A new report has claimed to finally reveal the real-life identity of the street artist Banksy.
The highly influential Bristol-based artist and activist has never publicly confirmed his real name or his true identity, leading to decades of widespread speculation and intrigue.
Now, an in-depth investigation by journalists at Reuters claims to have established “beyond dispute” the man behind the anonymity. They tracked down a trip the artist made to Ukraine, as well as photographs posted by former associates and a handwritten confession note from an arrest in New York in 2000.
The report claims that Banksy is in fact Robin Gunningham, although it says he changed his name to David Jones some years ago.
They point to a 2022 Ukraine trip that Gunningham made with Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja – who himself has long been rumoured to be the real Banksy. The two have long been thought to be close friends.
Banksy’s identity has been debated, and closely guarded, for decades. A quest to solve the riddle took Reuters from a bombed-out Ukrainian village to London and downtown Manhattan — and uncovered much more than a name.
Read the full investigation: https://t.co/3WoD8uaKhC
… pic.twitter.com/FKtwQVpPNA
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 13, 2026
The report corroborates a story from The Mail On Sunday in 2008 that Gunningham, 51, is Banksy, and that story itself has been underscored by several of Gunningham’s former schoolmates at Bristol Cathedral School.
In response to the Reuters story, Banksy’s lawyer Mark Stephens wrote that his client “does not accept that many of the details contained within [the] enquiry are correct”.
Stephens also said the story “would violate the artist’s privacy, interfere with his art and put him in danger”, as “working anonymously or under a pseudonym serves vital societal interests.”
“It protects freedom of expression by allowing creators to speak truth to power without fear of retaliation, censorship or persecution,” Stephens added.
Reuters, however, concluded that “the public has a deep interest in understanding the identity and career of a figure with his profound and enduring influence on culture, the art industry and international political discourse.”
Other attempts to get to the bottom of Banksy’s identity have included a BBC radio recording from 2003 that resurfaced 20 years later. In that, he appeared to confirm that his first name was Robbie. An article from The Independent at around that time printed his name as Robert Banks.
In 2024, a legal tussle over the authenticity of one of Banksy’s prints threatened to wind up in court, at which point he might have been forced to reveal his true identity.
Among his most recent work was a mural of a judge attacking a protester with a gavel that was installed outside the Royal Courts of Justice last year. It was believed to be a comment on the arrest of hundreds of people for supporting Palestine Action, and Kneecap were among those to voice their support for the work, despite it being scrubbed from the building shortly after it appeared.
Banksy also created a dummy immigrant boat that was launched into the crowd during IDLES’ show at Glastonbury 2024. Then-Home Secretary James Cleverly called the stunt “vile and unacceptable”, to which the artist did not respond kindly.
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