At a press conference on Tuesday, gay
conservative Milo Yiannopoulos announced that he has quit Breitbart
News, the alt-right website with close ties to President Donald
Trump.
Yiannopoulos said that his resignation
was effective immediately and praised his colleagues for their
support.
The resignation comes on the heels of a
scrapped book deal with Simon & Schuster and the rescission of an
invitation to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference
(CPAC), both of which stemmed from comments Yiannopoulos made that
appeared to condone pedophilia.
Describing himself as a “proud
free-speech warrior,” Yiannopoulos said Tuesday that he does not
“advocate for illegal behavior” and does not “support child
abuse.”
A conservative advocacy group posted
the footage of Yiannopoulos' controversial comments over the weekend.
“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.
“It sounds like Catholic priest
molestation to me,” an unseen person responds.
“But you know what? I’m grateful
for Father Michael. I wouldn’t give nearly such good head if it
wasn’t for him,” Yiannopoulos joked.
At his press conference, Yiannopoulos
said that he was apologizing to the victims of sexual abuse, not for
his views, and announced plans to launch his own media company,
though no details were provided.