LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com/AP) — Milo Yiannopoulos, the controversial commentator for Breitbart News, announced his resignation from the company Tuesday over comments he made on relationships between boys and older men.
The resignation comes after Yiannopoulos' publisher cancelled his book "Dangerous," which had been scheduled to come out in June.
Yiannopoulos was also disinvited to this year's Conservative Political Action Conference after the conservative Reagan Battalion blog tweeted video clips Sunday in which Yiannopoulos discussed Jews, sexual consent, statutory rape, child abuse and homosexuality.
In a statement announcing his resignation, Yiannopoulos said, "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."
The American Conservative Union founded and hosts CPAC, which is being held Wednesday through Saturday outside Washington. In a tweet on Monday, ACU chairman Matt Schlapp said that "due to the revelation of an offensive video in the past 24 hours condoning pedophilia, the American Conservative Union has decided to rescind the invitation of Milo Yiannopoulos to speak."
In one clip, Yiannopoulos defends sexual relationships between men and boys as young as 13 years old. He also speaks approvingly of his own sexual relationship with a 29-year-old priest when he was 17.
On Facebook, Yiannopoulos blamed deceptive editing and his own "sloppy phrasing" for any indication he supported pedophilia. The British author said he spoke of his own relationship when he was 17 with a man who was 29. The age of consent in the United Kingdom is 16.
It's unclear who edited the videos.
"In the homosexual world, particularly, some of those relationships between younger boys and older men -- the sort of `coming of age' relationship -- those relationships in which those older men help those young boys discover who they are and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable, sort of rock, where they can't speak to their parents," he said.
Later Monday, Simon & Schuster and its Threshold Editions imprint announced that "after careful consideration" they had pulled Yiannopoulos' book, for which pre-orders placed it high on Amazon.com's best-seller lists. The subject of intense controversy from the start, "Dangerous" was originally scheduled to come out in March. But Yiannopoulos pushed back the release to June so he could write about the protests during his recent campus tour, including a cancelled appearance at the University of California, Berkeley.
At the time of his publisher's decision Monday, "Dangerous" ranked No. 83 on Amazon's overall list and No. 1 in the subcategory of "Censorship & Politics."
Simon & Schuster did not offer any specific reason for pulling "Dangerous." In Facebook postings Monday night, Yiannopoulous wrote: "They canceled my book" and "I've gone through worse. This will not defeat me."
Yiannopoulos is known for his vicious criticism of women and Muslims, among others. Last summer, he helped instigate a harassment campaign against "Ghostbusters" star Leslie Jones that led to his banishment from Twitter.
(TM and © Copyright 2017 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
Breitbart Commentator Milo Yiannopoulos Resigns Over Pedophilia Comments
/ KCAL News
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com/AP) — Milo Yiannopoulos, the controversial commentator for Breitbart News, announced his resignation from the company Tuesday over comments he made on relationships between boys and older men.
The resignation comes after Yiannopoulos' publisher cancelled his book "Dangerous," which had been scheduled to come out in June.
Yiannopoulos was also disinvited to this year's Conservative Political Action Conference after the conservative Reagan Battalion blog tweeted video clips Sunday in which Yiannopoulos discussed Jews, sexual consent, statutory rape, child abuse and homosexuality.
In a statement announcing his resignation, Yiannopoulos said, "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."
The American Conservative Union founded and hosts CPAC, which is being held Wednesday through Saturday outside Washington. In a tweet on Monday, ACU chairman Matt Schlapp said that "due to the revelation of an offensive video in the past 24 hours condoning pedophilia, the American Conservative Union has decided to rescind the invitation of Milo Yiannopoulos to speak."
In one clip, Yiannopoulos defends sexual relationships between men and boys as young as 13 years old. He also speaks approvingly of his own sexual relationship with a 29-year-old priest when he was 17.
On Facebook, Yiannopoulos blamed deceptive editing and his own "sloppy phrasing" for any indication he supported pedophilia. The British author said he spoke of his own relationship when he was 17 with a man who was 29. The age of consent in the United Kingdom is 16.
It's unclear who edited the videos.
"In the homosexual world, particularly, some of those relationships between younger boys and older men -- the sort of `coming of age' relationship -- those relationships in which those older men help those young boys discover who they are and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable, sort of rock, where they can't speak to their parents," he said.
Later Monday, Simon & Schuster and its Threshold Editions imprint announced that "after careful consideration" they had pulled Yiannopoulos' book, for which pre-orders placed it high on Amazon.com's best-seller lists. The subject of intense controversy from the start, "Dangerous" was originally scheduled to come out in March. But Yiannopoulos pushed back the release to June so he could write about the protests during his recent campus tour, including a cancelled appearance at the University of California, Berkeley.
At the time of his publisher's decision Monday, "Dangerous" ranked No. 83 on Amazon's overall list and No. 1 in the subcategory of "Censorship & Politics."
Simon & Schuster did not offer any specific reason for pulling "Dangerous." In Facebook postings Monday night, Yiannopoulous wrote: "They canceled my book" and "I've gone through worse. This will not defeat me."
Yiannopoulos is known for his vicious criticism of women and Muslims, among others. Last summer, he helped instigate a harassment campaign against "Ghostbusters" star Leslie Jones that led to his banishment from Twitter.
(TM and © Copyright 2017 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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