When her sons Logan and Jake Paul were already semi-famous, and millionaires, their mum Pam would come over to their first apartment in Los Angeles and do their laundry and cleaning.
Later, when Jake was roaring around in a Lamborghini and they were both globally celebrated for being – not to put too fine a point on it – a pair of obnoxious prankster ‘jackasses’, Pam would quietly stock their fridges with fresh supplies from Whole Foods, despairing of their diet of junk food.
Indeed, divorcee Pam Stepnick, 62, a wholesome blonde nurse from Westlake, Ohio, has never ceased trying to support and smooth the way for her two sons.
Even when Jake set fire to the swimming pool of his Hollywood house and was drummed out of the neighbourhood, she didn’t chide him. Even though that moment, Pam tells me, made her ‘take a deep breath’ – as did the numerous lawsuits filed against him during these wild years.
How about the time when Jake staged a phoney wedding to rake in cash from a pay-per-view video? That, she reflects, provoked ‘an eye roll’.
Indeed, speaking to Pam you can’t help but wonder at her incredible sangfroid. As she says, she has watched the internet ‘rewire’ her children.
For anyone who has lived with teen boys in the last decade, Jake and Logan Paul will need no introduction. Both were part of an early social media movement that popularised daft, stunt-focused videos, and at one point dominated the nascent ‘manosphere’ – the internet’s male-dominated, often misogynist quarter.
But as their dares got stupider and their exploits more offensive, the controversies grew – and the backlash followed. Both still have significant online presences, but are now best known here for co-founding the over-hyped, neon-coloured Prime sports drinks (Logan) and fighting in hugely lucrative boxing matches (Jake).
Pam Stepnick, pictured with Jake (left) and Logan, says the early days of her son’s rise to fame were ‘the most scary times in my life’
Pam remains incredibly calm despite her sons’ controversial stunts – which have often landed them in trouble
Logan and Jake rose to fame through YouTube and the short-lived but popular video-sharing app Vine
Both have amassed large fortunes – Logan is apparently worth $150million (£111million) and Jake $100million (£75million) – but the trolling and the scandals, of which more later, have taken a toll.
Jake, 28, and Logan, 30, no longer read the comments beneath their videos, but Pam, a petite and sparky figure who was a champion gymnast as a schoolgirl, finds it impossible not to get involved, and is now reflecting on their hair-raising rise to fame.
‘The days when they were getting famous were some of the most scary times in my life,’ she tells me. ‘They were getting themselves into these extreme situations. I realise that all kids make mistakes – it just happens that mine do it on a different scale. And yes, I lost control of them.’
She has now written a book – provocatively titled ‘F*** The Pauls’ – in which she tries to give advice to parents whose children want to jump into the world of YouTube as her sons did.
In the book she notes: ‘Growing up in front of the camera and in front of millions of viewers changes a child. Inhibitions are lowered. Outrageous behaviour is not only encouraged, it’s expected and then rewarded.
‘We are a family of champions, but the internet is undefeated. By the time I realised the internet had rewired my sons, it was too late.’
Logan’s filmed visit to a Japanese ‘suicide forest’ in 2017 was the outrage which rewrote the trajectory for both brothers. At a point when he had 15 million subscribers on YouTube, he uploaded a video in which he and his friends joked as they discovered the body of a man in Aokigahara Forest, a notorious suicide spot at the base of Mount Fuji. It sparked a global outcry but was seen by millions before it was removed.
Brands distanced themselves, Logan apologised profusely, both brothers retreated temporarily from the internet.
Despite fearing for Jake when he steps into the ring, Pam supports her son in any way she can
She says Logan and Jake have grown up ‘1,000 per cent’ since the early days of their puerile pranks
Last year, Jake defeated then 58-year-old boxing legend Mike Tyson. His fight against 36-year-old Anthony Joshua will likely prove much more challenging
‘They have 100 per cent, 1,000 per cent grown up a lot from that point,’ says Pam.
Today Logan is a WWE Wrestler and has business interests including stakes in Prime drinks and Lunchly food. Jake also has business interests including a men’s grooming range. Pam speaks approvingly of these ventures, saying: ‘They can sleep at night and still be earning money.’
But their sporting careers are bringing Pam her toughest test yet. Tonight in Miami, Jake is going to fight British boxer Anthony Joshua, an Olympic gold medal winner, a fight that will be live streamed on Netflix.
The bout will make both men richer than they already are – reports suggest they will be getting up to £70million apiece. Yet in terms of sporting ability, it’s a colossal mismatch – at least on paper – and probably should never have been allowed.
Former champ Barry McGuigan is on record as saying that the British Boxing Board of Control would not have sanctioned it. Many fear Jake is heading for serious injury. Pam talks nervously about when her boys might retire from their respective sports, and you can tell she will be delighted when they are out of danger.
The statistics around the forthcoming match make grim reading for the Pauls. Joshua is 6ft 6ins, weighs 18 stone and has an 82 inch reach. Jake Paul is 6ft 1in, around 14 stone and has a reach of 76 inches. The fight is scheduled for eight three-minute rounds with both fighters agreeing to use standard 10oz gloves rather the 14oz gloves normally used for sparring.
Jake, you may remember, bested former champ Mike Tyson last year, but Tyson was 58 at the time and well past his prime.
His record may have given him confidence. He has won 12 out of 13 fights, the only loss being a split decision to Tommy Fury. However, his opponents have included four Mixed Martial Arts fighters and a retired basketball star.
Logan also dabbled in boxing, but has since moved into professional wrestling
The Pauls were raised in what Pam calls a ‘regular American suburban upbringing’ in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, by God-fearing Pam and her ex-husband Greg Paul
When the fight was announced, Jake’s brother Logan said: ‘Is this m*********er out of his mind?’ Other more measured voices said they were worried about Jake being knocked out and badly hurt.
His mother Pam, who was FaceTimed on camera by Jake when he signed the deal to fight Joshua, said back then she was ‘terrified’.
As the fight approaches, she goes further. ‘Jake picked this fight, he wanted this fight. He didn’t tell me he was thinking about it or ask for my advice, I only knew about it after the deal was done.
‘He called and said “Mum I’m fighting AJ”. He tells me this and then films my reaction. I was in a panic, I could feel the hairs raise on my arms because I know AJ, I have watched his fights, I have watched people get beaten. I know he is a monster.
‘For sure I have to say there is a chance to get injured here, to get badly hurt. The phrase I think of is: when fear knocks faith answers. I am just trying to get over my fear.
‘How will I get through? I will be praying. I always have my rosary with me.’
The Pauls were raised in what Pam calls a ‘regular American suburban upbringing’ in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, by God-fearing Pam and her ex-husband Greg Paul.
She started dating Greg while he was still in high school and she was training to be a nurse after an injured back put paid to her dreams of glory as a gymnast.
The marriage ended acrimoniously, however, when the boys were small. Greg went on business trips with ‘women who were not his wife’ says Pam, and reacted grumpily when she told him she was pregnant with Jake. They shared custody.
It was an outdoorsy existence, she says, with the boys riding bikes, playing with neighbours and exploring the woods. Jake loved football and basketball and riding mountain bikes. Logan tried out magic tricks and riding a unicycle.
They also – like so many of their generation – grew up watching YouTube channels like PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg) and Smosh, whose creators, Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla, filmed comedy sketches and parody songs.
‘Logan and Jake just inhaled the content,’ says Pam.
When the boys were around ten and 11, they took a camcorder, bought to record them playing football, and started doing their own sketches. They then decided to start their own YouTube channel. They performed innocent pranks – wrestling in a grocery store, pretending to fall over outside shopping malls and so on.
Pam says: ‘Logan and Jake were two regular boys from Ohio, making silly content that made other kids laugh. Jake and Logan also understood their audience, because they were them.’
From the start they also tried to ‘merch’ their popularity with T-shirts bearing their own logo.
Within a year, they were well-known enough to be stopped in the street.
Then came Vine – a short-lived but popular social media app owned by Twitter that let users create and share six second, looping video clips. The brothers started posting every day, competing with each other as to who could be more successful. They became so well known that Logan was invited out to New York for a collaboration with another content creator.
Pam paused, fearing what lay ahead, but then gave permission.
‘I was not a stage mom; I was a football mom. I understood sports and athletics. So, as a gal from Lansing, Michigan, my experience with the entertainment industry began and ended with what I could watch on Channel 5 or see at the movie theatre in Rocky River,’ she says.
She understood, though, that this was a passion for her sons who ‘lit up’ when they were making videos. Logan said he wanted to be the greatest entertainer of all time. He threw away a full scholarship to university, and went to LA to make his fortune on YouTube instead. Not long afterwards, Jake dropped out of high school and followed him.
Pam, now remarried to a doctor, David, was left weeping in the driveway of the family home.
But one outrage followed another. Logan filmed misogynistic content, including a music video in which he appeared to ride women like bicycles. He also announced he was going to ‘go gay for a month’. There was another scandal over an endorsement of cryptocurrency.
Jake had his own cryptocurrency scandal, said that Covid was a hoax, and had a fake pay-per-view wedding to fellow YouTuber Tana Mongeau in Las Vegas.
I ask Pam – didn’t you ever tell your boys off?
‘I don’t always react,’ says Pam. ‘I don’t ever come at them in that negative way. It’s more when there is a problem, how do you turn this around, what do you learn from this?
‘I am just not a reactive person like that. Their dad would be – he would react in that way. I try to figure out how not to get them to do that again.
‘They put out internet fodder, you know, and you can see when they are putting out content which is going to come back on you. The pay-per-view wedding was definitely an eye roll, but it was also fun. You are in that moment and Jake was so into it. I was just going along with it and being supportive.
‘That was not as difficult as some other things. When he set his pool on fire and was facing legal charges, that was harder to deal with. It was a deep breath for me.’
Logan’s visit to the Japanese suicide forest, she says, was nothing more sinister than a dumb overreach. ‘He was making videos every single day and he went along without really thinking it through.
‘He thought he could talk about suicide, he was trying to help, but he was so shocked, I don’t think he knew how to deal with it. It was definitely stressful. I know in my heart where he was coming from and it wasn’t a bad place.’
As a result he went ‘from being the most loved person to the most hated’.
‘It’s hard to describe what that feels like, as that man’s mother,’ says Pam. ‘Is it defensiveness mixed with horror? It is mostly deeply painful. You feel it in your own body.’
Nothing had prepared them for the hatred. Again, Pam didn’t chide her maverick son, she offered him support and compassion and told him to work on ‘improving himself’. According to Pam, he came back kinder, stronger and more thoughtful.
But Jake’s mental health also spiralled due to the scandal. ‘He wound up abusing drugs and alcohol during this time,’ says Pam. ‘I didn’t know how bad it had gotten; he kept a lot of it from me. It breaks my heart to know that he was hurting so deeply without a way to cope. Jake told someone in an interview that during this time, he had made a plan to end his own life. He felt like he couldn’t do anything right.’
In an effort to turn things around, Jake and Logan decided to try something ‘radically different’. They figured out that people would pay money to see them getting hit or hurt – and that hunch has been correct.
Pam says the mantra became: ‘Cannibalise the hate, use it as fuel, and then monetise it. When you hear someone booing, you hear money in the bank. It was a departure from our family’s radical positivity, but it worked.’
She adds: ‘Boxing is probably the last sport I would have encouraged my kids to pursue, given the injuries and dangers, but I was elated to see both Logan and Jake become motivated by a goal again.’
The brothers now live (separately) in Puerto Rico. Logan is married to model Nina Agdal and they have a daughter, Esme, born in September 2024. Jake is engaged to Dutch Olympic speed skater Jutta Leerdam, 26. Pam loves being a grandmother and hopes that, after the Anthony Joshua fight, Jake will start a family too – she says that’s what he wants to do.
She sees a future in which the Pauls concentrate on business and both step away from sports. Jake, a long-time fan of Liverpool FC, might follow actor Ryan Reynolds and take a stake in a football team. ‘Maybe next for Jake is buying a sports team, that would be fun,’ says Pam. And should he survive his date with Joshua, he should be rich enough do just that.
F*** The Pauls by Pam Stepnik is out January 27, 2026 but available for pre-sale on Amazon
