What is former Bellator star Keith Lee doing now? Exploring his journey from MMA to the world of TikTok

Former Bellator fighter Keith Lee has found success outside the sport and cultivated a massive audience on TikTok.

Lee found his niche as a food critic on the social media platform and gained fame for his articulate and unbiased reviews. He has also maintained a very respectful approach to all the restaurants and food outlets he reviews food from, thus gaining further applause for his content.

Lee started posting on TikTok in November 2020, focusing on family-oriented content. His wife's pregnancy led him to document her food cravings and change up his content to be food-centric.

Keith Lee was then invited onto the popular YouTube show People Vs Food and decided to capitalize on his appearance by focusing on food reviews and gaining more of a following.

Watch Lee on People Vs Food below:

'Killa' last fought in Bellator in 2021 against Jornel Lugo and lost via submission. His next and last professional fight was at Urijah Faber's A1 Combat 5 in a featherweight bout against Jeremiah Labiano. He won the bout and extended his professional record to 8-5.

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Keith Lee explains why he got onto TikTok

Keith Lee has found massive success on social media and amassed 11.2 million followers on TikTok at the time of writing. Ariel Helwani posted about his rise to TikTok stardom right around the time that Lee's following peaked.

In an interview with MMA Fighting, Keith Lee explained that losing his contract with Bellator forced him to build something more stable:

“I felt very expendable after I lost my contract with Bellator. I promised myself I’m going to build something that no one can take away from me, and that’s me being me. Completely separate from anything else I do. It’s just me and you can’t take away who I am.”

He also addressed how his content was meant to help with his MMA duties such as press conferences and interviews:

“I originally started doing TikTok to get more comfortable with doing interviews for MMA... Within that, it was about me learning how to slow myself down... I usually speak this slow anyways but when I get excited or I get nervous, I talk real fast. So I could see myself in the beginning of my videos, I was talking real fast and everything was kind of fast and choppy and I was like, 'What do I do to slow myself down so I can articulate, so you can understand what I’m saying?'”

Lee's videos are characterized by his controlled tone and matter-of-fact manner of speaking as he reviews food.