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YouTuber Grant Thompson Dead at 38 | E! News

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A YouTube pioneer known for teaching millions how to build, hack and blow things up safely is gone at 38, killed in a paragliding accident over the Utah desert.

Grant Thompson, the creator behind “The King of Random,” died Monday night, July 29, 2019, after a paragliding launch near Sand Hollow State Park went wrong. He built one of YouTube’s biggest science and DIY channels from scratch starting in 2010, and by the time of his death it had drawn more than 11 million subscribers and roughly 2.5 billion views. News of his passing spread fast across the creator community, with tributes coming in from YouTube itself and fellow personalities within hours.

• Search crews located Thompson’s body Tuesday, July 30, using GPS tracking and a helicopter after he was reported overdue near Sand Hollow State Park in Washington County, Utah.
• His brother, Mark Thompson, told TMZ that Grant had taken up paragliding only about five months earlier, on top of an existing interest in skydiving and flying.
• Authorities recovered his paragliding gear along with a video recording device that investigators plan to review to determine what caused the crash.

The Search Near Sand Hollow State Park

The St. George Emergency Dispatch Center got the call Monday night: a paraglider who’d taken off near Sand Hollow State Park hadn’t been heard from and couldn’t be reached on his cellphone. Search teams worked through the night and into Tuesday, ultimately pinpointing his location with GPS tracking equipment and a helicopter. His body was found Tuesday, July 30, in Washington County, along with his paragliding equipment and a video recording device that authorities say will be reviewed as part of the investigation into how the flight ended.

A New Passion Turned Fatal

Thompson wasn’t new to risk-taking on camera, but paragliding itself was a recent addition to his life. According to his brother Mark, who spoke with TMZ, Grant had only started paragliding around five months before the crash, adding it to an existing love of skydiving and flying. Friends and family described him as someone who threw himself fully into new pursuits, the same instinct that had built his YouTube career in the first place.

Building The King of Random

Thompson launched “The King of Random” in 2010, turning DIY experiments, life hacks and engineering demonstrations into a channel that racked up over 11 million subscribers and about 2.5 billion views. In 2018, he stepped back from hosting duties to focus on his family and on production behind the scenes, handing on-camera responsibilities to Nate and Cali while remaining involved with the channel he’d built. That transition meant TKOR’s audience was already familiar with a version of the channel that didn’t rely solely on Thompson’s face, though his voice and influence never left it.

Tributes From the YouTube Community

Following the announcement of his death, TKOR posted a silent, one-minute photo tribute asking viewers to honor Thompson with “a random act of love or kindness.” YouTube itself issued a statement calling him a “gifted, passionate and endlessly curious creator,” and condolences rolled in from fellow creators including Philip DeFranco and MatPat.

YouTube honored Thompson as a “gifted, passionate and endlessly curious creator.”

Thompson’s death lands in the same grim category that’s touched other young entertainers whose lives ended far too soon, a pattern that’s been chronicled before and echoes the kind of sudden loss that hit fans hard when Avicii’s family spoke out about his own tragic death. For now, the recovered video device sits with investigators, and TKOR’s channel — already running with Nate and Cali on camera since 2018 — is left to figure out how to keep going without the guy who started it all a decade ago.