Fresh off his confrontation in the pews of a Minnesota church, William Kelly sat in his car, eyes still bright with the energy of the moment, to share his experience with his followers.
At 36, Kelly recounted his protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions in the state with fervor, explaining his decision to target a Southern Baptist congregation in St. Paul. The reason? The pastor delivering the sermon was also an ICE official. “We went into that church and peacefully flipped tables, just as Jesus did,” he declared.
However, the congregation described the event quite differently.
As Kelly and approximately 20 others paraded through the aisles of Cities Church, chanting “justice for Renee Good”—a Minnesota woman fatally shot by an ICE agent on January 7—churchgoers clung to one another in fear.
With his camera rolling for his 230,000 social media followers, Kelly confronted a young woman, questioning her: “You sip your coffee, wear your jewelry, dress nicely, but what are you doing to support your Somali and Latino communities?”
A young boy, visibly shaken, cried in his father’s arms while his mother tried to comfort him. The protesters stood with hands raised, chanting “hands up, don’t shoot,” as the enraged pastor shouted back, “Shame on you! This is a house of God!”
On Thursday, Kelly and two other demonstrators, civil rights activists Nekima Levy Armstrong and Chauntyll Louisa Allen, were arrested by federal agents – after Justice Department officials said they were weighing charges associated with the illegal obstruction of religious services.
That’s exactly what Kelly, now the face of a particularly combative brand of anti-ICE protests, may have wanted.
‘Come and get me Pam Bondi,’ he dared Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday, ‘You f***ing traitorous b****. All power to the people.’
To Kelly’s growing online audience, this is what they’ve come to see.
William Kelly is pictured (center, in the hi-vis vest) in Minneapolis on January 17 as a group of protestors confront influencer Jacob Lang
In recent weeks, they’ve watched as Kelly harassed congregants at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s evangelical church in Washington DC, harangued Trump voters on the streets – and turned up at anti-ICE demonstrations from New Orleans to Charlotte and Alabama.
It’s quite a transformation for a man who just two months ago – by all accounts – was a humble homesteader documenting life on his farm on his YouTube channel, DaWokeFarmer.
Now, the Daily Mail has uncovered details of Kelly’s sudden activist awakening.
On September 21 Kelly launched his social media profile, showcasing his rural lifestyle – without revealing his actual location.
Living in a simple log cabin with his wife Ariel Hauptman, 34, Kelly raised chickens, baked bread and grew crops, accompanied by his Australian cattle dog Duke and fluffy gray cat Luna. He and Hauptman frequently described the expansive wooded estate with a creek running through it as ‘paradise,’ joyfully showing off a new chicken coop and laughing at his attempts to fell a tree.
Kelly loved the wildlife that surrounded him, filming a spectacular spider, a butterfly and a lone cardinal. On Saturday November 8 he posted a clip of a ‘decent white buck in the yard,’ cooing softly at the deer.
Then came the abrupt pivot.
The next clip, posted on Saturday November 15, is titled: ‘F@$K YOU NAZI!!!’ – Hauptman films Kelly as he runs down a Washington DC street holding the Stars and Stripes, chasing a car which has driven away from the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.
From that point onwards the deer, chicks and peaceful wooded walks do not make a return.
What happened between November 8 and November 15 – what flipped Kelly’s switch – is unclear. Asked by the Daily Mail, he refused to answer. But it has been a lucrative career move: in the mere 70 days between publicly launching his activist career and roaring through Cities church he has earned over $106,000, or more than $1,500 a day.
His social media profile provides convenient links to his Cash App and GoFundMe where he solicits donations for ‘expenses’ such as ‘food and shelter.’
Donations soared by more than 50 percent after Kelly’s arrest on Thursday.
‘I am honored that the people support me for standing up for the Constitution,’ he told the Daily Mail by email, refusing to answer more detailed questions about his motivation or aims. Though he has been open with his followers about his past.
Kelly, who records show went to high school in Connecticut, said he joined the army at the age of 18, in 2007, to escape poverty. He said he was deployed once and left the army in 2011, describing his military career as unremarkable.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the US Army to confirm Kelly’s service.
‘I went to Iraq as a private. I left Iraq as a private. I’m nobody,’ he said. ‘I didn’t go to Ranger school. I didn’t do any high speed s***, I wasn’t airborne.’
His battles with al-Qaeda fighters, he says, left deep scars. He is open about the lasting trauma of war and says his confronting of National Guard members in DC, screaming at them for refusing to disobey ‘illegal’ orders, is meant as a warning to other service members not to repeat the mistakes he made.
‘For years I struggled because of PTSD. For years I struggled because of my depression after f****** what I did in Iraq,’ he said. ‘I’m not proud that I took part in an illegal war. I’m not proud that I helped with the killing of 500,000 at least Iraqi civilians. We went into Iraq for nothing.
‘So I’m not here to brag about my service. I’m here to stand up for the Constitution and hopefully help people wake up.’
Online, Kelly posts videos of himself tending to his land in a bid to share the realities of his homesteading lifestyle
Don Lemon spoke with Kelly in Minneapolis. In the video posted online, Kelly said he was there to ‘stand up for immigrant rights’
In one clip filmed inside the church, Kelly addressed church-goers as part of his mission to defend immigrants: ‘You drink your coffee, you’ve got your jewelry, you’ve got your nice clothes, but what do you do to stand for your Somali and Latino communities?’
In another video, Kelly films himself repeatedly asking a man on the street who he voted for. He claims his protests are in defense of the Constitution
On Sunday December 7 he filmed parishioners as they entered Secretary Pete Hegseth’s evangelical church, shouting that one woman was ‘a little Nazi f****** b****,’ and screaming at another man: ‘You think you’re the master race?’
On December 17, in his now-hallmark cowboy hat, he turned up in Senator Tommy Tuberville’s office and demanded a meeting with the Republican from Alabama ‘to ask when is my PTSD going to be curable.’ Tuberville has been an advocate for PTSD-treatments for veterans.
In front of the White House, he accosted a man walking with his young son and asked who he voted for. When the man replied Trump, Kelly screamed at him: ‘F*** you, you f****** Nazi-a** piece of s***! F*** you, you traitorous b****!’
A law enforcement officer arrived on the scene to escort the father away from Kelly, who later defends his intimidation of the man and his son, saying: ‘He needed to be scolded because his mother did not raise him right,’ and calls the Secret Service agent who separated them ‘a pedophile protector.’
On Christmas Eve he posted a calmer clip, urging people to check in on their friends.
‘The holidays can be tough for people: They might not be working, and work might be the only thing that keeps them going,’ he said. ‘Myself, I have mental health issues. I face really bad depression, folks. It takes my wife to keep me going; it takes my friends to keep me going.’
He said his new-found public activism was now his life’s work.
‘I don’t have a plan. I’m just winging it. I just want to resist this tyranny, resist this fascism,’ he said.
‘Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing here. Sometimes I want to give up. Sometimes I want to just disappear back into obscurity and go back to the woods where I belong. But y’all keep me going.’
By early January that journey took him to Minnesota, to join the protests there.
He filmed himself in the snow at night, his beard frozen, his stare intense. He visited a Somali mosque and praised the welcome he received.
On Wednesday he filmed himself in a ‘F*** Trump’ woolen hat, railing against Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, and calling her a terrorist.
‘Let’s not get distracted from what’s going on here,’ he declared. ‘All power to the people.’
