Random merchandise.
Thompson Was Charged for Possession of an Explosive Device
The King of Random has done videos like building a laser-assisted blowgun and making homemade rocket fuel, among many others. And in 2018, one such experiment landed him in trouble.
He was charged with two counts of second-degree felony possession of an explosive device from two separate incidents. One of the incidents involved a citizen complaint about Thompson exploding a dry-ice bomb.
Thompson did, however, say he was confused and displeased with the accusations. He didn’t want people to think that he was an irresponsible YouTuber blowing things up.
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Thompson Passed Away in a Paragliding Accident
After the legal issues, Grant took a step back from YouTube so he could spend more time with his family. Even while making videos, he continued his job as a pilot, gradually taking fewer shifts until he quit altogether.
Thompson loved airborne sports and sadly, he ended up dying doing what he loved. According to the latest reports, Grant Thompson passed away on July 29, 2019 in a paragliding accident.
According to reports, the body of a then-unidentified paraglider was found on Tuesday in Washington County, Utah. The paraglider was overdue for a landing and had gone off the radar for more than an hour.
Grant’s brother, Mark, later confirmed the news of his death. Nate went on to post a tribute to his cohost on their YouTube channel and Instagram as well as his own social media pages.
Mark said that his brother had taken up paragliding around five months before his death. Besides being an airline pilot, Grant also enjoyed skydiving.
Authorities are still investigating the cause of the crash. Further details have yet to be revealed.
Grant is survived by his family, including his wife Janae and their sons.
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