A celebration of Mr Fantasy, the bizarre British alter ego of KJ Apa.
Singer songwriter Mr Fantasy is standing at a lookout over Los Angeles, the Hollywood sign taunting him through the haze. “Thats why I’m here,” he says, gesturing across the valley. “A lot of people come here with a dream, but 99% of those people do not make it. I believe that I have something that I have to give.” As he muses from beneath his shaggy brown bob, we see poignant cutaways of his raw hemmed American flag flares, his unspeakably pointy leather boots, his Mickey Mouse belt by way of a deeply intrusive crotch shot.
“Very soon – and I mean very soon – I’m going to be a man among greats.”
Not long after he made this TikTok, the crooked-toothed, frequently cross-eyed Brit had all his wishes come true. His name started to make headlines around the world, although admittedly they were less concerned with his musical talents and more focused on one question: is Mr Fantasy secretly New Zealand actor KJ Apa? From the matching tattoos to the inimitable jawline, it’s clear that nothing in human history has ever been so clearly KJ Apa. So what is the former Shortland Street and Riverdale star up to? And also why can’t I look away?
Mr Fantasy and KJ Apa, side by side.
To better understand Mr Fantasy, we must return to the very beginning, all the way back on August 19, 2025. This is the first known public appearance of Mr Fantasy. “Hello TikTok. Hello Los Angeles. Hello world. 🤪🤪” the TikTok caption reads. A man, assumed to be Mr Fantasy, bops along to ‘Gamesofluck’ by Parcels in a dishevelled brown wig and plastic aviator glasses for precisely 13 seconds. He is wearing a loud vintage shirt, his tongue touches two prominent front teeth, separated by a small gap. He says nothing, but he doesn’t have to.
Because after that bold arrival, Mr Fantasy would start to post near-daily updates on TikTok. They flesh out the full picture of the deeply camp aspiring British musician, who loves his dead Nan and sits somewhere between Austin Powers, Nigel Tufnel from Spinal Tap, and David Brent covering ‘If You Don’t Know Me By Now’. Outside of his love of music, Fantasy also loves Guinness (“every day is #guinness day 🤪😜”) and James Franco (as of writing, Mr Fantasy has 561,000 followers and follows only 12 people – all James Franco fan accounts).
“A lot of people ask me ‘where do you get your inspiration from?’ and, well, straight from the horse’s mouth… that horse being James Franco,” Fantasy explains in one TiKTok. “He inspires the bloody heck out of me.”
The many outings of Mr Fantasy
Just last week, Fantasy made Franco proud when he released the music video for his debut single, ‘Mr. Fantasy’. With an 80s synth beat and compelling lyrics such as “wait a minute / take it back / why you wasting all your time with that” and resonant visuals such as a very short lime green dressing gown, it soon set the internet alight. “We’re playing this on national radio btw,” wrote the ZM account on TikTok. “WAIT A MINUTE!” wrote impressed fellow musician Joe Jonas. “Maybe the concept of Hannah Montana isn’t too hard to believe,” wrote another fan.
Like Hannah Montana herself, KJ Apa has made his own musical aspirations clear in the past. In 2018, he shredded onstage with The Steadies. In this ‘10 Thing I Can’t Live Without’ video from 2020, he said “I can’t live without a guitar – I’ve been playing since I was 11 years old.” Just a year later, under his real name, Apa independently released his debut indie folk album Clocks. “Music has always been at the forefront for me,” he told Ryan Seacrest following the release. “I just did it without any expectations, just to release it from myself.”
So Mr Fantasy could well just be a musical alter ego, putting Apa up there with Beyonce’s Sacha Fierce or David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. It could also be a long con promotion for… something? Invisalign? Guinness? A project with James Franco? The pair certainly seem to know each other very well indeed. In this interview with Franco for V Magazine, Apa revealed that he texted Franco at a low point in his life, and Franco set him on the road to recovery. The interview ends with Franco saying “I love you, buddy.”
Mr Fantasy has eyes for one man only
Could Apa and Franco’s love be so pure that it can only be fully expressed by way of a musical comedy character? Alas, Franco has been pretty quiet on the filmmaking front for a while now, and the only music-adjacent role Apa appears to have on the horizon is playing Sublime frontman Bradley Nowell in an upcoming biopic. ‘Santeria’ is quite a leap from Mr Fantasy’s work-in-progress ‘Hot Diploma’, but it is not impossible. I’m still privately holding out hope Fantasy has something to do with Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, out this week in the US.
Whatever Apa is up to, it’s working. Hundreds of thousands of people are hooked on the developments in Mr Fantasy’s career, whether it is him riding a “lemon” scooter to his manager John’s house, or organising a fan edit of people dancing to his single. All the while, he’s still dropping errant capitals, tongue forward emojis and sexual non-sequiturs: “John is currently editing our fan video compilation of ‘Mr. Fantasy’and it’s looking AMAZING I FEAR NONE OF YOU ARE READY. 🤪 exciting news on all fronts coming soon lick it suck it kiss it YES !”
Time will reveal the truth of Mr Fantasy, but for now let us enjoy Apa throwing himself into his meatiest role yet. Sure, Kane on Shortland Street had his struggles, but did he ever throw a frisbee so hard it caught on fire and flew past a surprised moon? Sure, Archie on Riverdale belted a few tunes in his time, but did he ever sing “you wanna get a hot diploma” followed by several chimp noises? Mr Fantasy might be a deeply weird guy, but at least he’s got a good heart in a cruel world. “I want you to remember one thing: be yourself,” he once said.
Or, as Apa has proved: if you can’t be yourself, you can always be Mr Fantasy.