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Self-styled right-wing ‘provocateur’ Milo Yiannopoulos has resigned from Breitbart news – in the wake of a video where he defended some forms of child abuse.

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In a statement released today, Yiannopoulos said, ‘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.’

The move follows reports that Breitbart staffers were threatening to quit en masse unless he was fired.

Yiannopoulos also had a book deal with Simon and Schuster cancelled – and an upcoming appearance at an American conservative conference CPAC.




The American Conservative Union, which hosts CPAC said his appearance had been cancelled because of the ‘offensive video… condoning paedophilia’.

In a brief statement, Simon and Schuster said: ‘After careful consideration, Simon & Schuster and its Threshold Editions imprint have cancelled publication of Dangerous by Milo Yiannopoulos.’

Yiannopoulos was filmed for the Drunken Peasants podcast saying that ‘we get hung up on this sort of child abuse stuff, to the point where we are policing consensual adults’.

He said: ‘There are certainly people who are capable of giving consent at a younger age. I certainly consider myself to be one of them, people who were sexually active younger.’

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He was speaking on the Drunken Peasants podcast (Picture: AP)

Calling the age of consent an ‘arbitrary’ number, he then goes on to claim that gay men are more likely to engage in paedophilia.

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‘In the homosexual world, particularly, some of those relationships between younger boys and older men – the sort of “coming of age” relationship – those relationships in which those older men help those young boys discover who they are and give them security and safety, and provide them with love, and a reliable, sort of rock, where they can’t speak to their parents.’

When one of the presenters interrupted and said ‘this sounds like priest molestation to me’, Yiannopoulos doubled down.

‘You know what? I’m grateful to Father Michael. I wouldn’t give nearly as good head if it wasn’t for him.’

In a Facebook video that was on his page for a few hours on Monday before being deleted, Milo did not deny the claims, but said his comments were ‘stupidly worded’.

‘I find those crimes [child abuse] to be absolutely disgusting. I find people to be absolutely disgusting.’