Milo Yiannopoulos, the man banned from Twitter, resigned as tech editor with Breitbart, the alt-right website.
“Breitbart News has stood by me when others caved,” he wrote on Facebook. “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.”
Milo Yiannopoulous resigns from Breitbart News Network. #BREAKING https://t.co/6N9XAOOsjO pic.twitter.com/S6eitcNX21
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) February 21, 2017
Breitbart then released a statement announcingit accepted the editor’s resignation.
BREITBART statement on Milo’s resignation: pic.twitter.com/Enhro1rL0p
— Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) February 21, 2017
Yiannopoulosfaced severe backlash after a video resurfaced in which he appeared to dismiss pedophilia being child sexual abuse by joking that his own sexual prowess is what it is because of the advances of a priest. “It was perfectly consensual,” he added. “When I was 14, I was the predator.”
[Audio is NSFW due to language.]
AUDIO: Milo Yiannopoulos advocating for pedophilia in an interview. He’s the keynote at @CPAC and he has a book deal with @simonschuster pic.twitter.com/vlhc90InMl
— Yashar (@yashar) February 20, 2017
In his statement on Tuesday, Yiannopoulus wrote: “Between the ages of 13 and 16, two men touched me in ways they should not have. One of those men was a priest.”
OnMonday, Yiannopoulos was removed as a featured speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference andlost his book deal with Simon & Schuster.
Yiannopoulosalso wrote that while he does not support pedophilia, he will not apologize for dealing with his own trauma with humor.
“Don’t think for a moment that this will stop me being as offensive, provocative and outrageously funny as I want on any subject I want. America has a colossal free speech problem,” he continued in his post. “The land of the First Amendment has some of the most oppressive social restrictions on free expression anywhere in the western world. I’m proud to be a warrior for free speech and creative expression.”