A.J. and Big Justice, a Boca Raton, Florida-based father-and-son duo, were in strong competition for the song of the summer with their track “We Bring the BOOM!” The pair, a.k.a. A.J. Befumo and his 11-year-old son, Eric, has built a massive online following for their TikTok videos, many of which are filmed in Costco.
Now the father and son have made it to The Tonight Show alongside fellow creator the Rizzler, where they discussed their online career and recently being parodied on Saturday Night Live.
“I had started up a TikTok channel and a lot of Big Justice’s friends were at school and they were doing TikTok channels, so one day Big Justice comes home and he says, ‘Dad I want to be on your show with you,’” A.J. told Fallon. He added that they filmed at a local hamburger restaurant and the video quickly blew up. “It gets to 100,000 views and I said, ‘That’s it. This is now a father-son channel. Let’s bring the boom.’”
Big Justice told Fallon that working with his dad is “amazing.” “And it’s not just working with my dad,” he said. “It’s working with my whole family… It’s just amazing that we’ve accomplished all of this together.”
Fallon then asked the guests to rate Halloween candy on a scale of one to five booms. Big Justice was not a fan of the raisins Fallon handed out, but did like the Halloween-themed Peeps. The guests then enlisted Fallon himself to judge a double chunk chocolate cookie, which scored the maximum five booms.
A.J.’s TikTok channel has accumulated more than two million followers. The Befumos, who lived in Colts’ Neck, New Jersey before moving to Boca Raton a few years ago, seem to have an inherent knack for virality. Starting when he was in college, A.J. wrestled professionally, going by the stage name “the American Powerchild Eric Justice.” He told Fallon he’s returning to wrestling with All Elite Wrestling on Nov. 23 at the Prudential Center in New Jersey.
Earlier this year, A.J. told Rolling Stone the family’s newfound fame has required them to make “adjustments,” although he doesn’t have any major concerns. “To me, privacy is over. In the world we live in, there’s no such thing as privacy,” he says. “I think it’s about raising your children with confidence, [to] keep them protected and know that they’re loved and being watched over.” Of the family’s future, he says: “this is who we are now, this is the life we chose. So we’re all in.”
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM