Joshua was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, to Nigerian parents, and spent parts of his childhood between England and Nigeria before settling with his mother in Golders Green, London. As a teenager he was a talented athlete drawn to multiple sports, including football and athletics, and had some brushes with trouble in his youth before being introduced to boxing at Finchley Amateur Boxing Club around age 18 — a comparatively late start for an athlete who would go on to reach the top of the sport within a decade. He has a son, JJ, born in 2013.

Joshua’s rapid rise in the amateur ranks culminated in a gold medal in the super-heavyweight division at the 2012 London Olympics, narrowly defeating Italy’s Roberto Cammarelle in the final. The Olympic triumph, achieved in front of a home crowd, made him a national sporting figure overnight and set up his transition to the professional ranks in 2013 under promoter Eddie Hearn and Matchroom Boxing. He built an unbeaten record through a string of stoppage wins, developing into one of the most marketable heavyweights in the world and regularly headlining sold-out stadium shows in the UK.

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Joshua won his first world title, the IBF heavyweight belt, by stopping Charles Martin in 2016. The following year he added the WBA and IBO titles with a dramatic eleventh-round stoppage of Wladimir Klitschko in front of 90,000 fans at Wembley Stadium, widely regarded as one of the great heavyweight fights of the modern era. He unified further by beating Joseph Parker for the WBO title in 2018. In a stunning upset, he lost all his belts to Andy Ruiz Jr in New York in June 2019, but avenged the defeat on points in a rematch in Saudi Arabia later that year to reclaim the titles. Joshua lost the belts again, this time to Oleksandr Usyk, in 2021 and again in a 2022 rematch. Since then he has rebuilt with wins over opponents including Francis Ngannou (2024), while also suffering a knockout loss to Daniel Dubois in September 2024, and has continued campaigning at world level through 2025 and into 2026.

As one of boxing’s biggest pay-per-view attractions, Joshua’s annual earnings have fluctuated significantly with his fight schedule, but Forbes and other sports-business outlets have repeatedly placed him among the highest-paid boxers in the world in years when he fought multiple times, with single-fight purses reported in the eight-figure range for his biggest bouts, particularly those staged in Saudi Arabia as part of that country’s major investment in high-profile boxing events.

Joshua’s biggest paydays have come from a mix of UK stadium shows and lucrative Saudi Arabia-based events. His 2019 rematch with Andy Ruiz Jr in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia — dubbed the ‘Clash on the Dunes’ — was reported to have earned him a purse in the region of $60-75 million once site fees and broadcast money were included, among the largest paydays in heavyweight boxing history. His long-running promotional agreement with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing, in place since he turned professional in 2013, has structured most of his career earnings around a mix of site fees, pay-per-view revenue shares, and broadcast deals, first with Sky Sports and later with DAZN.

Joshua has held major sponsorship deals with brands including Under Armour, which signed him to a multi-year apparel and footwear partnership reported to be worth tens of millions of pounds, as well as Beats by Dre, Lucozade Sport, Hugo Boss, and Jaguar. His marketability as a clean-cut, Olympic-pedigreed heavyweight has made him one of the most commercially attractive boxers of his generation, even through periods when his in-ring record has fluctuated.

Outside the ring, Joshua has been reported by UK outlets including The Sun and Metro to hold stakes in several McDonald’s franchise restaurants, part of a broader push into property and business investment. He also launched his own apparel line and has invested in gyms and fitness ventures connected to his BXR (Boxxer/Joshua-backed) training facility in London, which trains both professional fighters and members of the public.

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Joshua has been reported to own multiple residential properties in and around London, including in the Finchley and Hampstead areas where he trained and grew up, reflecting his continued ties to North London. He is known to maintain an extensive personal fitness and training setup and has been photographed with a collection of high-end vehicles, though exact current holdings are not independently itemized in public records.