Gay provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos resigned his position at Breitbart News on Tuesday, just days after an interview resurfaced in which he defended underage pederasty.

Mr. Yiannopoulos said he didn’t want to be a distraction and was resigning of his own free will from the conservative news outlet, which was an early backer of President Trump and catapulted Steve Bannon into the White House.

“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. This decision is mine alone,” Mr. Yiannopoulos wrote in a statement.

According to multiple news outlets Monday, a number of Breitbart News employees had demanded that the site dismiss him or said they would leave. Already Monday, Mr. Yiannopoulos had been disinvited from giving the keynote address at this weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference and had seen a 6-figure book deal canceled by Simon and Schuster.

In the interview, Mr. Yiannopoulos had suggested that sex between adults in their 20s and 13-year-old children happens “perfectly consensually” and bragged that being molested by a Catholic priest as a boy had improved his sex skills.

Mr. Yiannopoulos, who was scheduled to hold a news conference later Tuesday afternoon, was full of praise for Breitbart, where his nominal position had been “technology editor.”

“They have allowed me to carry conservative and libertarian ideas to communities that would otherwise never have heard them. They have been a significant factor in my success. I’m grateful for that freedom and for the friendships I forged there,” he said.

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