"So if I want to hook up with dudes for a month in March, I can’t do that?"

Logan Paul landed in another controversy when he said he would “go gay for a month” on a recent episode of his podcast, Impaulsive.

Paul and his podcast co-host Mike Majlak joked that in addition to going vegan and sober for January, followed by “fatal February,” where they would do the opposite, they’d try out “male only March,” where they’d “attempt to go gay for just one month.”

Mary Clavering/Young Hollywood/Getty Images

The actor and podcaster was quick to say he had made an error, replying to a tweet from GLAAD with an admission of using a “very poor choice of words,” and inviting someone from the advocacy group to come on his podcast to speak with him about it.

very poor choice of words… my fault. let’s get together and talk about it on my podcast next week? https://t.co/Ki8RKgMJOO — Logan Paul (@LoganPaul) January 12, 2019

While it appears the organization wasn’t down to take him up on the offer, an LGBTQ rights activist did step up to the challenge: Josh Seefried, a former captain in the Air Force, and a former co-chairman on the Board of Directors of OutServe-SLDN.

And while Paul again apologized for his poor wording, he defended his statements, and even dragged comedian and fellow podcaster Joe Rogan into the debate.

Seefried said he felt Paul was trying to make a joke, but that he wasn’t successful in that attempt.

“So if I want to hook up with dudes for a month in March, I can’t do that?” Paul asked him.

“Are you making that as a joke, or are you being legitimate?” Seefried asked. “If you want to experiment with men, that’s a different thing than saying, ’Hey, I’m gonna go gay for a month,’ making a joke.”

Paul said he doesn’t believe “going gay” is a choice, and argued that that wasn’t what he was implying with his original statement, blaming the media for pushing that narrative. He then asked Seefried if he chose to experiment with men in March how he would “describe that action.”

“It’s experimentation. You’re essentially maybe bicurious, and you want to explore your sexuality, and we need to support that,” he answered, adding that he knows it can be “scary” for a public person to be open in that way.

“It’s not even scary to me,” Paul shot back. “Because sexuality is so fluid nowadays, I don’t think twice about talking about being gay. I don’t give a shit. Being gay is cool to me, I think that it’s a very cool thing.”

“It is incredibly courageous and noble if you are a gay person to come out and put your foot down and defy society and say, ’No, this is who I am.'”

“This hurts me because I am such a pro-gay dude,” he added.

“Does a poor choice of words, the way I misspoke, because of my ignorance on the subject…Does that warrant 140,000 people telling me to go kill myself?” Paul later asked, pointing to a tweet from Gus Kenworthy, asking him to “go away forever.”

Instead of "going gay for a month" can Logan Paul "go away for forever"? — Gus Kenworthy (@guskenworthy) January 12, 2019

“51,000 likes,” he said, after reading it aloud. “I’m missing something here.”

Seefried disagreed that the intent behind Kenworthy’s tweet was calling on Paul to kill himself, as did Majlak. But Seefried did allow that he has been the subject of unnecessarily harsh criticism and bullying from many online.

Paul got himself into trouble last year when he released a video in which he filmed the body of an apparent suicide victim in Japan. He apologized, saying his intent had been to raise awareness for suicide prevention.

Later in his talk with Seefried, Paul pulled up a video of Rogan speaking with comedian Theo Von about women being “done” with men.

“A lot of chicks are probably going lesbo this week,” Rogan said. “Especially with Trump. I think the more days that the government is shut down, the more women are going to go lesbian. They hate men so much, because of Trump, they’re just gonna go gay. Some people right now are going, ’That’s not how it works!’ Duh. Remember what I said about jokes?”

“Not a single tweet about that,” Paul claimed.

“Shame on you for trying to deflect from your own actions,” Seefried told him.

Paul disagreed that he was trying to deflect, saying he had willingly apologized, and then mentioned he had “kissed many men.”

“Whether it’s on film, whether it’s just fucking around in the vlogs,” he said, adding that he had considered tweeting out pictures of him kissing men to “prove my gayness,” before deciding that wouldn’t be right, and would instead be “weird.”

“This is important for me, because I am a huge proponent of the LGBTQ community. Huge! And I always have been. I love it. I love the movement,” Paul said.

“I think that you’ve realized you had a mistake, and now it’s just up to you to continue that action,” Seefried told him.

“Well, now I know. It’s very easy, because at the end of the day, bro, it’s just ignorance. It’s not, again, there’s no malicious intent,” he replied.

Seefried encouraged Paul to use his platform to encourage his fans to follow groups like GLAAD to help them, like Paul, “do better” in the future.

The full podcast follows.





