A YouTuber believed to be a ‘killer clown’ terrorising students with a chainsaw at Brunel University has been left red-faced after he was forced to apologise over a prank gone wrong.
Students at the West London university were petrified after they spotted a man known as ‘Kenny’, a 19-year-old Media Studies student at the university, appearing to wield a chainsaw at members of the public while dressed in a gold clown costume and curly red wig.
But Kenny says he was not participating in the sinister ‘killer clown’ movement sweeping the UK, but was rather that he was filming a “pre-planned” video with actors for his YouTube channel KingKennyTv.
He told The Huffington Post UK: “It was a pre-planned video for my YouTube channel - everyone in the video are my friends and we had planned it.
“I also took my mask off beforehand and told everyone filming me: ‘I’m not harming anyone I’m just filming a video’.
“I would never ever terrorise anyone in my life, it’s not even in my nature to do so,” he added.
“It was purely for entertainment purposes to grow my channel.”
The video is the latest in a series of pranks on his channel, which has more than 1,500 subscribers.
“Of course the YouTube video looks like I’m chasing randomers, but that’s the whole point - to make it look like that give people shock value so they share it more,” Kenny added.
The 19-year-old sent a series of Tweets apologising for filming on campus after leaked footage of him making the video was posted to social media by terrified students who did not know about his project.
The Media Studies student is facing disciplinary procedures from Brunel’s security team after he turned himself in for the prank and says he has been told he is no longer allowed to film on campus without permission.
In a statement, Brunel’s security operations manager Terry Vass said: “Someone dressed as a clown and carrying what appeared to be a chainsaw was seen on the campus on Saturday night.
“Although we can’t confirm whether the chainsaw was real or not, we take such incidents and our students’ safety extremely seriously.
“Brunel’s campus is patrolled by security teams 24 hours a day and is monitored by more than 400 CCTV cameras, which we are now examining.”
Following the backlash from his stunt, Kenny has warned others who might be thinking about filming a killer clown prank video.
“Make sure you inform people what you are doing - that was my biggest mistake,” he said.
He added that if he was to make the video again, he would make sure to include a message explaining that everyone involved were actors.
The incident comes as series of ‘killer clown’ sweep UK universities.
University of East Anglia Freshers were left shaken after a man dressed in a creepy clown costume chased them on their way home, while a student at the University of Kent claims he was pursued by a group killer clowns in a Ford Fiesta.