Milo Yiannopoulos Disinvited From CPAC Amid Resurfaced Pedophilia Comments

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

The American Conservative Union disinvited Breitbart editor and lifetime Twitter exile Milo Yiannopoulos on Monday from speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference over past comments he made “condoning pedophilia.”

“Due to the revelation of an offensive video in the past 24 hours condoning pedophilia, the American Conservative Union has decided to rescind the invitation of Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference,” ACU chair Matt Schlapp wrote in a statement posted to Twitter.

“I would like to restate my utter disgust at adults who sexually abuse minors. I am horrified by pedophilia,” Yiannopoulos wrote in a statement posted on his Facebook page Monday. “But I do understand that these videos, even though some of them are edited deceptively, paint a different picture.”

Yiannopoulos is a figurehead of the so-called “alt-right” white nationalist movement. He was permanently banned from Twitter for leading a targeted harassment campaign against black actress Leslie Jones.

On Sunday, conservative site The Reagan Battalion tweeted a video of a conversation where Yiannopoulos railed against Jews and the “arbitrary and oppressive idea of consent.” He also suggested that relationships between 13-year-olds and adults can happen “perfectly consensually.”

“We get hung up on abuse,” Yiannopoulos said in the conversation. “We get hung up on this sort of child abuse stuff.”

He defended “relationships between younger boys and older men” in the “homosexual world.”

“That sounds like priest molestation to me,” an off-camera participant in the conversation interjected.

“Do you know what? I’m grateful for Father Michael,” Yiannopoulos responded. “I wouldn’t give nearly such good head if it wasn’t for him.”

The same blog later tweeted a longer video of the conversation.

In a statement posted to Facebook on Sunday, Yiannopoulos claimed that the videos were “selectively edited” as part of “a co-ordinated effort” to discredit him.

“I do not support pedophilia. Period,” he wrote. “The videos do not show what people say they show.”

Latest Livewire
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: