Five Celebrities Who Practice Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

Five Celebrities Who Practice Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

Community Oct 18, 2021

Celebrities have access to every workout on the planet. Personal trainers, private Pilates studios, boutique gym memberships that cost more than most people's rent. So when someone like Keanu Reeves or Guy Ritchie commits years of their life to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, it says something about what this art actually delivers.

BJJ is a system of control and leverage built around one idea: a smaller, weaker person can defend themselves against a bigger, stronger attacker using technique and positioning. That premise attracts people from all walks of life. But celebrities are an interesting case study because they could do anything with their time. They chose this.

The numbers back up the trend. Search interest in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has grown over 100% in the past two decades, and there are now an estimated 2.9 to 6 million practitioners worldwide. Much of that growth traces back to the UFC's rise in the early 2000s, but the celebrity factor plays a role too. When high-profile people train publicly, it normalizes the idea that BJJ is for everyone, not just cage fighters.

Here are five celebrities whose BJJ training tells us something real about the art.

Chuck Norris

Most people know Chuck Norris as a karate guy. Fair enough. He's a Tang Soo Do black belt who built an entire action career on spinning kicks. But here's the part that doesn't get enough attention: Norris has trained Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for over three decades, and he earned his third-degree black belt in 2015.

The story of how he started is one of the best origin stories in BJJ. While vacationing in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1980s, Norris visited the Gracie family. Despite holding black belts in multiple martial arts, including judo, he was quickly submitted by Rorion and Helio Gracie. That experience shook him. A judo black belt, tapped repeatedly by grapplers using a system he'd never encountered.

Rather than walking away with a bruised ego, Norris leaned in. He began training with the Machado brothers (cousins of the Gracies) in Los Angeles. He became so invested that he helped the Machado brothers open their first U.S. academy in 1991, in a shopping center he owned in Tarzana, California. When Carlos Machado later moved to Dallas to work on Walker, Texas Ranger, Norris brought him along.

Think about that. A martial arts icon with nothing to prove spent 30 years training in a discipline where he started as a white belt. That's what BJJ does to people. The lineage and quality of instruction matter, and Norris went straight to the source.

Steve Irwin

Steve Irwin, "The Crocodile Hunter," trained in grappling and submission fighting under Australian MMA pioneer Dan Higgins, a BJJ black belt, and also worked with renowned coach Greg Jackson. Irwin earned his blue belt after about three years of training before his death in 2006.

What makes Irwin's story compelling isn't the belt. It's how clearly his grappling skills translated to his day job: wrestling crocodiles. The same principles that work on the mat (control the position, stay calm under pressure, use leverage instead of brute strength) are exactly what kept Irwin alive when he was face to face with a twelve-foot saltwater croc.

Irwin also used BJJ black belt Kyle Noke as a sparring partner and sponsored MMA events in Australia. He reportedly said that grappling crocodiles taught him about underhooks before he ever learned the formal term. There's something satisfying about a guy who wrestled the world's most dangerous reptiles finding a home on the jiu-jitsu mats. The connection between BJJ and real-world composure under stress was, in his case, literal.

Demi Lovato

Demi Lovato started training BJJ in 2016 and earned her blue belt in August 2017. She trained at Jay Glazer's Unbreakable Gym in Los Angeles, sparring alongside MMA veterans like Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture. She later continued training under coach Chris Light and earned her purple belt in early 2023.

Lovato's BJJ story matters because she's been open about why she trains. For her, the art is a mental health tool. The entertainment industry runs on stress, public scrutiny, and constant performance pressure. BJJ gave her a space where none of that followed her onto the mat. When you're defending a choke, you're not thinking about album sales or tabloid headlines. You're just there.

She's talked publicly about grappling improving her confidence and providing an outlet for stress. That tracks with what most adult practitioners discover: the physical workout is real, but the mental reset is what keeps people coming back. Lovato mostly did private sessions to avoid injuries that could cancel tour dates, but she still put in the work for seven years and counting. That's not a phase. That's a lifestyle.

Keanu Reeves

Keanu Reeves started training BJJ with the Machado brothers to prepare for the John Wick franchise. He was around 50 at the time. In interviews, he's said that "the deeper you get into jiu-jitsu, the less you have a normal life", which is the kind of statement that makes every BJJ practitioner nod.

What's interesting about Reeves is that he never chased a belt. He reportedly remains a white belt because ranking up doesn't serve his work as an actor. His training focus is technical proficiency on camera: making fight choreography look authentic, understanding how bodies move on the ground, knowing what real grappling transitions look like. If you've seen the ground fighting sequences in John Wick 2 or 3, you've seen the payoff. Those aren't faked. They're drilled.

Reeves also trains in judo, sambo, and various weapons systems. But his BJJ training with the Machado brothers is what gave the John Wick films their grappling credibility. At an age when most people are easing into lower-impact hobbies, Reeves threw himself into one of the most physically demanding martial arts on the planet. That says something about what the art offers beyond fitness.

Guy Ritchie

Guy Ritchie, the director behind Snatch, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and the Sherlock Holmes films, is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt. Renzo Gracie awarded him the rank in August 2015, at the launch party for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in New York.

Ritchie started training in England under Mauricio Gomes and Roger Gracie, then spent years training with Renzo Gracie in New York. He sat at brown belt for seven years before getting promoted. Seven years. Most hobbyists would have quit or found a different gym that promoted faster. Ritchie stuck with it. According to Renzo Gracie, "Nobody has ever worked harder than Guy to get his black belt."

He reportedly set up training mats on film sets so he could drill between takes. He also incorporated BJJ-inspired fight choreography into his Sherlock Holmes films (Bartitsu, the Victorian martial art Holmes uses in the books, shares some grappling DNA with jiu-jitsu). More recently, he was promoted to third-degree black belt by Roger Gracie on behalf of Renzo.

Ritchie's story is the clearest example of what the BJJ belt system actually means. You don't buy your way to black belt. You don't talk your way there. You show up, train, get humbled, and keep going. His seven years at brown belt weren't a failure. They were the process working exactly as designed.

What their stories tell us

Strip away the fame and these five people share a common pattern. They found BJJ, got humbled by it, and kept training anyway. Chuck Norris got tapped by the Gracies and spent the next 30 years on the mat. Guy Ritchie sat at brown belt for seven years without complaining. Keanu Reeves started at 50 and never worried about what color his belt was.

The reasons they train are the same reasons anyone trains. Stress relief. Physical challenge. The satisfaction of solving a problem with your body. A room where your job title and bank account don't matter, only what you can do on the mat.

You don't need to be famous to experience any of that. You just need to show up.

Train BJJ in Madison, WI

At Journey BJJ in Madison, we teach the same art these celebrities fell in love with. Beginners are welcome. Your first week is free. Come to class this week and find out what keeps people coming back.

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