Swedish YouTube star PewDiePie has issued an apology for a racial slur while live streaming a video game session, releasing a short apology video on his YouTube channel.
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PewDiePie, real name Felix Kjellberg, dropped the “N-word” on his YouTube channel while playing a game called “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds”. The 27-year-old tried to verbally catch himself, changing the word to “a**hole” and apologizing. “I don’t mean that in a bad way,” he said.
“It was something that I said in the heat of the moment,” he explained in the video, below. “I said the worst word I could possibly think of, and it just sort of slipped out.”
Noting that “there are no excuses” for his language, PewDiePie admitted “I’m disappointed in myself, because it seems like I’ve learned nothing from all these past controversies. And it’s not like 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.”
Prior to PewDiePie’s apology, independent video game developer Sean Vanaman filed a request to have any PewDiePie videos featuring his games taken down after seeing the video. “He’s worse than a closeted racist,” Vanaman tweeted of PewDiePie. “He’s a propagator of despicable garbage that does real damage to the culture around this industry.”
This isn’t the first time the YouTuber has gotten in trouble for his language or sense of humour. He has previously been accused of anti-Semitism and was suspended from Twitter for making jokes about so-called Islamic State. Disney cut ties with PewDiePie after some of his videos were found to contain Nazi references or anti-Semitic imagery.
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PewDiePie is one of the most successful YouTube content creators of all time. Videos of him commentating video games have helped him reach more than 57 million subscribers. He is reported to have made $15 million through YouTube last year.
