Logan Paul, one of YouTube’s wealthiest and most controversial stars, has said that he will go gay for a month, and the backlash on social media has been swift. On January 11, he was the No. 1 trending topic in the United States on Twitter and many of the tweets criticized his flippant approach to sexual identity.
“Logan Paul joking about being gay ‘for one month’ while countless LGBT+ around the world are killed & committing suicide for their sexuality, is disgusting,” tweeted Daniel Preda, a fellow social media personality. “He continues to be an awful representation of the YouTube community & shows he truly has learned NOTHING over the last year.”
As E! Online reports, Paul made the declaration during an episode of his Impaulsive podast. He prefaced it by saying that he was vegan and sober in January but February would be a different story. Then Paul dubbed the third month of the year, “Male-only March.”
“We’re going to attempt to go gay for just one month,” he clarified.
This isn’t the first time that one of Logan Paul’s antics has received huge amounts of criticism. In January of last year, he filmed a video in Japan’s Aokigahara Forest, commonly known as the “suicide forest” as it’s become a common place for Japanese people to kill themselves. Paul vlogged in the forest and included a dead body in the video. As Narcity reports, when he and his crew were far away, they blurred out the full body. But when they got closer they just blurred out the face.
Logan Paul under fire for saying he’ll ‘go gay’ for a month https://t.co/IxXFLqeCm5 pic.twitter.com/wvWDodA5uI
— Yahoo (@Yahoo) January 11, 2019
As Narcity notes, Paul wasn’t just slammed by YouTubers, Hollywood celebrities joined in too, such as Sophie Turner and Aaron Paul. He later apologized for the video. In the apology, he discussed the enormity of the backlash he received.
“Let’s start with this—I’m sorry,” Logan wrote in his Twitter statement. “This is a first for me. I’ve never faced criticism like this before, because I’ve never made a mistake like this before. I’m surrounded by good people and believe I make good decisions, but I’m still a human being. I can be wrong.”
YouTube reprimanded Paul for the video by removing his content on YouTube’s Google Preferred program, the BBC reports. That’s their elite advertising platform for top-tier Youtubers. They also pumped the brakes on some of their projects with him.
Logan Paul told the Hollywood Reporter that he lost “millions” because of the video.
“I mean, YouTube had to take a stance,” Paul said. “They’re not going to let some kid f**k up their ad platform.”
Paul has not responded to the criticism for his “going gay for a month” declaration as of writing.
