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Milo Yiannopoulos resigns from Breitbart News

Embattled conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos announced on Tuesday that he would resign from Breitbart News, where he was a senior editor.

"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," Yiannopoulos said in a press release. "This decision is mine alone."

Yiannopoulos addressed his resignation at a press conference in lower Manhattan Tuesday afternoon, arguing that while he believes the tapes that led to his resignation were deceptively edited, he was "certainly guilty of imprecise language."

"To repeat: I do not support child abuse," Yiannopoulos said at the press conference. "I am sorry to other abuse victims who may have interpreted my statements as flippant."

His book, "Dangerous," which was to be published by Simon & Schuster before the company dropped the Breitbart editor on Monday, will be released independently later in 2017, with 10 percent of proceeds to a child abuse charity, he said.

Outside of the meeting space where the presser is being held, a small group of protesters held signs and chanted, while inside, a dozens of reporters from outlets like Reuters and Fox News set up camera crews to capture the action.

Yiannopoulos' comments created tension within Breitbart, with some staffers uncomfortable with how slowly Breitbart leadership was to respond to the controversy surrounding their employee and how little they communicated with staff throughout the weekend. Some threatened to leave if Yiannopoulos stayed.

Despite his resignation, some staffers still feel that the latest controversy to engulf the company was a bridge too far.

"Milo Yiannopoulos’s bold voice has sparked much-needed debate on important cultural topics confronting universities, the LGBTQ community, the press, and the tech industry," a statement from Breitbart said. "Milo notified us this morning of his decision to resign as editor of Breitbart Tech and we accepted his resignation.”

At the press conference, Yiannopoulos said Breitbart editor-in-chief Alex Marlow "has been nothing but supportive," but he declined to say whether the site's management asked him to resign or whether he offered it voluntarily, saying he would keep the details of his conversation with Marlow "confidential." Yiannopoulos blamed the media for the controversy and for not reporting on the comments sooner, calling it a "cynical media witch hunt." That sentiment was also expressed by Marlow on Breitbart's radio show on Tuesday morning.

"This is a cynical media witch hunt from people who don't care about children. They care about destroying me and my career, and by extension my allies," Yiannopoulos said. "They know that although I made some outrageous statements, I've never actually done anything wrong. These videos have been out there for more than a year. The media held this story back because they don't care about victims, they only care about bringing me down. They will fail."

Charles Gasparino at Fox Business Network reported that Breitbart leadership had to determine how much traffic Yiannopoulos brought in versus the possible business losses they'd suffer from advertisers pulling out.

“He would be a business albatross if he stayed," Gasparino said on air.

Yiannopoulos, who joined Breitbart as technology editor in 2015, has come under fire for recent days after the emergence of a tape that shows him advocating for sexual relationships between "younger boys and older men."

He announced at his press conference that he plans to start a new media venture in the coming weeks.

"My full focus is now going to be on entertaining and educating everyone, left, right and otherwise. If you want to brand or stereotype me, good luck with that," Yiannopoulos said. "America has a colossal free speech problem, I'm proud to be a warrior for free speech."

Yiannopoulos is a leading figure of the alt-right movement and a prominent supporter of Donald Trump. He has made a career out of offending liberals and has always weathered past controversies. But the emergence of his comments on pedophilia has prompted his conservative allies to turn on him, precipitating a rapid fall from grace.

On Monday, Yiannopoulos lost his book deal with Simon & Schuster and was disinvited from conservative conference CPAC, where he previously had a keynote speaking slot.

