Presidents' Day was pretty bad for Milo Yiannopoulos.
The I Am a Plaything (2025)alt-right troll and Breitbart editor — banished from Twitter for inciting harassment against Leslie Jones, known for "provocative" attacks against trans people, feminism and "P.C. culture" — finally saw it all come crashing down.
Over the weekend, a video showing Yiannopoulos defending and advocating for sexual relationships between 13-year-olds and adults began to draw attention. Yiannopoulos has made his celebrity saying outlandish, offensive and purposely provocative things, but this was too much for many of his conservative sympathizers — and his biggest business partner.
On Monday afternoon, Simon & Schuster pulled Yiannopoulos' book deal. The publishing house awarded Yiannopoulos a $250,000 advance in December for the memoir Dangerous. Simon & Schuster faced blowback from the public and from its own authors over that decision, but stood by Yiannopoulos until the pedophilia video.
“We do not and never have condoned discrimination or hate speech in any form,” the publisher said in a statement in December, before the recent video emerged. “At Simon & Schuster we have always published books by a wide range of authors with greatly varying, and frequently controversial opinions, and appealing to many different audiences of readers. While we are cognizant that many may disagree vehemently with the books we publish we note that the opinions expressed therein belong to our authors, and do not reflect either a corporate viewpoint or the views of our employees.”
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Also on Monday, the Conservative Political Action Conference rescinded an invitation for Yiannopoulos to speak at its conference this week, which will still host President Donald Trump.
"We continue to believe that CPAC is a constructive forum for controversies and disagreements among conservatives, however there is no disagreement among our attendees on the evils of sexual abuse of children," Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, the group behind CPAC, said in a statement.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
As if that wasn't enough, Breitbart, the website that boosted Yiannopoulos' profile and benefited from his outrage-inducing stances, debated what to do, according to news reports. Breitbart staffers reportedly threatened to quit if Yiannopoulos weren't fired. The website, which has already seen an exodus of advertisers as the Trump-aligned site grew in profile since Trump's election, waited to see how its remaining advertisers would respond.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Yiannopoulos tried to head off the lost book deals and speaking engagements with Facebook posts and a Facebook Live video explanation on Monday. He outlined specific comments from the video that he thought were taken out of context and his own perspective as a victim of child abuse.
"Sometimes things tumble out of your mouth on these long, late-night live-streams, when everyone is spit-balling, that are incompletely expressed or not what you intended. Nonetheless, I've reviewed the tapes that appeared last night in their proper full context and I don't believe they say what is being reported," Yiannopolous wrote in one.
"Anyone who suggests I turn a blind eye to illegal activity or to the abuse of minors is unequivocally wrong," he added. "I am implacably opposed to the normalization of pedophilia and I will continue to report and speak accordingly."
But his explanations weren't enough. It seems that any support for pedophilia was the final straw for backers who clung to "free speech" whenever Yiannopolous faced criticism in the past.
Featured Video For You
This flying motorcycle is straight out of Star Wars
