From the bedroom to a life in motion
Somewhere between the boy who made videos from his bedroom and the man walking into film sets, football stadiums and fashion houses, Just Riadh learned that becoming someone is not the same as becoming famous.
What started with a camera, a joke and the simple desire to make people laugh has grown into a life lived between cinema, sport, fashion and millions of eyes. A life that keeps expanding, even as he becomes more protective of the parts that belong only to him. Because behind the noise, the numbers and the image, there is something quieter: a son, a partner, a father, and a man still hungry enough to begin again.
Perhaps that is what makes Riadh so compelling now. He is no longer interested in fitting neatly into the version of himself that made him famous. Actor, creator, football obsessive, fashion presence – and maybe, one day, filmmaker – he seems less concerned with choosing a label than with keeping the freedom to outgrow it. Cinema has taught him to let go of control. Fatherhood has changed what ambition means. And growing up in public has taught him that authenticity does not mean giving everything away.
For our September Digital Cover, we meet Riadh somewhere in between: between what has already been built and everything that is still possible, between the person the world remembers and the person he is still becoming.
Because the most interesting thing about Just Riadh is not how far he has come.
It’s how much of him is still to come.
You built your first version of yourself on the internet, at a time when you were still figuring out who you were offline. Looking back at that first version of Riadh, what do you miss about him, and what are you almost relieved you left behind?
What I miss about him is his carefree nature. He used to do things without overthinking them, with very little means but an incredible amount of desire. He never wondered where it would take him: he wanted to create, make people laugh, and enjoy what was happening to him. There was something very pure about that.
What I’m probably glad I left behind is that need for validation. When you grow up on the Internet, it’s easy to confuse attention with value and to think that the more people look at you, the more you matter. Over time, I understood that the things that matter most in my life are often the things no one sees.
Today, I’m trying to keep that boy’s carefree nature while having the awareness of the man I’ve become. Growing up doesn’t mean rejecting who you were; it simply means refusing to remain a prisoner of that person.
You once dreamed of becoming a professional footballer, and now your life moves between cinema sets, fashion, social media, and rooms you probably never imagined entering as a kid. Do you think you actually achieved the dream you had, or did life quietly give you a completely different one?
I think my dream may not have been simply to become a footballer. When I was a kid, football represented something much bigger: succeeding, making a living from my passion, making my family proud, feeling strong emotions, and achieving something that seemed almost inaccessible.
I didn’t become a professional footballer, but strangely enough, life gave me a lot of what I was really looking for behind that dream, just through a different path.
And that’s a lesson I carry with me today: you shouldn’t be too specific with life. Sometimes you ask for one thing and it gives you something completely different, but even greater than what you had imagined.
I’m still very ambitious, and I still have so much to accomplish. But I also know how to look at what I already have and think: this is actually crazy.
You became famous by letting people into your everyday life: your family, your friends, your jokes, your mistakes. Then, as your life became bigger, you started protecting more of it. When did you realize that not everything that happens to you needs to become content?
I don’t think there was one specific moment. It happened gradually. At first, sharing my everyday life felt very natural because my life and my content were almost the same thing. But when your life evolves, when you build a family and other people become part of your story, you understand that not everything belongs entirely to you anymore.
Today, I make a real distinction between being authentic and being transparent. Being authentic doesn’t mean showing everything. I can be sincere with the people who follow me without giving them access to every part of my private life.
And ultimately, protecting certain things doesn’t mean distancing yourself from people. It also means preserving what allows you to remain yourself when the cameras are off.
There is something fascinating about the fact that millions of people know your face, your voice, your humour, even though they have never actually met you. What is the biggest misconception people have about the person behind “Just Riadh”?
Maybe because I laugh a lot and don’t necessarily show my difficulties, people might think I take everything lightly. When in reality, I think a lot, sometimes even too much. (laughs)
I’m much more demanding of myself than people might imagine. I doubt myself, I question myself, I work a lot, and I take the opportunities I’ve been given very seriously.
But above all, social media inevitably gives you an incomplete version of a person. People can know my face, my jokes, certain moments of my life, but that doesn’t mean they know me entirely. And that’s okay.
I’d rather a part of me still belong to the people who truly know me.
Your first major movie role asked you to stop being the person everyone already knew and become somebody else. What did acting reveal about you that creating content never could?
Acting taught me something that may seem paradoxical: sometimes, you have to accept losing control in order to grow.
On social media, I was used to controlling a lot of things: my idea, my pace, my editing, what I showed. On a film, you step into a work that doesn’t belong to you. You have to listen to a director, trust your partners, redo a scene, accept being told that something isn’t quite right yet.
And I loved that because it put me back in the position of a student. I think there’s a danger in becoming so good at what you already know how to do that you no longer dare to become a beginner somewhere else.
Cinema gave me that desire back: to learn, take risks, and go into places where I’m not completely comfortable yet.
You’ve spoken before about not really identifying with the word “influencer.” Maybe the interesting question now is what comes after that word. If you could delete every label people have ever put on you – creator, actor, influencer, celebrity, whatever – who would you want to be when nobody is watching?
This is probably the most important question.
When no one is watching, I simply want to be a good person. A good father, a good partner, a good son, a good brother, a good friend. Someone the people he loves can rely on.
Careers can change. Today I’m an actor, a creator, tomorrow maybe a director or something completely different. I want to remain ambitious and aim very high professionally. But no success will ever make up for having neglected the people I love to get there.
In the end, I’d rather people remember the way I treated others than the number of people who followed me.
You’ve gone from making people laugh in your bedroom to walking red carpets, working with major brands, meeting football legends, making movies, and becoming a father. Is there a moment in your life that still feels completely unreal when you stop and actually think about it?
There are so many. Red carpets, films, certain encounters… Of course, sometimes I stop and think: how did I even get here?
But since becoming a father, I think what feels most unreal is, paradoxically, something very simple: looking at my family and realizing that this is my life.
Because red carpets, campaigns, numbers, projects: all of that could disappear tomorrow. And I will obviously keep fighting to go further and further. But coming home and knowing why I’m doing all of this gives success a whole different meaning.
Before, I wanted to succeed to change my life. Today, more than anything, I want to succeed without missing out on it.
This September, you are the face of Vanity Teen’s most important digital cover of the year. But a cover is always a snapshot: it freezes one version of someone while that person keeps moving. If this image captured exactly where you are in your life right now, what would you want people to understand about the man behind it?
I’d like people to see someone who is happy with what he has built, but absolutely not someone who has reached the end of his ambitions.
I’m at a point in my life where I know myself better. I have a better idea of what I want, but especially of what I no longer want. I still have that hunger to go further, to make better films, to create, to surprise people, maybe to direct someday. I don’t want to settle comfortably into what people already know me for.
At the same time, my definition of success has changed. I want to go very far without losing what keeps my feet on the ground. If, in ten years, I’ve accomplished an incredible amount but I’m not happy with the people I love, I’ll consider that I’ve missed something.
So if this cover is meant to capture one version of me, I’d simply like it to say: he’s proud of the journey he’s been on, but he knows there’s still a long way to go.
There’s a particular kind of pressure that comes with growing up in public: people remember versions of you that you’ve already outgrown. Do you ever feel like you have to prove to people that you’re allowed to change? And if so, who are you really trying to convince?
At first, yes. Because when you grow up in front of millions of people, some of them will inevitably continue to see you as the person you were five or ten years ago. And sometimes, as soon as you change, people almost expect you to justify yourself.
But today, I’m not really trying to convince anyone anymore.
I’ve understood something simple: people have the right to keep the image they have of me, and I have the right to no longer resemble that image.
Changing your mind, evolving, admitting you were wrong, wanting something different… to me, that’s not inconsistency. It’s actually proof that you’re still learning. I would be more wary of someone who thinks exactly the same way their entire life.
So the person I’m trying to convince today is mostly myself: making sure that my choices reflect the man I’ve become, not the person others would like me to remain.
Imagine you’re reading this ten years from now. Maybe you’re an actor, maybe a filmmaker, maybe something we can’t even imagine yet. Maybe you’ve completely changed your mind about everything. Write a letter to that future Riadh. What do you hope he never forgets about the boy who started making videos because he simply wanted to make people laugh?
Riadh,
First of all, I hope you’re happy. Not happy in a photo, not happy because everything is going well professionally. Truly happy.
I hope you continued to dream big. That you did things that scared you, that you took risks, that you failed sometimes, and that you never settled into comfort simply because you had already succeeded.
But most of all, I hope that in this race, you didn’t forget anyone. Your family, your friends, the people who were there before your name opened certain doors. I hope your children are proud of the man you are before being impressed by what you have accomplished.
And never forget the boy who made videos simply because he loved making people laugh. He had no strategy. He didn’t know where all of this would take him. But he had something precious: he was hungry without yet being obsessed with the destination.
So keep going further, higher. But from time to time, go back and visit that boy.
Because if one day you get everything he dreamed of but lose who he was, you won’t have truly won.
CREDITS
Talent: Just Riadh
Photographer & A.D.: Ismael Nebchi
Production Manager: Youmna Bechouel
Stylist: Gaelle Ibrahim
Cover Designer: Alessia Peluso
Hair Stylist: Miwa Moroki
Make-Up Artist: Soukaina Wahid with Horace
Total Looks: Louis Vuitton – PF26 & FW26
Location: Brach Paris
Production: Media Up Production
Fashion Editor: Corinna Fusco