Milo Yiannopoulos, the face of the nascent alt-right movement, has been under considerable pressure from all sides of the political spectrum after he appeared on a video defending older men's rights to have sex with children.
An endorsement of paedophilia
The remarks were made during a livestream broadcast to Twitter, a website Yiannopoulos was banned from last year back after inciting hate crimes. In the recording, Yiannopoulos stated that the age of consent was 'not a black and white thing” and that sexual relationships “between boys and older men can be positive experience'.
In response to public outrage, Simon & Schuster announced that they had cancelled Yiannopoulos' book. In a statement released today, the publishing company said: 'After a lot of consideration, we have to announce that we are cancelling the publication of Dangerous by Milo Yiannopoulos'.
Yiannopoulos confirmed the statement on his personal Facebook account. He posted: 'They canceled my book. I've gone through worse. This will not defeat me'.
The book was secured by Simon & Schuster for a generous advance of $250,000. According to the author, the book was due to be published on the 13th June. This is the third book that the controversial focal point of the burgeoning alt-right movement has announced but hasn't been realised.
Calls for Milo to resign from Breitbart
Yesterday, The Washingtonian reported that several Breitbart employees were threatening to quit if Yiannopoulos, the senior editor, didn't resign. Breitbart, thanks in part to Yiannapoulos, has become the mouthpiece for a new breed of conservative politics.
Author and feminist commentator, Roxane Gay, wrote: 'By cancelling Milo’s book, Simon & Schuster made a business decision comparable to the business decision they made when they determined that they would publish his pernicious book.
Simon & Schuster shouldn't have enabled Milo by granting him a platform to spread his hate speech. Continuing racism, xenophobia and misogyny are seemingly okay by the publisher's terms'. Gay withdrew her book from Simon & Schuster after the publishing company announced that they would be publishing Yiannapoulos' book.
