10 celebrities who train BJJ and the belts they hold

Published on 3 November 2026 · Updated on 3 November 2026 · GREATER News
Editorial feature: none of these people has any connection with GREATER.

A Hollywood director, the founder of Facebook, a supermodel and the singer of Tool have one thing in common: they spend hours on the mat. We picked 10 celebrities who train or have trained Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) and looked up their latest known belts and, where it is on record, who teaches them.

1. Tom Hardy: from "Edward Hardy" to brown belt

His story has two beginnings. The first came in 2011, preparing for the film Warrior, after which he kept training on and off. The second came in 2018. According to his coach, Carlos Santos, a Roger Gracie black belt, Hardy walked into a West London gym to hit pads and saw a class training in gis. Santos hesitated because of a knee injury and offered him an introductory class. He was back the next day. He began with private lessons, asked to join the group classes and now trains even on film shoots, with his stunt double.

In 2022 he sprang a surprise at two tournaments. In August he won two golds, gi and no-gi, at the REORG Open in Wolverhampton, an event linked to the organisation he works with, which brings BJJ to veterans and emergency workers. One opponent, former soldier Danny Appleton, only found out who he was facing in the semi-finals and said he had to tap before his arm snapped. Weeks later Hardy won another gold, as a blue belt, at an Open in Milton Keynes, signed up as "Edward Hardy", his real name.

The latest news is from this year. After purple in June 2023, he received his brown belt on 1 February 2026 from Sonny Weston at Horsham BJJ, at a ceremony for which his friend Tom DeBlass, a well-known BJJ coach, travelled to the UK.

Our take: counting from Warrior, it took 15 years to reach brown; from the London gym, eight. The second count looks more like any other student's. The film gave him the curiosity, but what changed his story was going back to class the next day.

2. Mark Zuckerberg: from the mat to the UFC Octagon

The Facebook founder took up the sport, according to Fortune, during the pandemic. In May 2023 he made his tournament debut in California with the Guerrilla Jiu Jitsu team and came away with a gold and a silver. Two months later, on 22 July, his coach Dave Camarillo gave him his blue belt, the latest rank we could confirm. But BJJ is only one part of his story in combat sports.

With the UFC, it started with a mystery. In October 2022, the UFC closed its UFC Vegas 61 card in Las Vegas to fans and press. Headliner Mackenzie Dern said Zuckerberg had rented out the event. Dana White denied it. Zuckerberg turned up in the front row of a nearly empty room and said White had invited him.

In 2023 he nearly fought Elon Musk, or so it seemed. Musk offered to do a cage match and Zuckerberg replied "send me location". In August he closed the subject, saying Musk wasn't serious. In November he tore his ACL sparring while preparing for a competitive MMA fight in 2024. We have found no record of that fight taking place.

In February 2024 he walked to the Octagon with Alexander Volkanovski's team at UFC 298. Ilia Topuria knocked Volkanovski out in the second round and the image of Zuckerberg in the corner went round the internet. Craig Jones, the Australian's grappling coach, came to his defence.

In 2025 the hobby became business. Dana White joined Meta's board in January and, in April, the UFC and Meta signed a multi-year deal: Meta is the official fan technology partner and its branding is in the Octagon. On 14 June 2026, Zuckerberg was at the UFC card at the White House, and on the 22nd of that month the Meta UFC Rankings were unveiled, a ranking calculated from fight data that is gradually replacing the media panel.

And he keeps training with the best. In October 2025, according to Bloody Elbow, he watched UFC 320 from the front row, and weeks later he trained with Alex Pereira. In December he sparred with Merab Dvalishvili, and in August 2026 they did it again on a floating platform on Lake Tahoe, where both ended up in the water. It isn't all applause: in March 2026, at UFC 326, the crowd booed him when he appeared on screen, and he laughed it off with an "I'm booed". Meta takes it more seriously: its annual report lists combat sports among its founder's high-risk activities.

Our take: nobody else on this list has taken the hobby this far. And even so, with UFC champions on hand, the latest belt on record is blue. He may have been promoted without it being reported, but it may also be what every student knows: access helps, and the mat still asks for its hours. Even the injury is an academy classic: an ACL in sparring.

3. Keanu Reeves: eight hours a day for John Wick

He is the odd one out: we found no published BJJ promotion, which makes him the "not confirmed" in the count. His preparation, on the other hand, is well documented. Jonathan Eusebio, fight coordinator on the John Wick films, told Maxim that he trained eight hours a day for around six months, when a film usually allows about eight weeks. The base was judo and jiu-jitsu, with sambo, wrestling, karate-based strikes and kali for the knife work.

For John Wick: Chapter 2, according to stunt coordinator J. J. Perry, Rigan Machado taught him BJJ for about three and a half months. And the judo paid off: in 2017, the International Judo Federation reported that Tadahiro Nomura, the sport's only three-time Olympic champion, had given him an honorary judo black belt in Tokyo. In the first film, Reeves performs an ippon-seoi-nage, one of the techniques Nomura is known for.

Our take: six months at that pace is more hours than many students log in several years, and there is still no BJJ belt on record. Preparing for a film and earning a rank are different things. What those scenes have done is show many people what a real grip or throw looks like.

4. Joe Rogan: two black belts and a garage

The UFC commentator and podcast host has probably talked about BJJ to a bigger audience than anyone. And he didn't start from zero: he held a taekwondo black belt at 15, was Massachusetts champion four years running and won the US Open at 19. According to Wikipedia, he took notice of BJJ after watching Royce Gracie at UFC 2 and started in 1996. BJJEE reports that in his first week a purple belt controlled and submitted him again and again. In the late 90s he moved on to train with Jean Jacques Machado, who years later would call him "one of my best students".

His big leap happened in a garage. Rogan says what helped him most early on was becoming friends with Eddie Bravo: an hour and a half, a couple of times a week, on the mats in his garage, drilling positions, escapes and finishes instead of rolling hard, with about 40% resistance. In June 2012, Bravo stopped a no-gi class and surprised him with his 10th Planet black belt, as Graciemag reported. BJJEE places his other black belt, from Jean Jacques Machado, in the same year.

There is very little footage of him rolling. On his own game, he has said his takedowns aren't good but his guard is. He has been with the UFC since 1997, when he started as an interviewer at UFC 12, and has called fights since 2002.

Our take: of everything he tells, the garage is the most useful part for a student. Rogan credits his biggest progress to drilling with a partner he trusted, and today that is common practice at many academies.

5. Ed O'Neill: 16 years to black belt

Al Bundy from Married... with Children and Jay from Modern Family came to BJJ in 1991 through his friend, the writer John Milius, though not right away: he put it off for about a year. When he finally went, Rorion Gracie asked him to lie down and imagine an attacker on top of him. At about 230 lb against Rorion's 175, O'Neill couldn't get him off. He was back the next morning. He went on to take ten or twelve classes with Hélio Gracie himself and trained with most of the brothers.

He received his black belt from Rorion in December 2007, aged 61. In 2013 he was announced as a commentator for Metamoris II in Los Angeles, alongside Rener Gracie. But the best thing he has left us is a line on why so few people reach that belt: "they don't keep going to class".

Our take: the line says the same thing as the 16 years. At 61, O'Neill was still going to class, and sometimes that is the whole secret.

6. Guy Ritchie: third degree on set

The director of Snatch and Sherlock Holmes was already a Shotokan karate black belt when, according to BJJEE, the Rickson Gracie documentary Choke pushed him towards BJJ in the early 2000s. He started in London with Mauricio Gomes and Roger Gracie. Jason Statham has said they first trained in a garage where they parked the cars, and Madonna, his former wife, that he spent hours rolling on a homemade mat. He spent seven years as a brown belt.

Renzo Gracie gave him his black belt in 2015 in New York, during the launch of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and according to Renzo he kept it on for the whole event. In December 2025 it was reported that Roger, on Renzo's behalf, had presented his third degree on the set of the second season of MobLand, with Tom Hardy standing by. The timing fits: under the IBJJF system that degree requires nine years as a black belt.

In an interview with RISING he said the mat is harder than a film set because "there's no-one else who is going to help you". He favours live rolling and visiting academies abroad to test himself. And it's catching: Charlie Hunnam got hooked on BJJ while shooting King Arthur: Legend of the Sword with him.

Our take: on a film set he is in charge, and on the mat that title gets him nowhere. Perhaps that is why it hooks people with power or fame: it is one of the few places where neither counts.

7. Ashton Kutcher: black belt at 47

He grew up wrestling in Iowa and has said BJJ was the closest thing he could find as an adult. According to BJJEE, by late 2014 he had spent about two years with Rigan Machado: after a year of daily private lessons he received his blue belt with two stripes in February 2014, and in December his purple was reported. On the road he trained where he could, at De La Riva's academy in Rio or Roger Gracie's in London.

His coach has been his biggest defender. In 2015 he said Kutcher might be the best grappler among the celebrities he has taught, and in 2016, when he was still a purple belt, that he would put all his money on him against Conor McGregor. Brown came in late 2019. And in January 2020 a video was posted of Kutcher rolling with Craig Jones: according to Jones, it drew around a thousand negative comments questioning his belt. Kutcher replied with a "thanks for the roll".

His black belt was reported in November 2025, aged 47. BJJEE notes that Machado has insisted fame did not lower the standard. In early 2026, on Jimmy Fallon's show, Kutcher called it a "huge honor", taught him a sweep and let him try it.

Our take: depending on the source, it took between 13 and 15 years, and hardly anyone can afford private lessons with an elite coach. His case also shows the price of being promoted in plain sight: every belt gets argued over in public, and he answered with a "thanks".

8. Gisele Bündchen: purple belt in two years

The Brazilian supermodel reached the mat through her son. According to People, she was looking for something to steer him in the right direction, heard about the Valente brothers (Pedro, Gui and Joaquim) and ended up training herself: "I realized that it was much more than self defense", she said. She started in December 2021, according to Elite Sports, at their Miami academy, open since 1993. The Valentes learned from Hélio Gracie, and the building, according to their own website, is designed to resemble the Gracie academy in Rio.

In December 2023 they promoted her to purple belt, and her children, who train with her, moved up too. "I'm a very intense person, so when I enjoy something, I am committed", she explained. In December 2025, according to People, citing marriage records, she married Joaquim Valente in Florida.

Our take: two years is fast. As a reference, the IBJJF requires at least two years at blue before purple, though each academy applies its own criteria. For an academy, the most interesting part is the way in: a mother who brings her son and ends up on the mat with him.

9. Maynard James Keenan: nearly 30 years to black belt

The singer of Tool and A Perfect Circle started in the mid-1990s at Rickson Gracie's academy on Pico in Los Angeles, and has described those years as "humbling". His blue, purple and brown belts came from Luis "Limão" Herédia, a Rickson Gracie black belt: blue at that same academy, purple as a surprise on holiday in Hawaii in May 2015 ("it's taken quite awhile to get here", he wrote) and brown in November 2021.

His black belt was announced in January 2024, when his training partner Ty Gay shared the news and called him a "friend, training partner, and sometimes nemesis". The sources we read don't say who presented it. Keenan has called jiu-jitsu "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life", and he passes it on: in 2023 he announced the opening of a BJJ and muay thai studio in Verde Valley, Arizona, and in December 2024 he released The Great In Between, a 90-minute class for beginners filmed at an academy in Cottonwood.

Our take: he took the longest of anyone on the list. We don't know how many breaks there were in those nearly 30 years, with tours along the way, but he got there. For anyone who travels for work or is going through a bad patch, his story says something simple: taking a long time is not the same as not arriving.

10. Wagner Moura: from Pablo Escobar to brown belt

The star of Elite Squad and Narcos was already a blue belt in 2010, when he shot Elite Squad 2 with Rickson Gracie as adviser on the jiu-jitsu scenes. In the film, the mat is the one place his character and his son are at peace. The training was real: Graciemag reported that, in one session, the actor playing his son passed out in a hold from Moura, with no lasting harm.

By 2022, BJJEE was already listing him as a purple belt and sharing a video of him rolling with Royler Gracie. In December 2023, his friend and coach Rigan Machado announced his brown belt. A year later he was still at it: the Brazilian press reported him training in Rio with his friend Vladimir Brichta. Meanwhile the biggest moment of his career arrived: The Secret Agent won him the Golden Globe and made him the first Brazilian nominated for the Best Actor Oscar, which went to Michael B. Jordan.

Our take: at least 13 years from blue to brown, in the middle of an international career. It is a good answer for anyone who says they have no time to train.

What this list says about Brazilian jiu-jitsu

Fame rarely saves years. All five black belts took more than a decade: O'Neill and Rogan 16 years, Kutcher between 13 and 15, and Keenan nearly 30, with access to coaches most people never get. Bündchen, with purple in two years, is the exception on this list. That is good news for a student three years into blue belt: BJJ belts tend to take time, for them too.

Hardly any of them came looking for a belt. Hardy and Reeves came for a film. O'Neill, because a friend kept insisting for a year. Bündchen, for her son. Kutcher wanted something like the wrestling of his childhood, and Ritchie came out of a documentary. It is the same story as the person who tries one class and ends up planning holidays around tournaments.

They all share one family tree. We found a link to the Gracie or Machado families for all ten, direct or through their coach: O'Neill, Rogan, Ritchie, Keenan and Moura dealt with them in person; Kutcher, Moura and Reeves learned from Rigan Machado; Hardy from a Roger Gracie black belt; Zuckerberg from a Ralph Gracie black belt; and Bündchen from the Valentes, students of Hélio Gracie. Hollywood didn't create that link: Los Angeles has been one of the main BJJ hubs outside Brazil for decades.

For an academy, the lesson is practical. Someone who turns up for a trial class because they saw it with a celebrity isn't looking to become a champion: they are curious. That is why it pays to look after their first BJJ class and their first few weeks. Hardy and O'Neill came back the next day, and that is the moment to win. After that, O'Neill's line sums up the rest of the job: keep them coming to class. For that, it pays to know how to reduce academy dropouts. And Bündchen is a reminder of something else: whoever brings their child to class may end up on the mat too.

Frequently asked questions about celebrities and BJJ

Which celebrities are BJJ black belts?
From this list: Joe Rogan, Ed O'Neill, Guy Ritchie, Ashton Kutcher and Maynard James Keenan.

Does Tom Hardy really do jiu-jitsu?
Yes. He started in 2011 for Warrior and came back in earnest in 2018. In 2022 he won golds at two UK tournaments and on 1 February 2026 he received his brown belt.

How long does it take celebrities to reach BJJ black belt?
On this list, more than a decade: Ed O'Neill and Joe Rogan took 16 years, Ashton Kutcher between 13 and 15, and Maynard James Keenan nearly 30.

What belt does Mark Zuckerberg hold?
The latest we could confirm is blue, awarded by Dave Camarillo on 22 July 2023.

What is Mark Zuckerberg's connection to the UFC?
He has attended its events since 2022 and trains with its fighters. Dana White joined Meta's board in January 2025 and, that April, Meta became an official UFC partner, with its branding in the Octagon.

Belts are the latest we found published as of 3 November 2026.

None of the people in this feature took part in it, has any connection with GREATER or endorses its products. The photos illustrate the text, come from Wikimedia Commons under the licences shown and are shown cropped and compressed on this page.

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