By Kylie Cheung | Politics | February 21, 2017 |
By Kylie Cheung | Politics | February 21, 2017 |
Over the weekend, just one day after accepting a keynote speaker position at the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an interview in which Yiannopoulos appeared to not only defend but advocate for pedophilia and child abuse began to circulate. Within a day, CPAC disinvited Yiannopoulos and Simon & Schuster canceled the book deal it had signed with the then-Breitbart editor.
It’s all been a delight to watch, although, nonetheless, it’s still disappointing that this many mainstream institutions were still willing to give a known bigot, misogynist, and white supremacist a platform prior to the surfacing of this interview.
At any rate, despite a plucky Sunday evening Facebook status (Facebook, of course, because Twitter banned him following the mass racist sexual harassment campaign Yiannopoulos launched against Black actress Leslie Jones on the website in July) by Milo stating, “I’ve gone through worse. This will not defeat me,” it looks like it pretty much has.
As of Monday evening, the Washingtonian reported that “at least half a dozen” senior editors at Breitbart were repulsed by the resurfaced interview and were ready to resign if he wasn’t immediately terminated. And on Tuesday, Yiannopoulos issued a statement resigning from his position as an editor at Breitbart:
“Breitbart News has stood by me when others caved. They have allowed me to carry conservative and libertarian ideas to communities that would otherwise never have heard them. They have been a significant factor in my success. I’m grateful for that freedom and for the friendships I forged there.I would be wrong to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues’ important reporting, so today I am resigning from Breitbart, effective immediately. This decision is mine alone.
When your friends have done right by you, you do right by them. For me, now, that means stepping aside so my colleagues at Breitbart can get back to the great work they do.”
Still, Milo claims that this isn’t the end of his career. Subsequently, he took to Facebook to attack the “Republican establishment” and characteristic of any TV arch villain, vowed that “they have only made me stronger.”
Additionally, he addressed all the sick fucks who continue to stand by him: “Thank you for the support. You guys have kept me sane. In a few months, this will be a distant memory. I’ll be back with details of my new publisher, my new media venture and my new tour.” Of all the insane things he says on the regular, this statement ranks among the craziest. Like, this is all bravado and he actually realizes it’s over, right?
The 2016 interview that appears to have ended Yiannopoulos’ career can be viewed here. In it, Yiannopoulos dismisses “consent” and glorifies relationships between older adult men and teenage, “13-year-old” boys.