Milo Yiannopoulos facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Milo Yiannopoulos
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Yiannopoulos in 2016
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Milo Hanrahan
18 October 1984 |
| Other names | Milo Andreas Wagner (occasional pen name) |
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| Years active | 2007–present |
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Milo Yiannopoulos (/jəˈnɒpələs/; né Hanrahan; born 18 October 1984) is a British far-right political commentator. His speeches and writings criticise Islam, feminism, social justice, and political correctness. Yiannopoulos is a former editor of Breitbart News, an American far-right news and opinion website.
Yiannopoulos worked for Breitbart from 2014 to 2017.
In 2022, Yiannopoulos served as an intern for United States Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, then worked with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and rapper Kanye West on the latter's short-lived 2024 U.S. presidential election campaign. In April 2024, Yiannopoulos was listed as Chief of Staff at Yeezy Apparel, but stepped down on May 15.
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Early and personal life
Born as Milo Hanrahan, Yiannopoulos was born and raised in Chatham, Kent, England. His father is of half-Greek and half-Irish ancestry and his mother is Jewish. He is described as a practising Roman Catholic. His parents divorced when he was a child.
Raised by his mother and her second husband, Yiannopoulos has stated that he did not have a good relationship with his stepfather. As a teenager, Yiannopoulos lived with his paternal grandmother whose surname, Yiannopoulos, he later adopted.
Yiannopoulos was educated at Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury from which he has said he was expelled. He attended the University of Manchester but dropped out before graduating; he then read English at Wolfson College, Cambridge, but was sent down (expelled) in 2010.
In 2017, Yiannopoulos was a U.S. resident alien on O-1 visa status. He married his long-term boyfriend in Hawaii in September 2017. In March 2021, during an interview with right-wing publication LifeSiteNews, Yiannopoulos stated he was no longer homosexual and that his husband had been "demoted to housemate".
Career
After he dropped out of university, Yiannopoulos initially secured a job at The Catholic Herald. In 2009, Yiannopoulos moved to technology journalism with The Daily Telegraph. His Telegraph columnist biography described him in 2009 as one who "writes sceptically about Web 2.0 and social media but enthusiastically about the internet in general."
In June 2022, Yiannopoulos became an unpaid intern for American Republican Party politician Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The Kernel
In November 2011, Yiannopoulos co-founded The Kernel. In March 2013, The Kernel was shut down amidst allegations of unpaid wages, at a time when Yiannopoulos was editor-in-chief and sole director of its parent company, Sentinel Media. It was reopened later that year under Kernel Media, with Yiannopoulos remaining as editor-in-chief and having privately settled the previous debts.
In 2014, The Kernel was acquired by Daily Dot Media, the parent company of The Daily Dot. After the acquisition by Daily Dot Media, Yiannopoulos stepped down as editor-in-chief, although he remained an adviser to the company.
Breitbart News
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In 2014, Yiannopoulos started writing for Breitbart News, and in October 2015, Breitbart placed Yiannopoulos in charge of its new "Breitbart Tech" section. The site had six full-time staff, including esports specialist Richard Lewis, and was edited by Yiannopoulos until his resignation on 21 February 2017.
Association with neo-Nazism and the alt-right
In early October 2017, BuzzFeed News published leaked email chains from Yiannopoulos' tenure at Breitbart. According to the report, Yiannopoulos and his ghostwriter Allum Bokhari regularly solicited ideas for stories and comments from people associated with the alt-right and neo-Nazi movements. Among the figures Yiannopoulos contacted were Curtis Yarvin, a central figure of the neoreactionary movement; Devin Saucier, the editor of the white supremacist magazine American Renaissance; Andrew Auernheimer, the administrator of neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer; and Baked Alaska, a commentator known for his antisemitic and pro-Nazi tweets.
The story also reported that Yiannopoulos had a penchant for using personal passwords with antisemitic overtones, such as 'Kristall', a reference to Kristallnacht, and 'longknives1290', a compound reference to the Night of the Long Knives and the Edict of Expulsion.
In a Breitbart article, Yiannopoulos and a co-author described the alt-right movement as "dangerously bright". The Tablet stated that many of these intellectual backers write for publications it describes as racist and antisemitic, such as VDARE and American Renaissance. The Breitbart article was criticised by opponents of the alt-right for excusing the extremist elements of the movement, and also by the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer which holds that racism and antisemitism are pillars of the alt-right.
The Anti-Defamation League classifies Yiannopoulos as part of the alt-lite, a term used to distinguish individuals sometimes associated with the alt-right from those who are openly white nationalist and antisemitic. These accusations, as well as Yiannopoulos's support for Donald Trump, have contributed to a feud between Yiannopoulos and Ben Shapiro, a Jewish conservative political commentator who refused to support Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Shapiro accused Yiannopoulos, his followers, and other Trump supporters of racist and antisemitic behaviour. He criticised Yiannopoulos's attempts to distinguish between real racist or bigoted behaviour and trolling, stating that "words have meaning" and that the distinction that Yiannopoulos was attempting to make "simply doesn't exist in objective reality".
In 2017, Yiannopoulos was depicted singing "America the Beautiful" at a karaoke bar, where a crowd of neo-Nazis and white supremacists, including Richard B. Spencer, cheered him with the Nazi sieg heil salute. In response, Yiannopoulos denied observing the Nazi salutes while he was singing, citing what he claimed to be "extreme myopia". According to the bartender who was working on the night of the incident, Yiannopoulos, Spencer and their entourage came into the bar and asked to sing karaoke even though it had ended. When the bartender saw the Nazi salutes she rushed the stage and told Yiannopoulos and his friends to leave, at which point they began harassing her, chanting "Trump! Trump! Trump!" and "Make America Great Again!" According to her, Yiannopoulos was getting the others "roused".
Following these revelations, billionaire Robert Mercer ceased his support for Yiannopoulos and condemned him, as did Yiannopoulos's former employer Steve Bannon.
In November 2019, Yiannopoulos released an audio recording which appeared to feature Spencer using the racial slurs 'octaroons' and 'kikes', referring respectively to African Americans and Jewish people. The recording appeared to date from the immediate aftermath of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 and the murder of Heather Heyer.
Tours
On 1 February 2017, Yiannopoulos was scheduled to make a speech at UC Berkeley. More than 100 UC Berkeley faculty had signed a petition demanding the university cancel the event. Over 1,500 people gathered to protest against the event on the steps of Sproul Hall, with some violence breaking out. According to the university, around 150 masked agitators came onto campus and interrupted the protest, setting fires, damaging property, throwing fireworks, attacking members of the crowd, and throwing rocks at the police. These violent protesters included members of BAMN, who threw rocks at police, shattered windows, threw Molotov cocktails, and later vandalised downtown Berkeley. Citing security concerns, the UC Police Department cancelled the event. One person was arrested for failure to disperse, and there was about $100,000 in damage. The police were criticised for their "hands off" policy whereby they did not arrest any of the demonstrators who committed assault, vandalism, or arson. Berkeley police reported at least 11 arrests, but no injuries or damage to buildings. UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said afterwards that the media event amounted to "the most expensive photo op in the university's history."
In November 2017, Yiannopoulos began a tour of Australia, visiting Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Adelaide and Perth. During the Adelaide show, Yiannopoulos stirred controversy by projecting an unflattering photo of the feminist writer Clementine Ford, taken when she was a teenager, with the word 'UNFUCKABLE' superimposed over the top. There was violence outside his Melbourne events as protesters from the left-aligned Campaign Against Racism and Fascism and right-wing True Blue Crew clashed. Seven people were arrested after clashing with police and outside the venue for Yiannopoulos's Sydney event. Yiannopoulos claimed the violence was caused by "the left, showing up, being violent to stop freedom of speech".
Books
Yiannopoulos published two poetry books under the name Milo Andreas Wagner. His 2007 release Eskimo Papoose was later scrutinised for re-using lines from pop music and television without attribution, to which he replied that it was done deliberately and that the work was satirical.
A ghostwritten autobiography titled Dangerous was announced in December 2016. Yiannopoulos received an $80,000 advance payment from the book's planned publisher, Simon & Schuster. It was intended to be published under their Threshold Editions. A day after its announcement, pre-sales for the book elevated it to first place on Amazon.com's list of best-sellers.
In February 2017, Simon & Schuster cancelled its plans to publish the book that also led to CPAC withdrawing its speaking invitation and Yiannopoulos resigning from Breitbart. Yiannopoulos began litigation against Simon & Schuster for "breach of contract" and "breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing", seeking $10 million in damages. He dropped the suit in February 2018.
In May 2017, Yiannopoulos announced that he would self-publish the book on 4 July 2017. Soon after the announcement, the book became the best-selling political humour book on Amazon. The book was a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller. The book further peaked at No. 1 on Publishers Weekly's nonfiction bestseller list and at No. 2 on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list.
Yiannopoulos's self-published books How to Be Poor and How to Be Straight were also released in 2019. The former was released after the revelation of his alleged insolvency. He also wrote The Trial of Roger Stone and Middle Rages: Why the Battle for Medieval Studies Matters to America, which discussed controversies surrounding Rachel Fulton Brown, a professor of medieval studies at the University of Chicago.
Views
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Political beliefs
In the United Kingdom, Yiannopoulos supported the Conservative Party before applying to join the UK Independence Party in June 2018. A former supporter of Donald Trump, and a person who was compared to Ann Coulter, he has been referred to as the "face of a political movement," but he says his real concerns are "pop culture and free speech." In December 2020, Yiannopoulos denounced Trump, saying that "Trump's SCOTUS appointments were pointless. We defended a selfish clown for nothing," and that he would dedicate "the rest of my life to the destruction of the Republican Party."
Islam
Yiannopoulos is a frequent critic of Islam and has said the "fear of Islam is entirely rational". He has blamed Islam, not just extremist groups and terrorists, for violence against women and homosexuals. Yiannopoulos said "I'm not talking about Islamists. I'm not talking about terrorists. I'm not talking about radical Islam. I'm talking about mainstream Muslim culture".
Women and feminism
Yiannopoulos is a frequent critic of feminism. He has frequently written articles that have been criticised as misogynistic.
He describes feminists as "easy to wind up", is critical of the idea of a gender pay gap and claims that feminism has become "a mean, vindictive, sociopathic, man-hating movement." Yiannopoulos favours banning women from military combat units.
Homosexuality
In 2011, Yiannopoulos described being gay as "a lifestyle choice guaranteed to bring [gay people] pain and unhappiness", however in the same article stated "I'd describe myself as 90-95% gay. I would never have chosen to be this way. No one would choose it. You'd have to be mad." In October 2017, he married his husband in Hawaii. That same month, he came out against the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, arguing it would violate religious freedom.
In 2017, Yiannopoulos reiterated his belief that homosexuality is a sin and denounced those (including clergy) who sought to change Church dogma on the issue. "You don't see me disputing the Church's teachings on homosexuality...I wouldn't dream of demanding that the Church throw away her hard truths just to lie to me in hopes I'll feel better about myself," he said. In August 2019, Yiannopoulos was grand marshal for a straight pride parade in Boston, organised by a group called Super Happy Fun America. The parade was ostensibly to celebrate heterosexuality.
In March 2021, Yiannopoulos declared to the LifeSiteNews website that he was an ex-gay and would begin advocating on behalf of improving the public image of gay conversion therapy. In June 2021, Yiannopoulos announced that he was fundraising for a gay conversion therapy centre in Florida.
Yiannopoulos Privilege Grant
In January 2016, Yiannopoulos set up his Privilege Grant for white men to balance scholarships for women and minorities. He participated in an online telethon to raise money for the grant and in August 2016, reported that approximately $100,000 had been received in donations and a further $250,000 had been pledged.
In August 2016, it was revealed that over a quarter of a million dollars had gone missing from the Yiannopoulos Privilege Grant. Yiannopoulos apologised for mismanaging the grant and denied that he had spent the money. In March 2018, Yiannopoulos confirmed that the fund had been closed down.
Debt
In December 2018, his former Australian tour promoters, Australian Events Management, showed that Yiannopoulos had accrued more than $2 million in unpaid debt: $1.6 million to his own company, $400,000 to the Mercer Family Foundation, $153,215 to his former lawyers, $76,574 to former collaborator and Breitbart writer Allum Bokhari, and $20,000 to the luxury brand Cartier.
Kanye West campaign
In 2022, Yiannopoulos briefly worked with rapper Kanye West on his 2024 presidential election campaign. Yiannopoulos claimed that he arranged the well-publicised November 2022 dinner between Trump, West and far-right commentator Nick Fuentes to "make Trump's life miserable". "I also wanted to send a message to Trump that he has systematically repeatedly neglected, ignored, abused the people who love him the most, the people who put him in office, and that kind of behavior comes back to bite you in the end,” he said. In March 2023, Yiannopoulos published material on his Telegram channel about Stop the Steal founder Ali Alexander, who had also worked on the Kanye West campaign. In May 2023, Yiannopoulos was rehired by West to run his campaign.
Books
- How to Be Poor. 2019. ISBN: 978-9527303535
- How to Be Straight. 2019. ISBN: 978-9527303566
- Middle Rages: Why the Battle for Medieval Studies Matters to America. 2019. ISBN: 978-9527303559
- The Trial of Roger Stone. 2020. ISBN: 978-9527303597
Forewords
- SJWs Always Lie—Taking Down the Thought Police. 2015. Castalia Press. ISBN: 9789527065686
- Forbidden Thoughts. 2017. Subversive Press. ISBN: 0994516347
- No Campus for White Men: The Transformation of Higher Education into Hateful Indoctrination. 2017. WND Books. ISBN: 1944229620
- Jordanetics: A Journey into the Mind of Humanity's Greatest Thinker. 2018. Castelia Press. ISBN: 9527065690
See also
In Spanish: Milo Yiannopoulos para niños
