Failed scandal-mongerer and outrage-generator Milo Yiannopoulos (remember him? He used to be in the news all the time) is in the midst of a major rebranding effort, but it’s really just more of the same: embracing the worst possible takes on everything, following along behind any fleeting trend and straining to amplify it even more. So what is he up to now?
Professional right-wing troll Milo Yiannopoulos has declared himself no longer homosexual. In an interview with the right-wing LifeSite, Yiannopoulos claims he is “ex-gay” and will direct his future endeavors to St. Joseph: “I treat it like an addiction. You never stop being an alcoholic… I hope people will support and pray for me, if for no other reason than they share my delight at the prospect of Milo Yiannopoulos furiously and indignantly railing against homosexuals for sins of the flesh.” He announced a new vocation as well, a dedication to the discredited and widely banned practice of forcibly subduing homosexuality: “Over the next decade, I would like to help rehabilitate what the media calls ‘conversion therapy.’” It is unclear whether Yiannopoulos remains legally married: “The guy I live with has been demoted to housemate.” And he took some time during the interview to indulge in transphobia as well, claiming “trannies are demonic.”
The key phrase in that statement is the hope that people will “support” him…he’s always on the grift, this is just his newest angle.
Man, he is desperate to recover some relevance, yet all he knows how to do is this clown-like capering for the most hateful audience he can find. What a sad pathetic wreck of a life he has — I guess if he really wants attention, he is going to get some pity out of this latest maneuver.
cartomancer says
For those of us who remember his antics before he became a very minor name in the US crankosphere, this is nothing new. Indeed, he got his start in insincere contrarian bigotry as a gay Catholic opposing same-sex marriage when British TV couldn’t find anyone else to present that kind of nonsense (around a decade ago I think – Time has no meaning anymore, so I can’t be sure).
For all his protestations, he is very much still one of my lot. We cannot apologise enough. It would be nice if he could join the het crowd and we didn’t have to put up with him, but sadly that’s not a thing anyone can do.
ethicsgradient says
I don’t understand how he still has a visa to remain in the USA seemingly permanently. He doesn’t seem to be employed by anyone, and he doesn’t have special skills (trolling really does not count). There may be idiots who give him money, but why is he not classed as someone who has overstayed any visa he could possibly have been given, and deported?
Marcus Ranum says
ethicsgradient@#2:
why is he not classed as someone who has overstayed any visa he could possibly have been given, and deported?
He’s white.
kathleenzielinski says
I suppose there are two possibilities. One is that he is so emotionally crippled that he actually believes this crap. The other is that it’s a brazen scam and he doesn’t believe a word of it, but doesn’t care so long as it brings in money. The operative question is whether he and housemate are still sleeping in the same bed.
Either way, what he needs is to be ignored.
lotharloo says
I guess Dave Ruben is next LUL
kome says
I kind of believe that Milo isn’t gay. Given his rather emphatic defense of pedophilia (particularly the ‘oppressive idea of consent’ as it relates to child sexual abuse), he strikes me as just another right-wing kiddy-diddler rather than an actually gay individual. I suspect he merely portrayed himself as gay because the right-wing equates homosexuality with pedophilia.
raven says
I don’t believe it.
There isn’t any reason to believe anything Yiannopoulos says.
His actual original name isn’t even Yiannopoulos. He was born Milo Hanrahan.
“As a teenager, Yiannopoulos lived with his paternal grandmother whose surname he later adopted.[22]”
There isn’t any reason to care about what Yiannopoulos says either.
He’s claimed in the recent past that he is broke and needs money.
raven says
Yiannopoulos hasn’t just wrecked his own life.
He has also wrecked other people’s lives.
At his rally in Seattle, one couple came armed with guns to shoot protesters. They shot one unarmed guy and almost killed him.
They did beat the rap though. Charged by the Seattle police and acquitted in a jury trial.
You don’t bring guns to peaceful protests but a few of the jury didn’t care about that.
raven says
This guy is very forgettable.
Basically a troll with an audience.
He has frequently advocated for violence and murder, which got him banned from Facebook.
This is terrorism.
He is also broke.
His creditor’s aren’t going to be paid, but who cares about the Mercers or Breitbart anyway.
PaulBC says
“The guy I live with has been demoted to housemate.”
He could get remarried to a woman and demote this fellow further to “golf buddy” and he’d be plausibly closeted according to the standards of a bygone age. But I am not sure that works out as well today.
Sigh. And, no, I should not care or give him any more attention. Does he think this is even a reasonable attempt and “rebranding” or is he trolling just enough to get people like me to waste time commenting?
lumipuna says
As for his visa or whatever,
I suppose he remains married to his “roommate”, and if anyone asks, it’s just a sham for immigration reasons. Except if it’s ICE asking, then it’s a genuine relationship.
christoph says
I wonder if Milo actually has a thing for self abasement?
183231bcb says
Unless Milo McFraud starts kidnapping children and hiding them to other countries, he’s still not as bad as one “ex-gay” person I thought I knew (Lisa Miller).
@7
Does that make Hanrahan his “biological name,” as some of his political allies would say?
tacitus says
Very strange. Do young Republicans (the demographic he’s presumably got the most appeal with) even care about demonizing gays and gay marriage anymore?
Not that I want to give him any ideas, but I would have thought getting on the anti-trans train would have been more profitable for him these days. Maybe the fact that he didn’t is a good sign that issue is already losing steam with Republicans (though I suspect not).
kathleenzielinski says
Tacitus, No. 14, I think homophobia is generational within the Republican Party. The older ones are still anti-gay; the younger ones don’t much care.
However, there is a further divide on the question of whether gays should have legal rights. It is possible to take the position that homosexuality is just fine but gays shouldn’t have legal rights. It should not be illegal to discriminate against gays. Which is the position a lot of Republicans take. They see it as being a protection of the rights of business owners rather than an attack on gays.
Vreejack says
He’s the worst kind of homosexual: a self-hating one. He was more amusing when he waxed rhapsodical about black peeners.
specialffrog says
@kathleen: Republicans don’t believe businesses have the right to fire people for racism. The “business rights” is just cover for being anti gay.
Young Republicans may be more aware of what their peers think and try to be more cautious but I suspect they are largely anti-trans, which is just the most currently-acceptable form of anti-LGBTQ.
leerudolph says
Self acrawlspace seems even more likely.
Susan Montgomery says
“You’re a sad and pathetic man. You’re a homosexual and you don’t want to be, but there’s nothing you can do to change it. Not all the prayers to your god, not all the analysis you can buy in all the years you’ve got left to live. You may one day be able to know a heterosexual life if you want it desperately enough. If you pursue it with the fervor with which you annihilate. But you’ll always be homosexual as well. Always
MiloMichael. Always. Until the day you die.”The Boys In The Band
Alt-X says
He doesn’t want to get a real job, he thinks it’s beneath him, he wants to get paid to just lay around all day and be a troll on the internet.
Ridana says
14) @ tacitus: He’s been on that train for awhile already. Plus:
The Oracle of Solace says
“The guy I live with has been demoted to housemate” is one of the more casually callous things I’ve heard anyone say. Milo is still on-brand.
kaleberg says
St. Joseph! Isn’t he the patron saint of children? (I used to take St. Joseph’s Aspirin for Children before they discovered how dangerous aspirin was for children.) Maybe I have a nasty mind, but ex-gay and getting into St. Joseph sounds a bit creepy coming from a basically creepy guy like this. I really hope I am off track here.
PaulBC says
Maybe he means St. Joseph of Cupertino. My favorite saint. He was dim-witted and knew it, so he would study as much as he could and pray that the parts he knew were the ones on the test. He also levitated sometimes.