14 hours ago
What happened to Alex From Target?Shocking whereabouts of reclusive social media sensation revealed
Alex From Target was one of the first major social media stars.
Alex Lee was just 16-years-old when he shot to viral superstardom after somebody snapped a photo of him working the checkout during a shift at Target.
Seemingly overnight, the cashier ended up with millions of followers on social media and made appearances on The Ellen Show and Inside Edition.
He was also compared to Justin Bieber, and at one point even surpassed the Baby hitmaker in internet searches.
After turning 18, the teenager moved from Texas to Los Angeles to pursue a career in Hollywood.
However, he soon vanished from the spotlight completely, deleting all of his social media accounts in the process.
Now fans are wondering what exactly happened to the reclusive influencer more than a decade after he became a global meme.
In interview with People magazine, Alex, now 27, confirmed that he's left the limelight behind for good to focus on living a normal life in private.
As of last year, he was living back in Sherman, Texas, and working for UPS.
'Right now I have a job at UPS, I load the trucks in the morning, and I have to say it's so much better than doing social media,' he said.
'The stress is so much lower. It pays a lot less, but I'm a lot happier doing it.'
Alex also admits that he hated being famous and had never been popular in high school or active on social media before going viral.
'After the Ellen show, people started treating me differently, bothering me all day, and the news companies would wait outside my high school. The exposure was intense and I ended up having to leave my school and start homeschooling,' he said.
The Texas teen and his family were also inundated with death threats from trolls.
At one point, his parents had to contact the police after trolls started leaking their private information, including their bank details and social security numbers, online.
Alex got a management team who steered him into acting classes, and for a while he started auditioning for TV and film roles.
However, the small town social media star soon realized that Hollywood wasn't for him.
He was also pushed into starting a YouTube channel, which he now admits he 'hated' doing.
'I hated it so much. So I ended up abandoning that project as well,' he said.
He eventually moved back to Texas and deleted all of his social media channels.
Alex now has a much different look compared to his days as a clean-cut boy next door.
The UPS worked has shoulder-length hair and has taken up powerlifting to increase his size.
He also started building a house with his girlfriend, who was a longtime friend before they started dating.
'I never wanted to be "Alex from Target," absolutely not,' he said.
After a video about Alex's current whereabouts went viral on Instagram last week, many social media users have shared their thoughts on the former cashier's fifteen minutes of fame.
'It doesn't sit well with me that an underage teenage boy went viral because people took unsuspecting photos of him at his place of work and uploaded them so he can be sexualised,' commented one user.
'It was weird that grown women thirsted after a teenager,' wrote a second.
'Good for Alex. Not everyone wants fame based on what they can't control like looks. He didn't ask for any of this and people who can think they can exploit random people cause they look good or look odd are sick,' a third commented.
