Keenan Cahill (1995 – December 29, 2022) was an American
YouTuber
A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006.
Influence
Influe ...
and
Internet celebrity who gained fame in the early 2010s for his viral videos in which he
lip sync
Lip sync or lip synch (pronounced , the same as the word ''sink'', short for lip synchronization) is a technical term for matching a speaking or singing person's lip movements with sung or spoken vocals.
Audio for lip syncing is generated th ...
ed to popular songs.
Cahill launched his first lipsynced
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
video on August 28, 2010, on the
Katy Perry song "
Teenage Dream". Guest artists on his channel
included
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Joanna Aniston (born February 11, 1969) is an American actress and film producer. She is the recipient of various accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. Since her career ...
,
50 Cent,
Flo Rida,
Katy Perry,
Tinie Tempah
Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu (born 7 November 1988), better known by his stage name Tinie Tempah, is a British rapper. He has been signed to Parlophone Records since 2009, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group. He created his own entertainment compa ...
,
Maroon 5,
Cody Simpson
Cody Robert Simpson (born 11 January 1997) is an Australian swimmer and singer-songwriter. Since his debut, he has released four solo studio albums: ''Paradise'' (2012), ''Surfers Paradise'' (2013), '' Free'' (2015), and ''Cody Simpson'' (202 ...
,
Jason Derulo,
Big Time Rush
''Big Time Rush'' is an American musical sitcom television series created by Scott Fellows that originally aired on Nickelodeon from November 28, 2009, to July 25, 2013 and is currently available in Paramount+. It focuses on the Hollywood misa ...
,
Glee
Glee means delight, a form of happiness.
Glee may also refer to:
* Glee (music), a type of English choral music
* ''Glee'' (TV series), an American musical comedy-drama TV series, and related media created by Ryan Murphy
* ''Glee'' (Bran Van 30 ...
,
The Wanted
The Wanted are a British-Irish boy band consisting of group members Max George, Siva Kaneswaran, Jay McGuiness and Nathan Sykes and, until his death in 2022, Tom Parker. The group was formed in 2009 and signed a worldwide contract to ...
,
LMFAO
LMFAO (an initialism for Laughing My Freaking Ass Off or Laughing My Fucking Ass Off) are an American electronic dance music duo consisting of Redfoo and Sky Blu. Redfoo is the youngest son of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy and Nancy Le ...
,
Drake Bell
Jared Drake Bell (born June 27, 1986) is an American actor, singer, songwriter, and musician. Born in Newport Beach, California, he began his career as an actor in the early 1990s at the age of five with his first televised appearance on ''Hom ...
,
Justin Bieber
Justin Drew Bieber ( ; born March 1, 1994) is a Canadian singer. Bieber is recognized for his genre-melding musicianship and has played an influential role in modern-day popular music. He was discovered by American record executive Scooter ...
,
Gym Class Heroes,
Xuso Jones,
WWE
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and vari ...
wrestler
The Miz
Michael Gregory Mizanin (born October 8, 1980) is an American professional wrestler, actor, and television personality. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the Raw brand under the ring name The Miz.
Mizanin first gained fa ...
, and
Pauly D
Paul Michael DelVecchio Jr. (born July 5, 1980), known as Pauly D and DJ Pauly D, is an American television personality and DJ. He is best known for being a cast member of MTV's reality show '' Jersey Shore''.
In 2011, he made a three-album d ...
. He released two EPs and over a dozen singles on
iTunes.
Early life
Cahill was born in 1995 in
Elmhurst, Illinois.
He was diagnosed at the age of one with
Maroteaux–Lamy syndrome, which in his case resulted in developing an appearance much like that of people with
dwarfism; Cahill was , with thickening of the
dura, shortened trunk, crouched stance, restricted joint movement, and enlarged hands. Cahill was treated with a
bone marrow transplant
Hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) is the transplantation of multipotent hematopoietic stem cells, usually derived from bone marrow, peripheral blood, or umbilical cord blood in order to replicate inside of a patient and to produce ...
in 1997 to slow down the progression of the disease, and he had multiple surgeries, including surgery to relieve intracranial pressure.
Career
2011
In March, at a Danish award show,
TV 2 Zulu
TV 2 Zulu is a Danish television station and a sister channel to TV 2 Denmark. It is primarily aimed at viewers between 15 and 30 years of age.
TV2 Zulu has been noted for Danish comedy shows and programmes such as '' Langt fra Las Vegas'', '' ...
Awards 2011, Cahill performed in a video where he was lip-synching the songs which were nominated for the Hit of the Year award. In April, he appeared with
Brian Wilson and
Cody Ross
Cody Joseph Ross (born December 23, 1980), nicknamed "Toy Cannon" and "Ross the Boss," is an American former professional baseball outfielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for 12 seasons with the Detroit Tigers (2003), Los Angeles Do ...
of the
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco, California. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1883 as the New Y ...
performing
Taio Cruz
Jacob Taio Cruz (; born Adetayo Ayowale Onile-Ere, 23 April 1980), better known professionally as Taio Cruz (stylized TΛIO CRUZ), is an English singer, songwriter and record producer from London, England, currently based in Los Angeles. In 200 ...
's hit, "
Dynamite". During her
California Dreams Tour
The California Dreams Tour was the second concert tour by American singer Katy Perry, in support of her third studio album '' Teenage Dream''. The tour played 124 shows beginning February 20, 2011 in Lisbon, Portugal and concluding on January 22 ...
,
Katy Perry met Keenan and they performed "
Teenage Dream" together in a video. Cahill was nominated for Viral Web Star at the
J-14 Awards in September. In the fall, he performed in a music video with
The Oak Ridge Boys
The Oak Ridge Boys are an American country and gospel vocal quartet originating in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The group was founded in the 1940s as the Oak Ridge Quartet. They became popular in Southern gospel during the 1950s. Their name was chang ...
for their song "
What'cha Gonna Do".
A one-hour documentary about Cahill aired on
NT1 in France, Belgium and Switzerland.
2012–2022
Cahill released 18 singles and two EPs through iTunes.
Death
Cahill died at age 27 on December 29, 2022, following
open-heart surgery on December 15.
Discography
EPs
* ''Hands Up (The Dance Remixes)''
(feat. ElectroVamp
Electrovamp are a Welsh electropop duo, consisting of sisters Tammy-Jay and Kally Davies (the younger), who were signed to Island Records. They were originally called Kute and supported Girls Aloud on their What Will the Neighbours Say? Live t ...
) (Augmenter Publishing Group, April 2012)
* ''Closer (The Remixes)''
(feat. SHY & DRS) (Augmenter Music Group / PressPlay, February 2014)
Singles
* "Hands Up"
(feat. ElectroVamp) (Augmenter Publishing Group, July 2012)
* "Closer"
(feat. SHY & DRS) (Augmenter Music Group / PressPlay, November 2013)
* "Back to Us"
(feat. Lovey James) (PressPlay, March 2014)
* "Till Morning Comes"
(feat. Kristina Antuna) (Keenan Cahill, May 2017)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cahill, Keenan
1995 births
2022 deaths
American Internet celebrities
Viral videos
People from Chicago
21st-century American people
Date of birth missing
People from Elmhurst, Illinois