Justine Ezarik Is A YouTuber You'll Drool Over

Justine Ezarik, better known as iJustine, is proof that age really is just a number—and apparently, one she wears exceptionally well. Now in her early 40s, she’s still a bona fide bombshell with enough charisma to stop traffic and distract even the most dedicated social-media scroller. While the internet is packed with fleeting trends and shameless attention grabs, Justine brings something far more lasting: beauty, personality, and genuine star power. Some things simply don’t go out of style.

Who is Justine Ezarik

Justine Ezarik, better known online as iJustine, is one of the original stars of internet culture. The American YouTuber has built an enormous following, with her main channel surpassing one billion views. Long before creators were routinely turning smartphones and daily life into entertainment, Ezarik was already pioneering the format as a lifecaster, connecting directly with millions of viewers through her Justin.tv channel, ijustine.tv. She became known as a “lifecasting star,” a “new media star,” and one of the internet’s most popular lifecasters.

Her biggest early viral moment came in 2007 with what became known as the infamous “300-page iPhone bill.” After the first iPhone launched, Ezarik documented her first month’s phone bill and turned an alarming amount of paperwork into international internet fame. Apparently, sometimes all it takes to become famous is an expensive phone plan.

Ezarik went on to become one of Twitter’s most-followed users, ranking among the platform’s top 1,000 accounts with more than 1.8 million followers. She also expanded into television and scripted entertainment, including a recurring role on The Annoying Orange as Orange’s love interest, Passion Fruit.

In 2016, she joined The New Celebrity Apprentice as an advisor to Arnold Schwarzenegger, adding reality television to her growing résumé. Her acting credits include guest appearances on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Criminal Minds, The Bold and the Beautiful, and The Vampire Diaries. She also became a main cast member on the first and fourth seasons of YouTube Premium’s murder-mystery reality series Escape the Night. From lifecasting pioneer to YouTube powerhouse and television personality, iJustine has been online long enough to remember when going viral didn’t require a ring light.

Her Early Life

Justine Ezarik was born on March 20, 1984, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as the eldest daughter of Michelle Ezarik, a physical education teacher, and Steve Ezarik, a coal miner of Slovak descent. Growing up, she shared the family spotlight with her two younger sisters, Breanne and Jenna, which meant she had plenty of early practice being the oldest sibling—an unofficial position that comes with absolutely no salary.

Ezarik attended Bentworth High School in Washington County, Pennsylvania, graduating in 2002. Long before she became known as iJustine and built a career around the internet, she was simply a Pennsylvania teenager figuring out what came next. Little did she know that her future would involve millions of viewers, viral videos, and enough screen time to make her high-school yearbook photo look positively old-school.

Career Journey

After graduating from Pittsburgh Technical Institute in 2004, Justine Ezarik worked in graphic design and video editing before eventually starting her own business. Her online ambitions were already gaining momentum by December 2006, when she became one of five finalists in Yahoo!’s “Talent Show,” a competition celebrating the best online videos.

Her early entertainment résumé also included acting. In 2007, Ezarik played a photojournalist covering a bank robbery in downtown Pittsburgh in Spike TV’s The Kill Point, starring John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg. The series was filmed that May. Around the same time, she occasionally appeared as a co-host and panelist on MacBreak and MacBreak Weekly alongside Leo Laporte.

Then came the video that changed everything. In August 2007, Ezarik uploaded footage of her infamous “300-page iPhone bill” to YouTube after receiving the staggering bill following the first iPhone’s launch. The video quickly became an internet sensation, transforming what could have been a very expensive headache into a career-making moment. Within just ten days, it had been viewed more than two million times and attracted international news coverage. By December 2007, it had reportedly surpassed eight million views across platforms.

The viral clip even earned Ezarik a $5,000 payout from video-hosting service Revver. Not a bad return on investment for documenting a phone bill that probably required its own filing cabinet.

Her sudden fame also landed her in Yahoo! News’ People of the Web series in August 2007, alongside Justin Kan, the creator of Justin.tv. Reporter Kevin Sites described her as the network’s standout star, praising both her looks and her natural comfort with technology. The interview also captured the unusual reality of lifecasting, including Ezarik discussing what it was like having people watch and publicly judge her throughout the day. When Sites asked her to switch off her lifecasting equipment, he noticed the conversation immediately felt more relaxed. Apparently, even internet pioneers occasionally need to log off.

Her career continued to grow throughout the next decade. In 2010, she was nominated for a Streamy Award for Best Vlogger and ranked No. 97 on Maxim’s Hot 100 list. General Electric hired her that year to create five videos for its Healthymagination campaign, which collectively generated more than two million views. She also worked with brands including Mattel and Intel.

In 2011, Ezarik received a Webby Award nomination for Best Web Personality/Host and won the People’s Voice Award in that category. She later hosted the social media lounge for Nickelodeon’s HALO Awards in 2013 and earned a Streamy Award nomination in 2014 for Best Collaboration alongside Rooster Teeth, Freddie Wong, Greg Miller, and Adam Kovic. In 2015, she won the Streamy Award for Lifestyle.

Ezarik signed with William Morris Endeavor in July 2017 and was named one of Forbes’ Top 10 Tech/Business Influencers that same year. Her YouTube career reached another major milestone on March 10, 2019, when her iJustine channel surpassed one billion views.

In June 2020, Ezarik teamed up with her sister Jenna to launch Same Brain, a podcast covering technology, world news, and video games. From a 300-page phone bill to a billion YouTube views, Ezarik’s career has been a remarkably long lesson in turning internet curiosity into a full-time profession.

Acting Career

Justine Ezarik has spent plenty of time in front of cameras that had nothing to do with YouTube. On November 4, 2009, she appeared on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as AJ, a 16-year-old crime victim, in the Season 11 episode “Users.” The very next day, she switched from scripted drama to game-show chaos by appearing on the 7,000th episode of The Price Is Right. Ezarik walked away with quite the haul, including a first-class trip to Acapulco, an Apple Mac Pro, a Rolex watch, Viking cooking appliances, and a MIDI recording keyboard. Not exactly a bad 48 hours.

According to her IMDb credits, she also appeared in web series including BlackBoxTV Presents, The Station, and Totally Sketch in 2009 and 2010. She returned to television in November 2010 with an appearance on Criminal Minds in the episode “Middle Men.”

Her acting résumé continued to expand when she landed a recurring role as Passion Fruit, Orange’s love interest, on the popular YouTube comedy series The Annoying Orange. She later appeared in The Vampire Diaries in 2012 and hosted the reality series Escape Routes from March 31 to May 5 that year. At the time, she had amassed 1.4 million Twitter followers. She also appeared in Season 6 of The Guild.

By 2012, Ezarik’s influence had grown far beyond her YouTube channel. Fast Company named her “the most influential person online,” while The Daily Beast placed her sixth on its Digital Power Index. In 2013, she signed with United Talent Agency, followed by another major recognition in 2014 when Time included her among the 100 most influential people among 18-to-34-year-olds. Billboard later named her one of its Social Media Stars of 2015.

Her entertainment résumé continued to pile up. Ezarik hosted for E! News and NBC, made a cameo as Pam in the 2015 comedy The Wedding Ringer, and appeared in the 2016 Syfy film Sharknado: The 4th Awakens. She also joined the YouTube Red series Escape the Night, where apparently even being internet-famous wasn’t enough—you had to survive a murder mystery, too.

On December 1, 2016, Ezarik was announced as an advisor to Arnold Schwarzenegger during the sole season of The New Celebrity Apprentice. She also became a main cast member of Escape the Night, playing the Gambler. Her character met an unfortunate fate in the third episode, “Buried Alive,” but death clearly wasn’t enough to keep her away from the franchise. She returned for the fourth season, Escape the Night: All-Stars, this time playing the Adventurer. Her character lasted until the second episode, where she was killed by strangulation.

Considering how many times iJustine has survived the internet, television, reality shows, and fictional murder mysteries, perhaps it’s safe to say she’s developed a fairly impressive relationship with the camera—whether it wants her alive or dramatically eliminated.

Facts and Trivia

In May 2014, Simon & Schuster announced that its Atria Publishing Group division had partnered with United Talent Agency to publish books by a group of social media stars, including Justine Ezarik. Her memoir, I, Justine (ISBN 1476791511), arrived on June 2, 2015. Fast Company writer David Zax described the book as a kind of personal investigative project, with Ezarik digging through years of tweets, photos, and videos to piece together her own story. Basically, she researched herself.

Ezarik later teamed up with her sister Jenna for Same Brain, a weekly podcast distributed through Anchor Podcasts and available on platforms including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and others. The show covers technology, world news, and video games—pretty much the perfect combination for two sisters who clearly have plenty to talk about.

The idea actually began during the COVID-19 pandemic. While working on her review of the fourth-generation iPad Pro, Ezarik wondered whether she could use the device to make a podcast. On March 24, 2020, four days after her birthday, she recorded a mock podcast called “iQuaranJustine” during production of the iPad Pro review. Then, on April 20, while filming her review of the 2020 iPad Pro Magic Keyboard, she and Jenna recorded the pilot episode of Same Brain during California’s stay-at-home order.

The pilot was initially posted as a test on June 13 and received a positive response from fans. That reaction was enough to convince the sisters to turn the experiment into a real podcast, with production beginning the following week. New episodes were generally released every Saturday, although the first regular episode arrived on January 21, 2021, rather than the usual Saturday schedule.

The podcast later took a five-month break before returning with a new episode on September 16, 2022. For Ezarik, it was another example of how a simple tech experiment could turn into something much bigger. Apparently, when your career is built around technology, even quarantine can become a business meeting.