Milo first came to public attention as the protege of far right public figure Steve Bannon, recruited by Bannon to work as editor at the American news agency Breitbart (a site described by founder Andrew Breitbart as ‘The Huffington Post of the far right.’). Milo’s connections to the alt right and far right white supremacists movements were exposed by Buzzfeed with video evidence of Yiannopoulos singing ‘America is beautiful’ in a Dallas bar while a crowd of Neo Nazis performed Nazi salutes. Buzzfeed also confirmed notorious alt right racist Richard Spencer was present at the event.
In 2016 Milo was permanently suspended from Twitter for his role in inciting harassment toward actress Leslie Jones who was bullied off the platform by Milo and his fan boys.
Vox reported :When he [Milo] declared his birthday to be “World Patriarchy Day,” he encouraged his followers to “cat-call at least five women,” refer to any female employees they have “exclusively as darling,” and tell a woman that “this isn’t going to suck itself.” This kind of misogyny has been a consistent behavioural pattern with Milo, present from his rage toward feminists over the Gamergate controversy and manifesting itself in regular anti women rants from his various platforms.
Openly gay Milo embrarked on his ‘Dangerous Faggots’ tour in early 2017. The choice of name gives an indication of his discomfort regarding his own sexuality. This was not the first time Milo was to publicly suggest being gay was a negative thing – he was quoted confessing that if there was a way of ‘curing’ his homosexuality he would take it.
Milo formed an early attachment (some might say a rather creepy attachement) to Donald Trump that went beyond an agreement with the President’s political rhetoric to Milo insisting on referring to Trump as ‘Daddy’. He later broke with Trump in 2017 over the US decision to bomb Syria. However as Milo has openly stated that ‘Trump supporters don’t care about the man’s policies’ one wonders if this change of heart was less about political conflict and just another way to beg some media attention.
The downfall of Milo started in Feb 2017 with the discovery of some footage from Jan 2016 where Milo had made reference to sexual relationships between minors and adults, stating “these things do happen, perfectly consensually.“
The footage can be viewed here:
One quote from the video states: In the gay world, some of the most important, enriching, and incredibly life-affirming, important, shaping relationships are between younger boys and older men. They can be hugely positive experiences very often for those young boys.
As a result of the comments which many believed to be openly condoning paedophilia, Milo resigned his position at Breitbart.
Later, he attempted to defend himself by claiming the video was edited to portray him in a negative light and by announcing that he was himself a victim of child abuse.
In February 2017 publishers Simon and Schuster cancelled an agreement to publish Milo’s autobiography ‘Dangerous’ in the aftermath of the paedophile scandal.
Milo was also deplatformed from the Conservative Political Action Conference as a result of his comments.
Things went from bad to worse for Milo in June 2018 when he managed to put his second foot in his mouth. This time instead of advocating underage sex, he sent what was considered to be a threat to a journalist.
Unfortunately for Milo, two days later saw a tragic shooting in a newsroom in Maryland, USA. This caused the press and the public to speculate whether the shooter had been inspired by Milo’s ill advised comment.
Rather typically Milo then attempted to portray himself as the victim of the piece, coming out with this self indulgent nonsense on his social media:
Unsurprisingly, for one reason or the other, few people wanted to be associated with him by this point.
He wasn’t sorry of course. He made that perfectly clear
Initially he planned to sue but like most of Milo’s attempts at litigation that was soon dropped.
Milo was last seen supporting known far right fascist convicted fraudster Stephen Yaxley-Lennon and attempting to make a political statement by sticking duct tape over his mouth. Given what happens when Milo opens his mouth I would suggest he leaves the duct tape on there…
Roanna Carleton Taylor
Roanna Carleton Taylor is one of the founder members of Resisting Hate. She is the author of many of our articles, and also writes occasionally for other media publications including Huff Post, Byline Times and Immigration News. Roanna loves German Shepherd Dogs and Oil Painting.
