Milo Yiannopoulos Prays During Heated Protests at UC Berkeley Event. Credit — Twitter/Elise Ulwelling via Storyful, The Daily Californian

Milo Yiannopoulos Prays During Heated Protests at UC Berkeley Event. Credit — Twitter/Elise Ulwelling via Storyful, The Daily Californian

HIS supporters call him an anti-authoritarian champion of free speech. His critics

call him an Islamophobic, homophobic misogynist whose hate speech causes violence and division.

Now Milos Yiannopoulos — one of the world’s most controversial men, dubbed a ‘right wing troll’ and even an ‘internet supervillain’ — is coming to Australia.

The alt-right provocateur and former Trump supporter will host talks in Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and the Gold Coast in December as part of his Troll Academy Tour.

It is understood Australia has the largest support base for Yiannopoulos after the United States.

“I can’t wait to bring my Troll Academy Tour to Australia and to meet all my Australian fans and make some new friends. I’m big down under — which just shows Australians have great taste,” said Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart and UK Daily Telegraph tech editor.

However, his disdain for minorities, opposition to gay rights and transgender issues — despite identifying as a homosexual — and criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement is bound to see him met with some hostility.

His recent tour of US universities and colleges with his Dangerous Faggott show culminated with violent riots at the University of California, Berkeley, in February, in which 150 masked agitators stormed the campus.

At the time, Trump famously tweeted to the University’s governing body that if they did not allow free speech he would withdraw their several hundred million dollars of annual funding.

Last week, Yiannopoulos, 32, returned to the campus but his appearance lasted only 20 minutes before the presence of protesters caused his security team to whisk him away.

With Yiannopoulos visiting Australia as a guest of Penthouse magazine, the magazine’s publisher, Damien Costas defended the publication’s controversial choice.

“Penthouse has championed the right to free speech for over 50 years. The magazine was founded in 1965 during the sexual revolution, and through its investigative reporting and irreverent editorial, it fought for progressive causes including women’s rights, civil rights, the rights of Vietnam Veterans and helped changed the world,” said Costas.

“Whether it was Martin Luther King and the freedom riders in the 1960s or Milo Yiannopoulos in 2017, free speech is part of Australia’s robust democracy and the cornerstone of Western civilisation.”

For details of Yiannopoulos’ Troll Academy tour visit www.milolive.com.au