Felix Kjellberg, the highest-paid YouTuber in 2016, says he learned nothing from previous racist controversies and that ‘there are no excuses for it’

YouTube star PewDiePie has apologised for using a racial slur during a livestream, saying that he is “disappointed in himself”.

In a short video posted to his YouTube account , the vlogger – real name Felix Kjellberg, the highest-paid YouTuber in 2016 – said he was “not going to make any excuses” as to why he said the n-word in the middle of a game of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, “because there are no excuses for it.”

“I’m disappointed in myself because it seems like I’ve learned nothing from all these past controversies,” he added, referring to the widespread backlash from advertising and business partners after a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed multiple times the once child-friendly star had used anti-semitic or nazi imagery as the punchline to jokes.

“It’s not that I think I can say or do whatever I want and get away with it, that’s not it at all, I’m just an idiot, but that doesn’t make what I said or how I said it OK,” Kjellberg continued. “It was not OK. I’m really sorry if I offended, hurt or disappointed anyone with all of this. Being in the position I am, I should know better … and I owe it to my audience and myself to do better than this.”

Kjellberg’s statement has received a mixed reception from commentators. While it is a more conciliatory apology than that issued by the star following the Wall Street Journal’s investigation – where he railed against “out-of-context” reports into his use of antisemitic imagery as punchlines to jokes – it repeats the defence that Kjellberg used racist language only “in the heat of the moment”.

“I’ve played video games my entire life and I’ve definitely done and seen people do dumb things ‘in the heat of the moment’,” wrote Motherboard’s Emanuel Maiberg. “But I’ve never seen a friend hurl a racist slur at another player just because they were angry.

“Hearing people yell the n-word over voice chat is easily one of the worst things about video games and internet culture in general, and this is the type of behaviour Kjellberg participated in and promoted to his 57 million subscribers on YouTube.”