They flushed Rolex watches down toilets and demolished luxury cars for fun. Traveling by private jet was their preferred method of transport, and they ridiculed ‘peasants’ who couldn’t afford their extravagant way of life. 

The Rich Kids of Instagram might have come across as obnoxious, yet it’s undeniable that they were trailblazers in influencer culture by sharing a peek into a lavish lifestyle that millions have since strived to imitate on social media. 

A decade ago, they were such a cultural phenomenon that they received their own program on Channel 4, offering audiences a jaw-dropping view into the champagne-fueled, private jet-filled lives of the wealthy young elite.

This became a global phenomenon, even prompting China’s President Xi Jinping to curb ostentatious boasting by young ‘fuerdai’, meaning ‘rich second generation’, by sending offspring of 70 billionaires to a ‘social responsibility’ camp. 

At that time, their posts were laden with images of Ferraris, designer bags, and tropical escapes in the Maldives. But time – and occasionally reality – has caught up with the show’s participants.

This is particularly true for Jack Watkin, who previously claimed his family was the ‘British Kardashians’, but was sentenced to six years in prison this week for defrauding his affluent friends and relatives of nearly £200,000.

The 26-year-old former public schoolboy posed as a millionaire on social media to persuade people – including his own father – to invest in his fake designer handbag business.

He promised his victims a share of the profits if they loaned him cash to buy and sell expensive Hermes bags.

But Chester Crown Court heard neither the handbags or any profit ever materialised and instead Watkin used the cash to fund his extravagant lifestyle.

Over a period of two and a half years, unemployed Watkin spent a staggering £1.2m on five-star hotels, luxury holidays and designer goods.

So where are the rest of them now? From doctoral dissertations to DJ decks, and from gold digger confessions to MAGA manifestos, here’s what the former Rich Kids of Instagram are up to in 2025.

Timothy Drake

Back in the Rich Kids days, Timothy Drake was all sleek sports cars and high-end parties, having notoriously bragged he had been having Botox since he was 14. 

His ‘carefree’ approach to spending was clear when he told the show: ‘I was here [Paris] October and November and spent an obscene amount staying at the presidential suite at every single hotel at $27,000-43,000 (£18-£30,000) a night for about three weeks. That adds up,’ he said.

‘I try to get my mother to have a few cocktails before I show her the bill. The America Express bill can be quite interesting, you could say.’

Now in his 30s, the luxury-loving playboy, whose family made their money from the diamond business, has taken a sharp turn into a very different world.

He now uses his time and platform to push and support for MAGA politics. 

As a campaigner for Trump in the 2024 election, his Instagram is laden with posts of him all over the world wearing Trump’s staple ‘Make America Great Again’ hat.

In one post of Trump just after someone attempted to assassinate him in Pennsylvania was captioned: ‘God bless this man’ alongside the hashtag ‘mypresident’.

While another described the past year in America as ‘the golden age of America’.

Timothy also has a few posts that seem to be pushing Covid conspiracy theories, including one which shows him and a friend in hazmat suits and masks holding signs that read: ‘Obama/Biden/Fauci caused this’ and ‘Nuremberg trials 2.0’.

Lana Scolaro

The ever-glamorous Lana Scolaro has parlayed her fame into a legitimate career as a DJ and music producer, performing at clubs and festivals around the globe.

The British-born multimillion-pound heiress, thanks to her Italian father’s mining interests, splits her time between Ibiza, Monaco and London.

Lana’s Instagram is still as glitzy as ever – only now the private jets take her to gigs, not just getaways.

She’s released singles, such as ‘Kitty’ and ‘Deepend’, headlined at SXSW festival in Texas and even launched her own jewellery line. 

However the past few years haven’t been without family scandal. 

Her sister, Stephanie, managed to swerve jail in 2019 after admitting to importing £18,000 worth of endangered python skin fashion accessories into the UK. 

The ‘self-centred’ then 26-year-old sold snakeskin baseball caps and bags on her website SS Python, through her Instagram account and at three London shops: two in Mayfair and one in Bexleyheath.

She was handed a 160-hour community order.

But that was nothing compared to the Robin Thicke scandal back in 2013, in which Lana was embroiled. 

She could not have anticipated the fallout when she posted a picture of herself innocently snuggled up to the musician at a party.

A mirror behind them revealed Thicke’s hand reaching up her short skirt. He was married at the time and the fallout was monumental. He has since divorced.

Clarisse Lafleur

Once known for her designer wardrobes and enviable jet-set lifestyle, Clarisse Lafleur has swapped couture for academia. 

The New Caledonian-born heiress, whose grandfather Jacques Lafleur was President and a French politician for 15 years, is now deep into a PhD at Bond University in Australia, researching family offices and how next-generation heirs engage with wealth management.

She is also now a board member at Fairway Services & Investments.  

While her Instagram, which boasts 170,000 followers still shows her flair for fashion, she has not posted there is over a year. 

Even back in 2016 the heiress was too embarrassed to admit how much money she spent on clothes and shoes. 

Instead she said: ‘I have a bank account and a very generous father; he wants what is best for his children and says, ‘let me know when you need more’.

‘I am too ashamed to tell you how much I spend on clothes and accessories… a lot of people don’t spend that much in a year.’

Although it didn’t stop her shaming others who were less well-off: ‘Being wealthy doesn’t mean throwing money everywhere and wearing a bunch of designer clothes and too much jewelry all at the same time: you don’t look rich; you look like a Christmas tree.

‘You need to have the culture behind it otherwise people will laugh at you.

‘How dumb would you look if you’re wearing all your money and you can’t [tell the] difference between good wine and a bad one. Same if you don’t know how to drink Champagne: I saw some girls who want to look all fancy and European drinking [litres] of Champagne out of red wine glasses filled with fruits.’

Julia Stakhiva

One of the show’s most memorable personalities, Julia Stakhiva, who was given her first Louis Vuitton handbag aged nine, was known for her unapologetic opulence and glamorous London lifestyle.

Her lifestyle back then was funded by her parents who made their millions by running multiple companies in the Ukraine.

Some of her more iconic lines from the show were ‘anyone can be rich but not everyone can be beautiful’, and ‘I’m not suitable for an office job because of how well I dress and how educated I am’.

However she got into a bit of hot water a few years after the filming of Rich Kids Of Instagram when it was revealed that she was renting a room through flatshare website SpareRoom. 

She then used it to ‘fabricate’ a certain lifestyle as while the owners were away, she invited RKOI cameras into the home and pretended it was hers. 

These days Julia lives and goes to school in Russia.

She’s enrolled at MGIMO University in Moscow and generally is living a more low-key existence – though ‘low-key’ by her standards still includes couture wardrobes and luxury jewellery hauls.

Sasha Sobhani

When you think of the scandalous lives of social media’s richest youth, few stories are as dramatic as that of Mohammad Javad ‘Sasha’ Sobhani. 

Once hailed as one of Tehran’s flashiest young elites, by 2025 he is fighting extradition, under the shadow of serious criminal accusations, his lavish Instagram posts replaced by courtroom headlines.

Born into a diplomat’s family, Sobhani’s early years were shaped by constant travel – he lived in Armenia, Gabon and Venezuela due to his father’s assignments. 

In 2006, when his father completed his ambassadorship in Caracas, Sobhani remained in Venezuela while the senior Sobhani returned to Tehran to serve in President Ahmadinejad’s government.

But in 2021, law enforcement in Madrid arrested the young Sobhani on several charges, including human trafficking, money laundering, operating gambling enterprises, and possessing illegal assets. 

The arrest followed an extradition request from Iran via Interpol. 

From Tehran, an Iranian court accused him of orchestrating gambling sites used to defraud young people and funneling victims to Turkey. 

Sobhani vehemently denied the kidnapping and trafficking charges, attributing them instead to moralistic backlash against his bold lifestyle and flamboyant social media persona.

By 2024, Tehran escalated its pressure. Kazem Gharibabadi, a senior human-rights official, publicly demanded that Spain hand over Sobhani.

Sobhani’s father, a former presidential diplomat, disavowed any relationship with his son, distancing himself from the scandal.

Now aged around 38, Sobhani remains in Spain, locked in a protracted legal battle. But it hasn’t stopped him posting his lavish life online. 

Just this week he posted a tribute to his girlfriend showing their enviable life of sun-soaked holidays, sports cars and luxury goods.  

Gurvin Singh 

Singh, from Plymouth, first caught public attention by claiming he transformed £200 into £100,000 while he was still a medical student. 

That audacious boast became a viral legend among social-media circles. He then curated a flashy online identity, displaying his car collection (including a gold Maserati), private jets, and glamorous travel – the hallmarks of a ‘rich kid’ aesthetic.

His Instagram following swelled to over 700,000 people, many of whom reached out for trading advice, ‘signals’ or to replicate his purported trading success.

To capitalise on his fame, Singh launched GS3 Trades, a network of affiliate marketers that promoted investment in a Bahamas-based fund, purportedly managed via the trading platform Infinox. 

However, an investigation was launched after hundreds of people reported Singh, to Action Fraud after losing an estimated £3.5 million trading on the platform in 2019. 

The then 28-year-old also admitted a civil charge of contempt of court and was sentenced to eight months in prison suspended for two years last November. 

He was also ordered to pay £10,000, which despite him regularly being seen driving supercars in exotic locations, he asked to pay in £1,000 monthly instalments. 

The fraud investigation remains ongoing, but this has not deterred Singh from continuing to update his followers on his lavish lifestyle.