Rebel Kid Trades Mumbai Comfort for Useless MBA in New York

Apoorva Mukhija, known as The Rebel Kid, has already relocated from Mumbai to a Manhattan dorm to start an MBA after years of brand deals, reality television and online backlash cycles. She confirmed the move on the Untriggered podcast and in an Instagram Story that simply said she no longer lives in India.

She applied to only one college because she wanted New York itself. Acceptance sealed the decision even though she calls the degree useless for any career she plans to keep.

She Bet Everything on One New York College

Mukhija told hosts on the Untriggered podcast conversation with AminJaz that New York had lived in her head through web series for years. The city felt fast, the people looked put-together, the food and architecture landed hard on her first real visit.

“I really want to live here,” she said. “So I applied to only one college because I only wanted to live in New York. I was like if I get in, I get in and I will go. And I got in.”

By the time the episode dropped she was already there. Earlier summer rumours had named Columbia; she publicly shut those down. The school itself remains unnamed in her accounts. The destination and the student reset mattered more than the brand on the diploma.

Everything Comfortable Got Left in Mumbai

She listed what she was walking away from without romance. Great friends. A great house. Full-time house help. A career that was still delivering money and recognition. Everybody in the industry knew her name and the doors that opened with it.

In exchange she gets a dorm room, no staff, and classmates who have never heard of her. “Then I am leaving all this to live in a dorm in Manhattan to study and be a student. And I don’t know anyone there,” she said.

The fear sits right next to the excitement. She is happy she gets to go and scared of the blank slate at the same time.

Cancellation Meant the Brand Money Paused

The public story around her had tightened after India’s Got Latent in early 2025. Panel remarks drew FIRs, police questioning, death and rape threats, and weeks of pile-on. Appearances on The Traitors India and as an informant on Lock Upp 2 kept her visible but also kept the cancel-comeback loop spinning.

Online noise was secondary. The commercial hit was the real one.

Cancellation is when the money stops. That’s when you’re cancelled.

Mukhija explained the mechanic plainly. Brands sometimes held campaigns while the heat cooled. Even smaller flare-ups could push sponsored posts back by days. She later clarified the cheques still arrived, yet some partners waited around ten days before green-lighting content again.

She still loves making money. The pauses just made the cost of every viral moment too visible.

Lock Upp Cameras Made the Life Feel Unliveable

Reality television sharpened the exit urge. The Traitors felt relatively open because contestants could retreat to rooms without phones. Lock Upp was different.

Cameras stayed on even while she slept. Inside the house she kept thinking she needed New York and whatever else the world held beyond this format. “When I was in lock-up, I was like, this is not how I want to live my life,” she said.

Content creation itself had already gone cold. She stopped reaching for the camera on trips. Posts happened because a brand deliverable was due or her manager flagged the organic drought. The joy had thinned.

Why an MBA She Calls Useless Still Won

Mukhija is blunt about the credential. “This degree that I am going to do, is of no use. I never want to do a 9-5. I can start a business today if I want to.”

So why go? The circle in Mumbai had narrowed to other creators. Thinking felt limited. She had not “touched grass” in a long time. College looked like the cleanest way to sit next to people from completely different fields who did not care about follower counts or algorithm drops.

• Meet non-creators and rebuild a social world outside the industry
• Live the college years she feels she missed the first time around
• Study again because she was always good at it (B.Tech Computer Science, strong board and college GPAs)
• Have fun while doing the work rather than grind for content

Her first college stretch had been spent almost entirely with one boyfriend she met on day one. She wants the version she skipped. She also wants the “kaleshi aurat” persona retired. Content will happen only when she feels like it, not on a manager schedule.

She left her earlier Dell and Manipal University path years ago for full-time creation. Now the same discipline that produced high marks is being pointed at an American MBA for reasons that have almost nothing to do with the letters after her name.

Creator Burnout Numbers Put the Exit in Context

Her personal recalibration lands inside a wider pattern. A 2025 creator mental health study findings run with Lupiani Insights found elevated anxiety, depression and burnout across the industry. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health coverage of the work noted that 10% report work-related suicidal thoughts, nearly double the broader U.S. rate.

Amanda Yarnell of Harvard’s Center for Health Communication listed the pressures: financial swings, obsession over performance metrics, constant toxicity and isolation. Platforms and third parties were urged to build income stability tools and peer support.

Key pressure points from the research

• 10% of creators reported suicidal thoughts tied to the work
• Financial instability and view drops with no warning
• Isolation inside professional peer groups that look exactly like one’s own
• Toxicity that does not clock out when the phone is put down

Mukhija never framed her move as activism or industry critique. She simply described a life that had become both too comfortable and too narrow, then bought a ticket out with the money the same life generated. On X the announcement drew the expected nationalist jab that influencers earn in India then leave. The sharper observation is quieter: the bubble pays well enough to let its most successful residents walk away when the isolation and the pause button on brand cash stop feeling worth it.

She is now a student again in a city she always wanted, living the version of college she feels she missed, with no house help and no guaranteed brand calendar. The MBA sits on the transcript as a side effect. The real product is distance from the only world she had known for years.