American YouTube star Logan Paul has apologised after footage he posted online of an apparent dead body sparked a global backlash.

The 22-year-old faced a barrage of criticism after posting a video of his visit to the Aokigahara forest in Japan, the site of frequent youth suicides, under the title “We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest…”

Mr Paul, who has more than 15 million subscribers on YouTube, later deleted the video and apologised for being “misguided by shock and awe”.

However the post was viewed more than 6 million times on YouTube before it was taken down.

In an intro to the video, seen by The Telegraph, he says: “This is not clickbait. This is the most real vlog I’ve ever posted on this channel.