A rape apologist and self-described “pick up artist” who demeans women and glorifies sexual assault is shutting down his website because he no longer has the funds to keep it running.
Daryush “Roosh” Valizadeh announced Monday that he is shuttering Return of Kings, a website that boasts about sexual conquests, whines about the rise of feminism and bemoans the supposed emasculation of men. Articles by Valizadeh and other contributors include “8 Things That Make a Girl Stupid And Useless,” “Men Benefit from Acting Potentially Violent And Explosive Around Women” and “Men Should Start Recording Sex With A Hidden Camera.”
In a post explaining his website’s demise, which Valizadeh called an “indefinite hiatus,” he said he didn’t have the money to maintain the site and was “burned out.”
“We’ve been banned from Paypal and countless ad partners, which forced me to lay off the site editor last year and also lower payments to regular contributors,” Valizadeh wrote. “This started a negative spiral of declining content quality, site traffic, and revenues. Even the beloved comments section, which many see as the highlight of ROK, was badly hit when Disqus banned us. Currently, ROK receives half the traffic of its peak and less than one-fifth of the income.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled Return of Kings a hate group in which “the harassment of women is encouraged.”
It’s been a bad month for Valizadeh, who in September saw nine of his books taken off Amazon after HuffPost reached out to the company to make it aware of content that bragged about rape.
“In America, having sex with her would have been rape, since she couldn’t legally give her consent,” he wrote in a 2011 book once sold on Amazon. “It didn’t help matters that I was relatively sober, but I can’t say I cared or even hesitated.”
He continued: “If a girl is willing to walk home with me, she’s going to get the dick no matter how much she has drunk.” In the same chapter, he described how he once “jammed” his penis into a woman who was “half-asleep.”
That same month, YouTube deleted a video from Valizadeh’s channel for violating its hate speech policy and banned him from livestreaming for three months after HuffPost reached out to the company. He now has one “strike” against his account. If a user receives three strikes within a three-month period, YouTube will terminate the channel.
Valizadeh has ignored HuffPost’s repeated requests for comment. In his statement, he attempted to paint himself as a martyr.
“I’m sure many of you understand that we are in the early stages of a censorship wave that will sweep through society,” he wrote. “Scoundrels like myself get banned first, and then soon the hammer will come down on anyone who dares to share the truth. Personally, I believe that I will suffer death by a million cuts.”