Featured Image Credit: Sony/Instagram
Topics: Film and TV, MMA, Celebrity
Callum Jones
In perhaps one of the more unexpected 'where are they now' stories, the kid from Jerry Maguire has transformed into an MMA fighter.
Some years ago now, a six-year-old Jonathan Lipnicki, was making head-waves in the film industry for being the possibly most innocent looking kid out there.
Maguire starred in the likes of Stuart Little, The Little Vampire and Like Mike, just to name a few.
Now a grown man at the age of 33, Lipnicki continued adding to his film resume while also learning something completely new.
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During his teens, Lipnicki began training jiu-jitsu and 14 years on, in 2020, he finally got his black belt.
In 2012, he revealed his family 'actually owns an MMA promotion company', which unexpectedly gave him the motivation to take his hobbies and career down that path.
He said: “Because of that, I’ve given my mom a lot of the fighters to fight in a show. I’m actually training one of my friends right now — he’s fighting a jiu-jitsu guy. So I’m his sparring guy. If it’s someone way better, I won’t be a good sparring partner."
Alongside this, Lipnicki, who comes from a Jewish family, has explained why calling out racial injustice has been another important part of his work.
He previously told TMZ: “There have been a lot of anti-Semitic hate crimes and violence towards Jews.
“He (Remy) started this group where we decided to make sure people got home and to the synagogue safely.
"A lot of us are martial artists or own martial arts gyms and not all of us are Jewish. It’s just people wanting to help other people.
“Everyone should have the right to worship without being discriminated against.”
Lipnicki added: “Bullies of any sort or people who promote hatred don’t like when there’s a presence there and I think having a presence is a huge deterrent.”
It was Jerry Maguire that made Lipnicki famous and director Cameron Crowe has previously revealed that Tom Cruise stayed in touch with the mother of the child originally cast for the movie who was replaced by Jonathan Lipnicki.
“Tom stayed in touch with the mother of the kid who had asked to be replaced,” Crowe told Deadline.“Tom wrote him and called and sent him stuff. I only knew this because his mother called to say, ‘Thank you for everything Tom Cruise has done to make my son feel good about even being in the movie and working with him as much as he did.'"