(All relevant blog posts and videos I made are linked throughout this summary. You are recommended to right-click, open link in new tab any posts that interest you, and see them after you finish this excellent, and completely unbiased summary of the life of Amos Yee.)
Amos Yee lead an ordinary Singaporean life until he was 13 years old, where he won first place at a national short film competition, beating out 150 adult film students and directors. At 16 years old, he decided to drop out of school and work on making videos full-time. In 2015, just a few days after Singapore’s Dictator Lee Kuan Yew had died, he made a 7-minute video called ‘Lee Kuan Yew is Finally Dead!’ That video criticised Lee Kuan Yew for imprisoning his opponents who criticised him, refusing to impose higher taxes to the rich, refusing to provide free food and healthcare to the poor, and creating a country of unhappiness, obedience and fear. That video got about a million views in 4 days, and made Amos Yee a household name in Singapore. International Human Rights Organisations condemned the absence of free speech in Singapore. Hundreds of people from Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan all marched and publicly protested against Amos’ conviction. Amos spent 55 days in Singapore Prison before being released.
Afterwards, Amos got on a plane to the United States and tried to get Political Protection in America so he could stay there. Unfortunately, when he landed in Chicago O’Hare Airport, Immigration Officers checked his phone messages, where he mentioned he wanted political asylum in the US. ICE arrested Amos, he was considered an ‘illegal alien’ and had to prove he was eligible for asylum before they let him out. After 3 months of ICE detention, he won his court case where the Immigration Judge noted Singapore’s lack of free speech, and that Amos was clearly politically persecuted in Singapore. However, the prosecutor from ICE continued to appeal the decision, and Amos had to stay an additional 8 months in ICE detention waiting for the decision of the appeal, before finally being released.
After he was released in the US, living in the state of Illinois, Amos focused on publicly defending Pedophiles. He also ran some Pedophile Rights’ Chat Groups. Eventually he started chatting with a 14-year-old online. Amos was 20 years old at that time. They both fell in love and were together for 4 months before breaking up. A year after that relationship, Amos was arrested. He was charged for ‘child grooming’ and ‘possessing child pornography’ because he and his ex-girlfriend had exchanged nude pictures of themselves to each other on Whatsapp. Amos never ever met the 14-year-old in person because he was in Illinois and the girl was in Texas. Amos plead guilty and was sentenced to 3 years of prison in the U.S.
After 3 years of prison, Amos was released but still had to serve parole (mandatory supervised release for criminals). Some of his parole restrictions were that he could not use the internet, he could not post online, and could not go to libraries or churches without approval first by his parole officer. Amos violated all of that, he posted a blog post commenting about the injustice of his arrest, went to multiple churches, and went to the public library to use the internet every day. And so after just 1 month of parole, he was arrested and imposed a punishment of 2 years in prison.
After those 2 years, because Amos is a Sex Offender, he still had to serve 3 years of parole outside. However, during those 2 years of prison, Trump had come into office, funding for ICE had increased, and nonviolent criminals who weren’t United States Citizens started being detained. So Amos, after stepping out of prison for just 1 day, was arrested again and placed in ICE detention. With his felony with the 14-year-old, his political asylum was terminated, and there was no legal way for him to stay in the U.S, he had to get deported back to Singapore.
So after 3 months in ICE detention, he arrived back in Singapore. Immediately upon arrival, he was arrested. He was scheduled to serve National Service (Mandatory 2-year Military service for all Singaporean males age 17 and above), and had instead, went to the United States for 10 years. He was charged for evading National Service. As of April 11th 2026, Amos is now 27 years old and is now outside on bail waiting for his sentence. The story continues….