GMK, Teddy Riner and Prince Albert II: the Monaco Video

On December 28, 2024, French car YouTuber GMK posted a video shot in Monaco with judo champion Teddy Riner, in which the two men meet Prince Albert II in his office at the Prince’s Palace. The day includes a Lamborghini ride, lunch at Yannick Alléno’s Pavyllon, a tour of the Palace and Teddy Riner at the wheel of GMK’s yellow Aventador. By September 2026 the video had passed 2.3 million views, and a sequel came out in May 2026. Here is what happens in it, who GMK is, what came next and what any creator can learn from it to grow their own YouTube subscribers.

What happens in GMK’s video with Teddy Riner?

The video is titled “Je réalise mon rêve avec le prince de Monaco et Teddy Riner”, roughly “I’m living my dream with the Prince of Monaco and Teddy Riner”. It is in French. GMK shows the judoka around the Principality for a day, in this order:

1. A drive around Monaco in a Lamborghini Urus, through the streets used by the Grand Prix circuit.
2. A meeting at the Prince’s Palace, in Prince Albert II’s office.
3. Lunch at Pavyllon Monte-Carlo, Yannick Alléno’s restaurant inside the Hôtel Hermitage.
4. A test drive of GMK’s yellow Lamborghini Aventador, with Teddy Riner behind the wheel.

That last part got the most comments. Monaco Tribune, on December 30, 2024, described an Olympic champion struggling to fold himself into a supercar built for much smaller drivers. A Mansory-tuned Mercedes G-Class also shows up in the video.

At the end, GMK and Teddy Riner float the idea of meeting again, at the judoka’s place or abroad. That promise was kept in 2026, as you’ll see below.

Who is GMK?

GMK, whose real name is Georges Maroun Kikano, was born on October 15, 1992 in Monaco and holds French and Lebanese nationality. He started out in 2013 on Skyblog and Instagram, then launched his YouTube channel in 2015. A video of his camouflage-wrapped Audi RS6 made him known in 2016.

His main channel, @gmk01, has 2.85 million subscribers in September 2026, and Top Marques Monaco credits him with 4.9 million followers on Instagram. His personal collection counts about twenty high-end cars, mostly Lamborghini, Ferrari, Mercedes and Porsche. He is about two meters tall, which matters for the rest of the story.

His height has already kept him out of a race: at Squeezie’s GP Explorer 2 in 2023, he only did demonstration laps because he could not fit properly into the competition’s single-seaters. In 2025 he was a guest on Top Gear France.

What sets him apart from other car channels is his address book. He had already shown his Mansory to Prince Albert II in June 2024, then posted a chat with him about the Grand Prix in August 2024. The Teddy Riner video grew out of that existing relationship, not out of a one-off stunt.

What did Prince Albert II talk about?

The meeting takes place in the Prince’s office, and the conversation quickly turns to sport. Albert II is no mere spectator: he competed in five Winter Olympics in bobsleigh, from 1988 to 2002. “I’ve tried a bit of everything, I’ve done 17 sports,” he says in the video, according to Monaco Tribune.

He also tells the story of a flight with the Blue Angels, the US Navy’s aerobatic team. And he talks judo with his guest, mentioning his belt, upgraded from brown to an honorary black. Facing a five-time Olympic champion, the moment is funny and sincere at the same time.

@gmk

On rencontre le Prince de Monaco avec Teddy Riner ! 😱 #gmk #teddyriner #Princedemonaco

♬ son original – GMK – GMK

GMK cut this scene for TikTok on January 5, 2025, a week after the long video came out.

Why was the Palace visit so funny?

Paris Match went with this angle on December 30, 2024: two giants inside a medieval palace. According to the magazine, Teddy Riner stands over two meters tall at about 150 kilos, and GMK two meters at about 120 kilos. The Prince’s Palace, meanwhile, was built from the late 12th century onward.

The result: no lift suited to the judoka’s weight, staircases where you have to bend double and corridors you pass through sideways. GMK jokes that with their build, they would have been the first soldiers to fall back then. Scenes like these, more than the solemn setting, are what made the video travel.

@gmk

On entre dans le Palais Princier avec Teddy Riner 🤩 #gmk #teddyriner #palaisprincier

♬ son original – GMK – GMK

How many views did the video get?

Two days after release, Monaco Tribune counted nearly 700,000 views. On September 22, 2026, the YouTube counter shows 2.33 million. The score comes from a wider audience than usual: GMK’s car fans, sports fans who came for Teddy Riner and people curious about the Prince.

The video also lived outside YouTube: clips on TikTok posted by GMK himself, reposts by fan accounts, and articles in the Monaco and celebrity press. Every repost pointed back to the long video.

What has happened since?

Quite a bit, and all of it checkable:

• September 2025: GMK becomes an ambassador for Top Marques Monaco, the Principality’s supercar show.
• October 24, 2025: four cars from his collection go on temporary display at the Prince’s Car Collection, the museum founded by Rainier III.
• May 2, 2026: the sequel, “24 heures avec Teddy Riner à Monaco” (24 hours with Teddy Riner in Monaco), comes out. A meal, a drive with the judoka at the wheel, and an appearance by his nephew, whose size got a lot of reactions. It passed 1.8 million views by September 2026.
• Teddy Riner: he skipped the 2025 World Championships to focus on the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, then withdrew from the Baku Worlds in October 2026 because of a right shoulder injury picked up in training this summer.

The earlier French version of this article announced more collaborations “with public figures” without any source. We replaced that with these dated facts.

What YouTubers can learn from this collaboration

You don’t have a prince on speed dial, and neither do I. The mechanics still work at a smaller scale.

1. Stack audiences that don’t overlap. Cars, sport, royalty: three different crowds for one video. Invite someone whose audience doesn’t already watch your channel.
2. Bet on visual contrast. Two giants in narrow corridors, a champion squeezed into a Lamborghini. One strong image beats a long explanation, and it makes the thumbnail.
3. Cut for short formats. GMK posted his clips on TikTok within two weeks. Each clip reminds people of the long video.
4. Deliver the promised sequel. Teased at the end of 2024 and released in May 2026, the second video picked up the audience of the first.

A video’s start still decides a lot: if the first hours are weak, YouTube recommends it less. A boost in YouTube views at launch can help a collaboration find its audience, as long as the content holds up behind it.