What happened to 'King Curtis' 17 years after viral 'bacon is good for me' meme

If you were alive in the noughties and owned a TV, there's a good chance you'll already be familiar with King Curtis. Or, at the very least, his famous catch phrase.

The reality TV star, whose real name is Curtis Holland, is forever etched on the internet as a meme for one of the most iconic TV one-liners our generation has ever heard.

Curtis appeared on Wife Swap USA back in 2009 when he was just six years old and his arguments with his surrogate mom Joy Brown have become the stuff of legends.

An iconic episode of Wife Swap USA

The Holland family lived in North Carolina, where they had a relaxed and laidback outlook on life, with parents Ginger and Cliff believing their children should be allowed freedom and indulgence, without being strict about healthy choices.

Their son, affectionally named King Curtis, was without a shadow of a doubt, the main character of the household. He loved chicken nuggets, bacon, cheese and processed foods. And demolition derbies.

So, naturally, they were paired with their worst nightmare: The Browns.

The Brown family was headed up by mom Joy and dad Demarcus, who ran a fitness bootcamp together and centered their life around health and fitness.

Demarcus, also known as Sarge, maintained a particularly military-style attitude when it came to running a household.

The scene that led to viral fame

After moving into the Holland home, Joy quickly made an enemy out of Curtis, when she got to work binning all the unhealthy food in their fridge. Most notably, she was removing bacon from the family's diet for the entirety of the swap, and let's just say Curtis was not a happy camper.

In response, he said the iconic line: "I want my bacon... I gotta' tell you something. Bacon is good for me."

But the legendary lines didn't end there, and in another scene, he uttered: "Chicken nuggets is like my family."

As the food war intensified between Joy and Curtis, the youngster told the camera: "She thinks, out of the blue, she's a smart little girl that can do whatever she wants. She acts like she's the queen and we're the sorry people!"

And finally, when it all became too much, Curtis could be seen packing his bags ready to runaway from it all.

"I am leaving, and you can't stop me when I'm packing my bags," he said. "She's going to try to stop me, but she can't run in those little high heels. You'll never see this face again!"

Where is King Curtis now?

It has now been nearly two decades since the iconic episode aired on TV, and as it turns out, Curtis narrowly missed out on getting a whole show after a pilot was filmed for a reality show centered around him. Tragically, it was never picked up.

Since then, Curtis has lived a relatively private life as a welder in North Carolina, spending much of his spare time fishing, hunting, fixing up cars and being outdoors.

When he was just 15 years old, the New Statesman managed to track him down for an interview, where he seemed fairly non-plussed by the fact he regularly has people quoting his lines back to him.

Now, Curtis is around 23 years old and though he keeps a low profile, a woman who posts from the handle jessiitolaa on TikTok has shared a number of posts saying she is Curtis' cousin, along with photos of what he looks like now.

In one clip, she even recreated the iconic bacon scene with Curtis, alongside the caption: "Happy 22nd birthday to my king of a cousin #kingcurtis #baconisgoodforme."