Milo Yiannopoulos’s book, Dangerous, has been dumped by his publisher after footage emerged of the alt-right agitator appearing to defend pedophilia.
He confirmed the news on his Facebook page after rumours emerged on Twitter.
In December, it was reported the British-born Breitbart News editor had signed a $250,000 book deal with Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
In the videos, which were posted online Sunday, Yiannopoulos can be heard defending “relationships between younger boys and older men”, saying that society tends to “get hung up on this sort of child abuse stuff”.
Yiannopoulos responded in a post on Facebook, stating that the videos of him were “selectively edited.” “I do not support pedophilia. Period,” he said.
“If it somehow comes across (through my own sloppy phrasing or through deceptive editing) that I meant any of the ugly things alleged, let me set the record straight: I am completely disgusted by the abuse of children.”
Simon & Schuster’s Adam Rothberg later announced that the company and its Threshold Editions division would be cancelling the book that was due for release on June 13.
The alt-right poster boy had been disinvited from the Conservative Political Action Conference, a conference held next week that is set to feature speakers including Vice President Mike Pence and Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
At the time, the publisher said Dangerous would “be a book on free speech by the outspoken and controversial gay British writer and editor at Breitbart News who describes himself as ‘the most fabulous supervillain on the internet’”.
Yiannopoulos has denied being a member of the alt-right but became its de facto spokesman in the wake of GamerGate, which saw the sustained online harassment of a female game developer and other women in gaming.
In 2014, Yiannopoulos announced he was writing a book about GamerGate, which never materialised. The following year he announced he was writing a book called The Sociopaths of Silicon Valley, which also never appeared.
It means the only book available penned by Yiannopoulos is a self-published tome of poetry entitled Eskimo Papoose, which he wrote under the name Milo Andreas Wagner and apparently borrows heavily from Tori Amos, Britney Spears and Mariah Carey.Simon & Schuster received a hefty backlash to their decision to publish Dangerous in the first place, given Yiannopoulos’ history of xenophobia, misogyny, and hate speech. Some critics threatened to boycott the publishing house in response.
Yiannopoulos has long used his platform to promote hateful views, from calling Black Lives Matter a “terrorist organization” to likening feminism to a “cancer.” He also outed a transgender woman in 2016 and called for the online harassment of comedian Leslie Jones.