NEW YORK (AP) — Milo Yiannopoulos has resigned as editor of Breitbart Tech after coming under fire from other conservatives over comments on sexual relationships between boys and older men.

On Monday, he was disinvited from the Conservative Political Action Conference after video of his remarks was promoted through social media by a conservative blog, the Reagan Battalion. Publisher Simon & Schuster and its Threshold Editions imprint later announced it would cancel the publication of his book, “Dangerous.”

In a statement Tuesday, Yiannopoulos said he would be wrong “to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues’ important reporting.”</s>WASHINGTON — Milo Yiannopoulos, the provocateur and Breitbart News editor, was under pressure on several fronts Monday after the publication of a video in which he condones sexual relations with boys as young as 13 and laughs off the seriousness of pedophilia by Roman Catholic priests.



The organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference rescinded their invitation for him to speak later this week. Simon & Schuster said it was canceling publication of his latest book, “Dangerous.” And there were calls online for Breitbart to sever ties with him.

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The episode, which unraveled quickly online over the weekend, put many conservatives in a deeply uncomfortable position. They have long defended Mr. Yiannopoulos’s attention-seeking stunts and racially charged antics on the grounds that the left had tried to hypocritically censor his right to free speech.

But endorsing pedophilia, it seemed, was more than they could tolerate. The board of the American Conservative Union, which includes veterans of the conservative movement like Grover Norquist and Morton Blackwell, made the decision to revoke Mr. Yiannopoulos’s speaking slot and condemn his comments on Monday.

“We initially extended the invitation knowing that the free speech issue on college campuses is a battlefield where we need brave, conservative standard-bearers,” Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, said in a written statement.

Regarding Mr. Yiannopoulos’s comments, Mr. Schlapp called them “disturbing” and said his explanation of them was insufficient.

Mr. Yiannopoulos is a marquee contributor to Breitbart News, where he serves as senior editor and has amassed a fan base for his stunts and often-outrageous statements. But by Monday afternoon, his future at the website was being hotly debated by top management.

© Jeremy Papasso/Daily Camera, via Associated Press Milo Yiannopoulos in Boulder, Colo., last month. The Conservative Political Action Conference disinvited him to speak to the group after his comments about pedophilia.

One Breitbart journalist, who requested anonymity to describe private deliberations, described divisions in the newsroom over whether Mr. Yiannopoulos could stay on. There was some consensus among staff members that his remarks were more extreme than his usual speech, the journalist said, and executives were discussing by telephone whether his apology was enough to preserve his position at the site.

A Breitbart representative declined to comment.

After the video leaked on Twitter from a conservative group called the Reagan Battalion, Mr. Yiannopoulos denied that he had ever condoned child sexual abuse, noting that he was a victim himself as he blamed his “British sarcasm” and “deceptive editing” for leading to a misunderstanding.

But in the tape, the fast-talking polemicist is clear that he has no problem with older men abusing children as young as 13, which he then conflates with relationships between older and younger gay men who are of consenting age.

“No, no, no. You’re misunderstanding what pedophilia means,” Mr. Yiannopoulos says on the tape, in which he is talking to radio hosts in a video chat. “Pedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 13 years old who is sexually mature. Pedophilia is attraction to children who have not reached puberty,” he adds, dismissing the fact that 13-year-olds are children.

The notion of consent, he says, is “arbitrary and oppressive.”

Conservatives reacted with near unanimous disgust at the comments. Some expressed bewilderment that conference organizers would extend an invitation to Mr. Yiannopoulos in the first place, given his history of statements that have been offensive to blacks, Muslims and generally pushed the bounds of decency. Twitter has banned him.

“Colossal misjudgment,” Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, wrote on Twitter. “Now CPAC has put itself in the role of ‘censor.’ And for what? Some clicks and headlines?”

Guy Benson, the writer and radio host, who also happens to be gay, wrote on Twitter that Mr. Yiannopoulos seemed to have been “designed in a laboratory in order to perpetuate some of the ugliest stereotypes about gays and conservatives.”



</s>NEW YORK — Milo Yiannopoulos has resigned as editor of Breitbart Tech after coming under fire from other conservatives over comments on sexual relationships between boys and older men.

On Monday, he was disinvited from the Conservative Political Action Conference after video of his remarks was promoted through social media by a conservative blog, the Reagan Battalion.

Publisher Simon & Schuster and its Threshold Editions imprint later announced it would cancel the publication of his book, “Dangerous."

In a statement Tuesday, Yiannopoulos said he would be wrong “to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues’ important reporting.</s>NEW YORK (AP) — Milo Yiannopoulos has resigned as editor of Breitbart Tech after coming under fire from other conservatives over comments on sexual relationships between boys and older men.

On Monday, he was disinvited from the Conservative Political Action Conference after video of his remarks was promoted through social media by a conservative blog, the Reagan Battalion. Publisher Simon & Schuster and its Threshold Editions imprint later announced it would cancel the publication of his book, “Dangerous.”

In a statement Tuesday, Yiannopoulos said he would be wrong “to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues’ important reporting.”</s>NEW YORK — Milo Yiannopoulos has resigned as editor of Breitbart Tech after coming under fire from other conservatives over comments on sexual relationships between boys and older men.

On Monday, he was disinvited from the Conservative Political Action Conference after video of his remarks was promoted through social media by a conservative blog, the Reagan Battalion.

Publisher Simon & Schuster and its Threshold Editions imprint later announced it would cancel the publication of his book, “Dangerous."

In a statement Tuesday, Yiannopoulos said he would be wrong “to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues’ important reporting.</s>British Journalist, Milo Yiannopoulos has quit his job at the news network Breitbart.

Yiannopoulos’ resignation came after videos of him were published which led to accusations he was defending pedophilia.

The video footage which surfaced over the weekend showed the technology editor of the website speaking about pedophilia and saying: ‘The whole consent thing is not as black and white as people try and paint it. People are messy and complex, particularly in the homosexual world.’



 His $250,000 book deal has been canceled as well as his upcoming prestigious speaking engagement at the conservative CPAC conference.

On Monday afternoon Yiannopoulos bowed to pressure and quit Breitbart – but used a press conference in New York to call himself the victim of a witch-hunt’ and vow to make an immediate comeback as a conservative provocateur.

About Milo Yiannopoulos: He is a British journalist, author, entrepreneur, public speaker, and former senior editor for Breitbart News. He wrote previously using the pseudonym Milo Andreas Wagner.

Resignation from Breitbart over statements on pedophilia

In February 2017, it was announced that Yiannopoulos would address the Conservative Political Action Conference. A conservative website, Reagan Battalion, then posted a video of clips of a YouTube interview. In the interview in a January 2016 episode of the podcast Drunken Peasants, Yiannopoulos allegedly stated that sexual relationships between 13-year-old boys and adults can be “consensual,” because a minority of thirteen year olds are, in his view, sexually and emotionally mature enough to consent to sex with adults. He used his own experience as an example, saying he was mature enough to be capable of giving consent at a young age. He also stated that “pedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 13 years old, who is sexually mature” but rather that “pedophilia is attraction to children who have not reached puberty”. However, he also stated in the video that the age of consent in the United States is “about right”.

RELATED: The professional provocateur has resigned as an editor at Breitbart News amid a firestorm over unearthed comments in which he seemed to endorse sex between “younger boys and older men.”</s>NEW YORK (AP) — Milo Yiannopoulos resigns as editor of Breitbart Tech.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos has been disinvited to this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference after his attempt to clarify past comments on relationships between boys and older men fell flat with organizers.

Hours later, his publisher cancelled his book “Dangerous,” which had been scheduled to come out in June.

The American Conservative Union founded and hosts CPAC, which is being held Wednesday through Saturday outside Washington. In a tweet on Monday, ACU chairman Matt Schlapp said that “due to the revelation of an offensive video in the past 24 hours condoning pedophilia, the American Conservative Union has decided to rescind the invitation of Milo Yiannopoulos to speak.”

After the polarizing Breitbart News editor was invited, his invitation sparked a backlash. The conservative Reagan Battalion blog tweeted video clips Sunday in which Yiannopoulos discussed Jews, sexual consent, statutory rape, child abuse and homosexuality.

In one clip, Yiannopoulos defends sexual relationships between men and boys as young as 13 years old. He also speaks approvingly of his own sexual relationship with a 29-year-old priest when he was 17.

“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,” he said.

Later Monday, Simon & Schuster and its Threshold Editions imprint announced that “after careful consideration” they had pulled Yiannopoulos’ book, for which pre-orders placed it high on Amazon.com’s best-seller lists. The subject of intense controversy from the start, “Dangerous” was originally scheduled to come out in March. But Yiannopoulos pushed back the release to June so he could write about the protests during his recent campus tour, including a cancelled appearance at the University of California, Berkeley.

At the time of his publisher’s decision Monday, “Dangerous” ranked No. 83 on Amazon’s overall list and No. 1 in the subcategory of “Censorship & Politics.”

Simon & Schuster did not offer any specific reason for pulling “Dangerous.” In Facebook postings Monday night, Yiannopoulous wrote: “They canceled my book” and “I’ve gone through worse. This will not defeat me.”

Yiannopoulos is known for his vicious criticism of women and Muslims, among others. Last summer, he helped instigate a harassment campaign against “Ghostbusters” star Leslie Jones that led to his banishment from Twitter.

More than 100 Simon & Schuster authors had objected to his book deal, which was announced last December, and prominent feminist writer Roxane Gay withdrew a planned book. Some bookstores had said they would not sell it, although the National Coalition Against Censorship and other free speech organizations had defended the publisher. Threshold is a conservative imprint that has published books by President Donald Trump, who has defended Yiannopoulos, and former Vice President Dick Cheney, among others.

On Facebook, Yiannopoulos blamed deceptive editing and his own “sloppy phrasing” for any indication he supported pedophilia. The British author said he spoke of his own relationship when he was 17 with a man who was 29. The age of consent in the United Kingdom is 16.

“We realize that Mr. Yiannopoulos has responded on Facebook, but it is insufficient,” Schlapp said. “We urge him to immediately further address these disturbing comments.”

Schlapp said the invitation was initially extended knowing that free speech on college campuses is a “battlefield where we need brave, conservative standard-bearers.”

But he added: “There is no disagreement among our attendees on the evils of sexual abuse of children.”

Breitbart is considered by many a platform for the so-called “alt-right” movement, an offshoot of conservatism that mixes racism, white nationalism and populism. Its former executive chairman, Steve Bannon, is now a senior adviser to President Donald Trump.</s>NEW YORK (AP) — Milo Yiannopoulos has resigned as editor of Breitbart Tech after coming under fire from other conservatives over comments on sexual relationships between boys and older men.

On Monday, he was disinvited from the Conservative Political Action Conference after video of his remarks was promoted through social media by a conservative blog, the Reagan Battalion. Publisher Simon & Schuster and its Threshold Editions imprint later announced it would cancel the publication of his book, “Dangerous.”

In a statement Tuesday, Yiannopoulos said he would be wrong “to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues’ important reporting.”</s>Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos lost both a speaking gig at a prominent conservative event and a book deal in less than 24 hours.

First, Monday afternoon the American Conservative Union rescinded its invitation to the right-wing provocateur — noted for his political posts on the Internet — to speak at its annual Conservative Political Action Conference this upcoming weekend. Then, a few hours later, Simon & Schuster announced that it was canceling the publication of Yiannopoulos' upcoming book, Dangerous.

These actions come in the wake of a social media backlash against Yiannopoulos after the conservative news outlet The Reagan Battalion tweeted videos on Sunday in which Yiannopoulos appears to condone statutory rape and sexual relationships between boys and men.

Yiannopoulos sought to clarify his comments Monday in a Facebook post citing the video clips as "deceptive editing" and blaming his own "sloppy phrasing" for any indication that he supports pedophilia. He goes on to defend himself by referencing his own relationship when he was 17 with a man who was 29. The age of consent in the U.K. is 16.

There were several references to sex between boys and men in the video.

ACU chairman Matt Schlapp issued the following statement via Twitter Monday afternoon.



"Due to the revelation of an offensive video in the past 24 hours condoning pedophilia, the American Conservative Union has decided to rescind the invitation of Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference. "We realize that Mr. Yiannopoulos has responded on Facebook, but it is insufficient. It is up to him to answer the tough questions and we urge him to immediately further address these disturbing comments. "We initially extended the invitation knowing that the free speech issue on college campuses is a battlefield where we need brave, conservative standard-bearers."



Schlapp also appeared on Fox News Monday evening to further explain why Yiannopoulos was dropped. Schlapp said that in the videos, it sounded as if Yiannopoulos was trying to mainstream something as offensive as pedophilia. He suggested that if what Yiannopoulos said was taken out of context, he needs to continue to speak out and clear his name on his own.

"Milo is one of God's children as well. We don't wish him any harm," Schlapp told Fox.

Yiannopoulos's book Dangerous was originally scheduled to be released in March but was pushed back to June, The Associated Press reports. Some 100 Simon & Schuster authors had objected to the book deal.

On Monday, Simon & Schuster announced that it's canceling the publication of the book, issuing the following statement to its staff obtained by NPR:



Yiannopoulos confirmed the cancellation on his Facebook page.

"They canceled my book," his post read.</s>NEW YORK (AP) — Milo Yiannopoulos has resigned as editor of Breitbart Tech after coming under fire from other conservatives over comments on sexual relationships between boys and older men.

On Monday, he was disinvited from the Conservative Political Action Conference after video of his remarks was promoted through social media by a conservative blog, the Reagan Battalion. Publisher Simon & Schuster and its Threshold Editions imprint later announced it would cancel the publication of his book, “Dangerous.”

In a statement Tuesday, Yiannopoulos said he would be wrong “to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues’ important reporting.”
British journalist Milo Yiannopoulos's invitation to speak at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference is rescinded, and publication of his book Dangerous by Simon & Schuster is cancelled after a video is posted allegedly containing statements of his condoning sexual relations with boys as young as thirteen.