*Several days after video of Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg dropping the N-word went viral and caused outrage, the world’s biggest YouTube star has issued a video apology.
During a livestream of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds earlier this week, Kjellberg blurted out, “What a f***ing n**ger! Geez! Oh my god! What the f***? Sorry, but what the f***?”
Watch below…at the 0:21 sec. mark:
The video has sparked all kinds of backlash within the gaming community and beyond. Firewatch developer Sean Vanaman filed a DMCA takedown of PewDiePie’s Firewatch content, saying: “He’s worse than a closeted racist: he’s a propagator of despicable garbage that does real damage to the culture around this industry.”
On Tuesday (Sept. 12), PewDiePie posted a video statement titled “My Response” to his YouTube channel, which has a record-setting 57 million subscribers.
He begins by finding a roundabout way to convey that he’s not the only one who has used racial epithets during online gaming.
“You probably won’t believe me when I say this but whenever I go online and I hear other players use the same kind of language I did, I always find it extremely immature and stupid. And I hate how I now personally fed into that part of gaming as well,” he said. “It was something I said in the heat of the moment. I said the worst word I could possibly think of. And it just sort of slipped out. I’m not going to make any excuses as to why it did because there are no excuses for it.”
This isn’t the first time PewDiePie has been forced to apologize for a racist action. In February 2017, he addressed controversy around a prank he staged involving anti-Semitic rhetoric. One video involved a stunt in which he paid two Indian men to hold up a sign that said, “Death to All Jews.”
“I’m disappointed in myself because it seems like I’ve learned nothing from all these past controversies,” he said. “And it’s not that I think I can say or do whatever I want and get away with it. That’s not it at all. I’m just an idiot.”
Watch his “apology” below:
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