Ross Kemp on esports: a surprise guest at BLAST London

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 09/09/2025

English actor and TV presenter Ross Kemp has taken on gangs, pirates, and nazis. Now he is tackling esports.

The British celebrity was in attendance at the BLAST Open Fall Counter-Strike tournament in London.

Kemp was in the crowd during the exhilarating final, which saw G2 Esports defeat Team Vitality to be crowned BLAST London champions.

The wildly dramatic five-game series was enough to give CS fans a heart attack, but Kemp will have been unfazed.

The Englishman will have been entertained by the CS2 action and gunplay, but is used to actual war zones and danger.

Kemp is best known for his extreme documentary series ‘Ross Kemp on Gangs’ and ‘Ross Kemp: Extreme World’, in which he interviews ringleaders of various criminal groups and organisations.

In one infamous scene, Kemp had multiple guns pointed at him and didn’t flinch before talking his way out of the situation.

It has not been revealed why exactly Kemp was in attendance at a CS2 esports event.

However, we can deduce it was likely due to some sort of documentary that he is working on.

Thanks to British CS content creator Philip ‘3kliksphilip’ Dyer, we know that Kemp was working for Pulse Films according to his press pass.

Pulse Films is a film and TV studio associated with Vice Media.

It is best known for producing various documentaries, including Netflix’s ‘Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now’ and Sky’s BAFTA-nominated ‘Gangs of London’.

From this, it appears likely that Kemp is filming a documentary about the world of esports or video games.

Perhaps something based on the tired notion of violence being caused by video games.

Celebrities who are big fans of esports

The world of esports has seen plenty of celebrity crossover outside of Ross Kemp.

There are a lot of famous people who are genuine esports fans. Not all celebrity endorsements are bought, like David Beckham and Guild Esports.

For instance, professional athletes seem especially keen on watching esports and playing competitive titles.

Brazilian football star Neymar is a massive CS fan and has partnered with esports organisation FURIA.

Nottingham Forest and Ukraine footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko has his own CS2 esports team in Passion UA.

American tennis pro and Wimbledon semi-finalist Taylor Fritz is in the top 12% of League of Legends players.

Former NBA player Gordon Hayward, former NFL player Chris Kluwe, and AEW wrestler Claudio Castagnoli all LoL as well.

Kemp isn’t the only actor interested; Simon Pegg has spoken about playing LoL while Witcher star Henry Cavill is known to have over 2,600 hours on CS2.

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

In my seven years of esports writing, I've introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I'm most proud of the latter.

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