Catholic influencer Paul Kim’s son dies aged five after severe case of the flu

Influencer Paul Kim, who speaks about his Catholic faith in social media videos, said that his five-year-old son, Micah, has died.

Father-of-six Kim initially shared on December 21 that Micah had been hospitalized with a severe case of the flu and continued to post frequent updates for his 372,000 Instagram followers.

The flu was so severe, Kim said, that it caused seizures and sepsis in the young boy, leading to him being placed on life support. Kim also said that a scan revealed that activity in Micah’s brain was “not present.”

In a January 1 video, Kim said that “after fighting 11 long hard days, [Micah] went home to the house of our father.”

“We are so proud of him. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart as his dad, on behalf of my family, for all the ways you guys prayed and lifted us up during this time,” Kim continued. “This incredibly difficult, impossible time for our family. It's been the hardest thing I've ever been through in my life and it continues to be.

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“As much as this time I just want to have privacy and have time to mourn with my family I felt like I owed all of you an update, just out of gratitude. Micah is already in Heaven at work, seriously, so many testimonies, so many ways in which God is using the light in my five-year-old to truly save souls and change the world.”

The influencer acknowledged that deacons, priests, and even cardinals reached out to offer prayers for Micah during his hospitalization. “I’m thankful. I love you in Christ,” Kim said in the video.

“For those two weeks we were fighting long and hard, we were consulting legal, health, ethical teams even outside the hospital. Just to make sure we weren't leaving any stone unturned. In many ways we were fighting for Micah to buy him as much time as possible, until he passed. As a father, that is my duty I was called to do that. Even if in God's ultimate will it wasn't meant for him to recover.”

Kim has shared media coverage of his son’s death on Instagram, saying: “God is using Micah to evangelize the world. He’s taken over daddy’s ministry. Go son, go! My heart is broken but so proud of you. Ask God to allow you to be canonized so I can finally take mommy on that trip to Italy.”

Micah’s death comes amid a surge of severe flu cases impacting people of all ages, including children.

The child death toll from flu rose again this week as cases of super flu continued to surge across more than a dozen states in the U.S. The nationwide tally ticked up to nine children, with health officials in Ohio and Kentucky reporting their first pediatric flu deaths.

The announcements come on the heels of the worst flu season in nearly 15 years in 2024. This year, the agency estimates that there have been 7.5 million infections, more than 81,000 hospitalizations and 3,100 flu deaths across the country.