Milo Yiannopoulos | |
---|---|
![]() Yiannopoulos in 2013 | |
Born | Milo Hanrahan[1] 18 October 1984 |
Nationality | British |
Other names | Milo Andreas Wagner |
Occupation(s) | Journalist Author |
Years active | 2007–present |
Movement | Alt-right Cultural libertarianism Conservatism |
Spouse | John |
Website | yiannopoulos |
Milo Yiannopoulos (/jəˈnɒpələs/;[2] born Milo Hanrahan; 18 October 1984; also writing under the pen name Milo Andreas Wagner)[3][4] is a British political commentator, publisher, media personality, blogger, journalist and author associated politically with the alt-right.[5][6]
Yiannopoulos is a former senior editor for Breitbart News, who describes himself as a "cultural libertarian".[7] He is a critic of feminism, Islam, social justice, political correctness, and other movements. Though often described a member of the alt-right, he rejects this label, stating that there are many "points of difference" between him and the alt-right movement.[8] In October 2017, leaked emails revealed that Yiannopoulos had repeatedly solicited neo-Nazi and white supremacist figures on the alt-right for feedback and story ideas in his work for Breitbart.[9] The leaked emails also showed that his book and many of his Breitbart articles were ghost-written.
Yiannopoulos was born and raised in Kent. After being expelled from Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys, he studied at the University of Manchester and Wolfson College, Cambridge but failed to gain a degree from either. He began working in technology journalism for The Telegraph before co-running The Kernel, which was devoted to technology journalism, in 2011–13. He was one of the first journalists to cover the Gamergate controversy. In 2015 he began work at Breitbart, attracting attention for his opinions and the company's association with the alt-right. He relocated to the United States, where he became a vocal supporter of Donald Trump's presidential candidacy. In July 2016 he was permanently banned from Twitter for what the company cited as "inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others".
Yiannopoulos is frequently accused of being an apologist for or supporting child sexual abuse, a charge he strenuously denies. The charge arises from a video clip in which he said that sexual relationships between 13-year-old boys and adult men and women can be "perfectly consensual" and positive experiences for the boys.[10] Following the release of the tape, Yiannopoulos was forced out of his position at Breitbart, and lost a contract to publish his autobiography with Simon and Schuster. Yiannopoulos has denied that he is a supporter of such relationships, and claimed that his statements were an attempt to cope with his own past victimhood, as an object of child abuse by unnamed older men. His critics, in claiming that he is a supporter of child sexual abuse, also invoke a second video, in which he stated that child sexual abuse "really is not that big of a deal" and called child-sexual abuse victims "selfish brats" for going public and identifying their accusers years after they were abused.[11]
Born as Milo Hanrahan, Yiannopoulos was born and raised in Kent, England.[12][1] His father, Nicolas Hanrahan, is of half-Greek and half-Irish descent. He has said that his mother, who is British, is of Jewish descent.[13][14][15] Yiannopoulos claims his father wanted to divorce his mother while she was pregnant with him, however, his parents remained together for six more years before divorcing.[14] He described his biological father as "terrifying", remarking at one point, "I would think, if my dad is just a doorman, why do we have such a nice house? Then I saw it on The Sopranos".[14] His biological father moved after the divorce to St Ives, in Cornwall, where he settled with his new Jamaican wife.[16]
Raised by his mother and her second husband, Yiannopoulos has stated he did not have a good relationship with his stepfather. Yiannopoulos has spoken of how his stepfather would beat him up.[17] In a previous interview, he told The Times: "My mother never really stopped that stuff happening with my stepdad. She just let it go on. I don't want to go too much into it... it's ancient history. But I did not have a happy time."[16] As a teenager, Yiannopoulos lived with his paternal grandmother Petronella, who regularly took him for high tea at Claridge's, and whose surname he later adopted.[16][1][14][18] Recalling their relationship, he said: "She [my grandmother] was by far the first person to twig that I was gay. My mother was awful about it, my father was surprisingly understanding, but Nana showed just the right amount of acceptance and concern."[16]
Yiannopoulos was educated at Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury from which he has said he was expelled.[19] He attended the University of Manchester but dropped out before graduating; he then read English at Wolfson College, Cambridge but was sent down[20] in 2010. During a 2012 interview he said of dropping out, "I try to tell myself I'm in good company, but ultimately it doesn't say great things about you unless you go on to terrific success in your own right."[21]
A practising Roman Catholic, Yiannopoulos states his maternal grandmother was Jewish,[22][23][24] which has put him at odds with neo-Nazi adherents in the alt-right.[25] Yiannopoulos is a U.S resident alien on O-1 visa status.[26] Yiannopoulos married his long-term, African-American[16] boyfriend in Hawaii in September 2017.[27][28] The couple prefer at present to keep the full identity of Yiannopoulos' husband secret.[16]
After college, Yiannopoulos initially secured a job at The Catholic Herald.[16] He was very much interested in becoming a theatre critic. However Yiannopoulos break came with his interest in technology journalism while investigating the subject of women in computing in 2009 for The Daily Telegraph.[29]
Yiannopoulos has debated same-sex marriage on Newsnight,[30] and on Channel 4's 10 O'Clock Live with Boy George.[31] He opposed the provision of "Soho masses."[32] In November 2013, he debated with singer Will Young on Newsnight about the use of the word "gay" in the playground,[33] and with rapper Tinchy Stryder on the same programme in May 2014, about copyright infringement and music piracy.[34] In March 2015, he appeared on The Big Questions, discussing topics relating to feminism and discrimination against men in the United Kingdom.[35]
In March 2017 he was nominated to stand in the election for rector of the University of Glasgow to succeed Edward Snowden, a post elected by students of the University of Glasgow in Scotland; he came fourth with 533 votes to Aamer Anwar's 4,500.[36] He had demanded the university's Muslim Students Association was shut down.[37]
In November 2017 he was hired by the conservative American news and opinion website The Daily Caller to write a weekly column, but was fired after his first column was published,[38] and the opinion editor who hired him was also subsequently fired.[39][40]
Yiannopoulos organised a method of ranking the most promising technology start-ups in Europe, The Telegraph Tech Start-Up 100, in 2011. It operated through an events company called Wrong Agency, started by Yiannopoulos and David Rosenberg, a friend from Cambridge University. The company was dissolved shortly after the ceremony that awarded the top start-up.[4] Mike Butcher of TechCrunch said the main prize had been given to music streaming service Spotify, even though his casting vote had gone to the controversial payday loan company Wonga, because the Telegraph considered Wonga's reputation objectionable.[41]
Together with university friends David Rosenberg and David Haywood Smith, journalist Stephen Pritchard and former Telegraph employee Adrian McShane, Yiannopoulos launched The Kernel in November 2011 to "fix European technology journalism."[42] The Kernel was at that time owned by Sentinel Media.
In 2012, the online magazine became embroiled in a legal dispute with one of its contributors after he said it failed to pay money owed to him.[4] The Kernel closed in March 2013, with thousands of pounds owed to former contributor Jason Hesse when he won a summary judgement from an employment tribunal against parent company Sentinel Media. Margot Huysman, whom Yiannopoulos had appointed associate editor and was one of the people seeking payment, said that many working for the site had been "screwed over" personally and financially.[43]
Yiannopoulos also threatened, via email, to release embarrassing details and photographs of a Kernel contributor who sought payment for their work for the site and he also accused the contributor of being behind the "majority of damage to The Kernel". The unnamed contributor told The Guardian that the emails had been referred to the police.[44]
German venture capital vehicle BERLIN42 acquired The Kernel's assets in early 2013. The website displayed plans for a relaunch in August 2013 with fresh investment and Yiannopoulos reinstated as editor-in-chief.[45] BERLIN42 founding partner Aydogan Ali Schosswald would join its newly formed publishing company, Kernel Media, as chief executive. Yiannopoulos personally paid six former contributors money that the defunct company was unable to pay.[45] Parent company Sentinel Media Ltd was eventually dissolved on 18 February 2014 after being struck off by Companies House.[46]
The Independent on Sunday reported that the relaunched publication, based between London and Berlin, would focus on "modern warfare, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, pornography and space travel" from August, but newsletter The Nutshell would not return.[47]
In 2014, The Kernel was acquired by Daily Dot Media, the parent company of The Daily Dot. After the acquisition by Daily Dot Media, Yiannopoulos stepped down as editor-in-chief though he remained an adviser to the company.[48]
Yiannopoulos played a role in early news coverage of the Gamergate controversy, criticising what he saw as the politicisation of video game culture by "an army of sociopathic feminist programmers and campaigners, abetted by achingly politically correct American tech bloggers."[49][50][51] In December 2014, he announced he was working on a book about Gamergate.[52]
As part of his coverage of Gamergate, he published correspondence from GameJournoPros, a private mailing list used by video game journalists to discuss industry related topics.[53][54] Yiannopoulos said that the list was evidence that journalists were colluding to offer negative coverage of Gamergate.[55]
Kyle Orland, the creator of the list, responded to the leak on Ars Technica. Orland disputed the claim that the list suggested collusion among journalists, but said that he had written a message saying several things that he later regretted.[56] Carter Dotson of pocketgamer.biz said that the list was indicative of an echo chamber effect in the gaming press.[57]
During the controversy, Yiannopoulos said that he received a syringe filled with an unknown substance through the post,[58][59] as well as a dead animal.
In May 2015, a meetup in Washington D.C. for supporters of Gamergate arranged by Yiannopoulos and Christina Hoff Sommers was targeted by a bomb threat made over Twitter, according to the local police responding to information supplied by the FBI.[60] Similarly, three months later in August 2015, an event at the Koubek Center in Miami sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists was targeted by bomb threats, forcing the evacuation of the building and the suspension of a panel with Yiannopoulos and Sommers.[61][62][63][64]
In October 2015, the Breitbart News Network placed Yiannopoulos in charge of its new "Breitbart Tech" section. The site has six full-time staff, including an eSports specialist,[65][66] and was edited by Yiannopoulos until his resignation on 21 February 2017.[67]
In January 2016, Yiannopoulos co-founded the Yiannopoulos Privilege Grant with Margaret MacLennan.[68] The grant planned to disburse 50 grants of $2,500 to disadvantaged white men to assist them with their tertiary expenses, starting in the 2016–17 academic year; 100 grants of the same amount would be disbursed in the second year, and 200 in the third.[69] The Privilege Grant's official website was temporarily taken down due to DDoS attacks.[70] As of August 2016, the grant scheme had not paid out any money or filed paperwork to become a charity in the United States.[71]
McLennan, formerly bursary manager of the grant, posted criticism of it on social media in August 2016, indicating it was mismanaged and that she had ceased managing the grant the previous March because she hadn't been paid and that the movement had ended.[72][73] Yiannopoulos apologised for mismanaging the grant and admitted that he had missed a deadline for turning donations into bursaries. He denied speculation he had spent the money and blamed a busy schedule. He appointed a new fund administrator, and a pilot grant had been scheduled to begin the following spring, with full disbursement in the 2017/18 academic year.[72] On 31 March 2017, the Privilege Grant website reported that ten applicants had been selected to receive pilot project grants.[74]
In mid-2017, Yiannopoulos launched Milo, Inc., a new media outlet "dedicated to the destruction of political correctness".[75][76]
While Yiannopoulos is openly gay, he has stated "Gay Rights Have Made Us Dumber" and that gays should "get back in the closet".[77] He has described being gay as "aberrant" and "a lifestyle choice guaranteed to bring [gay people] pain and unhappiness."[78]
In 2017 he criticised Pope Francis for his liberalism in areas such as reaching out to gay people, adding that the best media advice he could give to Francis would be “stop talking.” In the interview he reiterated his belief that homosexuality is a sin and condemned those (including clergy) who sought to change Church dogma on the issue.[79]
Kevin Williamson in the National Review argued that "Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart London has done more to put homosexual camp in the service of right-wing authoritarianism than any man has since the fellows at Hugo Boss sewed all those nifty SS uniforms."[80]
Yiannopoulos and feminist Julie Bindel were scheduled to participate in October 2015 in the University of Manchester Free Speech and Secular Society's debate ′From liberation to censorship: does modern feminism have a problem with free speech?′. However, the Students' Union banned first Bindel, then also Yiannopoulos.[81] The Union cited Bindel's comments on transgender women and Yiannopoulos' opinions on rape culture and stated that both breached the Union's safe-space policy.[82][83]
Yiannopoulos was scheduled to talk at Bristol University the following month.[84] After protesters attempted to have him banned from the university, the event became a debate between Yiannopoulos and The Daily Telegraph blogger and feminist Rebecca Reid.[85]
The No Platform policy of the UK's National Union of Students is intended to protect campuses from "individuals or members of organisations or groups identified by the Democratic Procedures Committee as holding racist or fascist views".[86][87][88]
In December 2015, Twitter briefly suspended Yiannopoulos' account after he changed his profile to describe himself as BuzzFeed's "social justice editor."[89] His Twitter account's blue "verification" checkmark was removed by the site the following month.[89] Twitter declined to give an explanation for the removal of verification, saying that they do not comment on individual cases.[90] Some news outlets speculated that Yiannopoulos had violated its speech and harassment codes, as with an instance where he told another user that they "deserved to be harassed."[91][92] Others worried that Twitter was targeting conservatives.[93][94][95]
In March 2016, Yiannopoulos acquired accreditation for a White House press briefing for the first time.[96]
For his criticism of Islam after the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, a terrorist attack on a gay nightclub, his Twitter account was briefly suspended in June 2016. His account was later restored.[97]
In July 2016, Yiannopoulos panned the Ghostbusters reboot as "a movie to help lonely middle-aged women feel better about being left on the shelf."[98] After the film's release, Twitter trolls attacked African-American actress Leslie Jones with racist slurs and bigoted commentary. Yiannopoulos wrote three public tweets about Jones, saying "Ghostbusters is doing so badly they've deployed [Leslie Jones] to play the victim on Twitter," before describing her reply to him as "Barely literate" and then calling her a "black dude."[99][100][101] Multiple media outlets have described Yiannopoulos' tweets as encouraging the abuse directed at Jones.[102][103] Yiannopoulos was then permanently banned by Twitter for what the company cited as "inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others".[104][105][106]
Yiannopoulos stated that he was banned because of his conservative beliefs.[107] In an interview with CNBC, he denounced the abusive tweets sent by others at Jones, and said he was not responsible for them.[108] After his suspension from Twitter, the hashtag "#FreeMilo" began trending on the site by those who opposed Twitter's decision to ban him.[109]
In an interview at the 2016 Republican National Convention, Yiannopoulos thanked Twitter for banning him claiming he believed it had increased his celebrity.[110]
In February 2017, it was announced that Yiannopoulos would address the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). A conservative website, Reagan Battalion, then posted video of 2015 and 2016 clips of YouTube interviews[111][112][113] at the request of a 16-year-old Canadian student who was opposed to Yiannopoulos' CPAC address.[114]
In the interview in a January 2016 episode of the podcast Drunken Peasants,[115] Yiannopoulos stated that sexual relationships between 13-year-old boys and adult men and women can "happen perfectly consensually", because some 13-year-olds are, in his view, sexually and emotionally mature enough to consent to sex with adults; he spoke favourably both of gay 13-year-old boys having sex with adult men and straight 13-year-old boys having sex with adult women.[116][117] He used his own experience as an example, saying he was mature enough to be capable of giving consent at a young age.[112] He also stated that "paedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 13 years old, who is sexually mature" but rather that "paedophilia is attraction to children who have not reached puberty."[116][117]
Later in the interview, after his previous comments received some pushback from the hosts, he stated: "I think the age of consent law is probably about right, that is probably roughly the right age ... but there are certainly people who are capable of giving consent at a younger age, I certainly consider myself to be one of them."[116]
Yiannopoulos went on to state that the age of consent is "probably right", when he was subsequently accused of having supported sexual abuse of minors. Following the release of this interview, media personalities and organisations across the political spectrum accused Yiannopoulos of being a supporter of, or, apologist for, child sexual abuse.
Yiannopoulos subsequently held a press conference, at which he said he had been the victim of child abuse, and that his comments were a way to cope with it. He declined to identify his abusers or discuss the incidents in any detail. He characterised his comments as the "usual blend of British sarcasm, provocation and gallows humour", and dismissed the allegation that he endorses child molestation. He alleged the video had been edited to give a misleading impression.[6][118]
Yiannopoulos stated that; "I will not apologise for dealing with my life experiences in the best way that I can, which is humour. No one can tell me or anyone else who has lived through sexual abuse how to deal with those emotions. But I am sorry to other abuse victims if my own personal way of dealing with what happened to me has hurt you."[119]
Media personalities across the political spectrum condemned Yiannopoulos's original comments, and interpreted them as an endorsement of sexual abuse;[120] CPAC withdrew Yiannopoulos's invitation to speak at their annual event because he had "condoned pedophilia" through his comments,[121] stating that his apology was inadequate.[118] Editorials in conservative media, including National Review,[122] The Blaze,[123] Townhall,[124] and The American Conservative[125] have characterised his comments as supportive of paedophilia or pederasty.
In response to the controversy, Simon & Schuster cancelled its plans to publish his autobiography in June 2017.[126] Media outlets reported on 20 February that Breitbart was considering terminating Yiannopoulos' contract as a result of the controversy.[127][128][129] Yiannopoulos resigned from Breitbart on 21 February, reportedly under pressure to do so.[130][131]
Throughout the controversy, Yiannopoulos was criticised for [in his words] attending Hollywood "boat parties" and "house parties" in which boys he described as "very young - very young" were sexually abused, but failing to report the abusers to the authorities or to identify them during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience.[132]
On 10 March, an additional video emerged in which Yiannopoulos said on a 2015 episode of Gavin McInnes' show that child sexual abuse is "really is not that big of a deal." He mocked child sexual-abuse victims by calling them "whinging selfish brats" for "suddenly" remembering they were abused, and "suddenly" deciding it was a problem, 20 years after the abuse occurred. He also repeated the canard alleging that a disproportionate number of paedophiles are homosexual.[11]
Yiannopoulos is commonly associated with the alt-right.[5][86][6] In a November 2016 interview with Channel 4, Yiannopoulos talked about his relationship with the movement – "We're fellow travellers on some issues. But I’m very pro-Iraq, I'm very pro-Israel. There are all sorts of points of difference, I think".[8]
In a Breitbart article, Yiannopoulos and a co-author described the alt-right movement as "dangerously bright." The Tablet claimed many of these intellectual backers write for publications Tablet describes as racist and antisemitic, like VDARE and American Renaissance.[24] The Breitbart article was criticised by opponents of the alt-right for excusing the extremist elements of the movement, and also by the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer which holds that racism and antisemitism are pillars of the alt-right.[133] Yiannopoulos has said that alt-right hardliners do not like him because he is "a degenerate, race-mixing gay Jew".[88]
The Anti-Defamation League classifies Yiannopoulos as part of the alt-lite; a term used to distinguish individuals sometimes associated with the alt-right from those who are openly white nationalist and anti-semitic.[134][135]
A Daily Beast article in September 2016 suggested that Yiannopoulos has received funding from virtual reality tycoon Palmer Luckey.[136]
In early October 2017, BuzzFeed News published leaked email chains from Yiannopoulos' tenure at Breitbart. According to the report, Yiannopoulos and his ghostwriter Allum Bokhari regularly solicited ideas for stories and comments from people associated with the alt-right and neo-Nazi movements.[9] Among the figures Yiannopoulos contacted were Curtis Yarvin, a central figure of the neoreactionary movement;[137] Devin Saucier, the editor of the white supremacist magazine American Renaissance;[138] Andrew Auernheimer, the administrator of neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer;[138] and Baked Alaska, a commentator known for his anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi tweets.[139] Yiannopoulos also was in contact and received suggestions and texts from individuals in "traditionally liberal professions" such as entertainment and media. Mitchell Sunderland from Vice News emailed Yiannopoulos a link to an article by Lindy West of The New York Times, and requested: "Please mock this fat feminist."[140][141] The report also included a video of Yiannopoulos singing "America the Beautiful" at a karaoke bar, where a crowd of neo-Nazis and white supremacists, including Saucier and Richard B. Spencer, cheered him with the Nazi sieg heil salute.[9][142]
Yiannopoulos has subsequently claimed that he did not see the Nazi salutes while he was singing because of his "extreme myopia".[142] According to the bartender who was working on the night of the incident, Yiannopoulos, Richard Spencer and their entourage came into the bar and asked to sing karaoke even though it had ended. When the bartender saw the Nazi salutes she rushed the stage and told Yiannopoulos and his friends to leave, at which point they began harassing her, chanting "Trump! Trump! Trump!" and "Make America Great Again!" According to her, Yiannopoulos was getting the others "aroused". The group left after the bartender's coworkers backed her up.[143]
The story also reported that Yiannopoulos had a penchant for using personal passwords with anti-semitic overtones, such as "Kristall", a reference to Kristallnacht, a pogrom the Nazis initiated against Jews in 1938, and "longknives1290", a reference to another Nazi massacre, the Night of the Long Knives, and the Edict of Expulsion of 1290 in which Edward I of England expelled all Jews from his kingdom.[144]
Yiannopoulos was twice featured in Wired UK's yearly top 100 most influential people in Britain's digital economy: at 84 in 2011[145] and at 98 in 2012.[21][146] In 2012, he was called the "pit bull of tech media" by Ben Dowell of The Observer.[147]
Yiannopoulos hosted an event known as the Young Rewired State competition in 2010 which is an initiative to showcase the technological talents of 15–18-year-olds.[148] Yiannopoulos also organised the London Nude Tech Calendar which is a calendar featuring members of the London technology scene for the purpose to raise money for an organisation called Take Heart India.[149]
I am not a white supremacist, I am not a white nationalist, I am not a bigot, sexist, racist. I am not any of those things.[150]
Milo Yiannopoulos
Yiannopoulos is a supporter of Donald Trump. He has been compared to Ann Coulter and referred to as the "face of a political movement," but he says his real concern is "pop culture and free speech." As he states: "I don’t care about politics, I only talk about politics because of Trump."[14]
However, following Trump's decision to attack a Syrian air base in April 2017, Yiannopoulos distanced himself from the President, stating that the missile strike was "the opposite of why people voted for him.” This sentiment was shared by a sizeable part of Trump's online supporters including Ann Coulter and Mike Cernovich, who was the first to report on the impending attack.[151][152]
In late 2015, Yiannopoulos began a campus speaking tour called "The Dangerous Faggot Tour", encompassing universities in the United States and Great Britain. Although most of his American speeches were not cancelled, many were met with notable protest ranging from vocal disruptions to violent demonstrations. The journalist Audrey Goddard analysed his speech at the University of Pittsburgh, concluding that Yiannopoulos spends the "majority of the time voicing his opinions with little to no factual statements accompanying them", which Goddard determined was ironic taking in account how Yiannopoulos repeatedly insisted "that he was just stating 'facts'."[153]
On 24 May 2016 Yiannopoulos's speech at the DePaul University, a Roman Catholic school, was interrupted after about 15 minutes by two protesters who rushed the stage: DePaul alumnus and pastor Edward Ward, and student Kayla Johnson.[154][155]
The crowd overwhelmingly began booing the two protesters, at one point chanting "Get a job." The campus security team that university administrators required the College Republicans to hire the day before (at an extra cost of $1,000, part of which was paid by Yiannopoulos himself), reportedly made no effort to remove the protesters.[156][157] This was in addition to further protests outside the event venue both before and after the event, which featured students reacting violently to Yiannopoulos's supporters.[158]
In the aftermath of the incident, university president Dennis H. Holtschneider issued a statement reaffirming the value of free speech and apologising for the harm caused by Yiannopoulos's appearance on the campus. Attendees of the talk, organised by DePaul's College Republican's Chapter, criticised university police and event security for not removing the protesters.[159][160]
Yiannopoulos later stated that he and the College Republicans wanted a refund of the money that was paid to the security team that ultimately did nothing.[161][162][163] The university later agreed to reimburse the College Republicans for the costs of event security.[164] Within three days, the university's ratings on Facebook became overwhelmingly dominated by 1-star reviews. This ultimately accumulated over 16,000 1-star reviews that brought the university's average to 1.1, before the page's rating system was closed indefinitely.[165]
On 20 January 2017, Yiannopoulos spoke at the University of Washington. The event sparked large protests.[166] A 34-year-old man was shot while protesting the event, and was put into intensive care at a hospital in Seattle, having suffered from life-threatening injuries. The man was later declared to be in stable condition. The as-of-yet unnamed shooter – a 29-year-old former student of the University of Washington – was attending the event in support of Yiannopoulos and Trump. He eventually turned himself in to the University of Washington police and later questioned and released without being charged with a crime. A witness recalled seeing someone release pepper spray in the crowd, which triggered the shooting confrontation.[citation needed]
Through his lawyer, the shooting victim announced plans to make a public statement at a later date.[167][168]
Main article: 2017 Berkeley protests |
On 1 February 2017, Yiannopoulos was scheduled to make a speech at UC Berkeley at 8:00 pm. More than 100 UC Berkeley faculty had signed a petition urging the university to cancel the event.[169] Over 1,500 people gathered to protest against the event on the steps of Sproul Hall, with some violence occurring.[170]
According to the university, around 150 masked agitators came onto campus and interrupted the protest, setting fires, damaging property, throwing fireworks, attacking members of the crowd, and throwing rocks at the police.[171] These violent protestors included members of BAMN, who threw rocks at police, shattered windows, threw Molotov cocktails, and later vandalised downtown Berkeley.[172] Among those assaulted were a Syrian Muslim in a suit who was pepper sprayed and hit with a rod by a protester dressed all in black who said "You look like a Nazi",[173] and a woman who was pepper sprayed while being interviewed by a TV reporter.[174]
Citing security concerns, the UC Police Department decided to cancel the event.[170][175] One person was arrested for failure to disperse, and there was about $100,000 in damage.[176] The police were criticised for their "hands off" policy whereby they did not arrest any of the demonstrators who committed assault, vandalism, or arson.[177][178]
President Trump criticised the university on Twitter for failing to allow freedom of speech, and threatened to defund UC Berkeley.[179][180] After the incident, Yiannopoulos' upcoming book, Dangerous, returned to number one for a few days on Amazon's "Best Sellers" list.[181][182]
According to Yiannopoulos' Facebook post, he planned to return to Berkeley, "hopefully within the next few months."[183] He was invited by the Berkeley Patriot student organisation to appear at events, scheduled for 24–27 September, entitled "Free Speech Week"[184] along with Coulter, Steve Bannon, Pamela Geller, Mike Cernovich and Erik Prince.[185]
Having not signed contracts with various invitees for them to appear and having already backed out of its only reserved, indoor venues, on 23 September, Berkeley Patriot notified the campus that they were cancelling all Free Speech Week activities.[186][187][188] Yiannopoulos stated that afternoon that he and other speakers would still come to campus and hold a "March for Free Speech".[189] On 24 September, Yiannopoulos, Cernovich and Geller arrived outside Sproul Hall and Yiannopoulos spoke briefly without a sound system and sang "The Star-Spangled Banner".[190] Hundreds of protesters and supporters surrounded the police barricades that were erected around the plaza. Attendees were admitted into the plaza only after passing through a metal detector; approximately 150 people saw Yiannopoulos speak, while hundreds more waited in line. An "unprecedented" number of police officers were brought in, costing the university an estimated $800,000. Afterwards, protesters, mocking Yiannopoulos's speech, chanted, "Immigrants are here to stay, Milo had to run away."[191][192] Berkeley police reported at least 11 arrests, but no injuries or damage to buildings.[193]
UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said afterwards that the media event amounted to "the most expensive photo op in the university's history."[194][193]
Yiannopoulos wrote introductions for the 2017 science fiction compilation Forbidden Thoughts and the Vox Day non-fiction release SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police. He published two poetry books under the name Milo Andreas Wagner. His 2007 release Eskimo Papoose was later scrutinised for re-using lines from pop music and television without attribution, to which he replied that it was done deliberately and the work was satirical.[3]
Main article: Dangerous (book) |
An autobiography titled Dangerous was announced in December 2016. Yiannopoulos reportedly received a $250,000 advance payment from the book's planned publisher, Simon & Schuster. It was intended to be published under their Threshold Editions imprint and to be issued on 14 March 2017, but Yiannopoulos pushed back the schedule to June so he could write about the demonstrations during his campus tour.[195] A day after its announcement, pre-sales for the book elevated it to first place on Amazon.com's list of best-sellers.[196]
The book announcement attracted controversy, including a statement on Twitter by The Chicago Review of Books that they would not review any Simon & Schuster books because of the book deal.[197][198] It also drew support from a number of anti-censorship groups, including English PEN.[199]
Simon & Schuster dropped publication of Dangerous on 20 February 2017. The publisher's cancellation occurred in the wake of the video and sexual-consent comments controversy that also led to CPAC withdrawing its speaking invitation and Yiannopoulos to resign from Breitbart.[119][200][119] Yiannopoulos said in response that he is suing Simon & Schuster for willful and opportunistic 'breach of contract' and 'breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing'[201] The publisher says these claims are entirely 'without merit'. In a publicly issued statement, Simon & Schuster said: "We believe that Yiannopoulos's lawsuit is publicity-driven and entirely without merit. Simon & Schuster will vigorously defend itself against any such action, and fully expects to prevail in court."[202] The lawsuit, filed by Yiannopoulos' lawyers in the New York Supreme Court, alleges that Simon & Schuster broke contract when they decided against publishing his memoir Dangerous amid the controversy over the video clip in which Yiannopoulos appeared to defend sexual relationships between men and boys. Yiannopoulos says he now was forced to self-publishing his memoir, contending that the book would have sold more copies if it had been supported by the publisher.[203]
In a press release on 26 May 2017, Yiannopoulos announced that the book would be self-published by his publishing company, "Dangerous Books", on 4 July 2017.[204] Soon after the announcement, the book became the best-selling political humour book on Amazon.[205][206][207] He is reportedly asking for $10 million in damages from Simon & Schuster.[208]
The book was a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller.[209][210] The book further peaked at #1 on Publisher Weekly's nonfiction bestseller list and at #2 on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list.[211]