This should be a lesson to all up and coming YouTubers that things you do and say to shock people can come back to haunt you years later once you break big. Shane Dawson, 29, made some really crude jokes about pedophilia and now they have come back to bite him in the butt. The comments were made in a podcast six years ago, but they’re a bit disturbing and someone compiled them into a five-minute video titled “Shane Dawson is a pedophile. Here’s proof”, which dropped on Jan. 10. Shane said, “Here’s my justification for pedophilia: People have foot fetishes, people have fetishes about everything, that’s fine, do your thing. So why is it when somebody looks at and Googles like ‘naked baby’ on Google and j**ks off to it, they can get arrested? I don’t understand that.”
But wait, there’s more! He continued, “Here’s the worst part of it, I actually went to Google… I didn’t want to see child porn but I just thought ‘okay let me pretend like I’m a pedophile for a second.’ So I typed in ‘naked baby’. First of all I don’t know why anybody would be turned on by that. But they were sexy…I’m kidding,” he laughed. He also went on to describe an encounter with a six-year-old girl where they started discussing how many followers they had. The little one revealed that she was a cheerleader and showed him her Instagram photos and he said, “First of all, I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this, but she’s like sexy.” He also said that 12-year-old girls with tattoos are also “sexy.”
Open the floodgates because Twitter had a field day as the video went wide on Wednesday, with his name quickly becoming a trending topic and haters starting a #shanedawsonisoverparty to celebrate his possible YouTube downfall. However he’s got plenty of fans who came to his rescue, bringing up that the highly edited version of the podcast left out where he said “having sex with or touching kids is disgusting.”
Shane went on a 14 minute fiery tear about it on his YouTube channel following the controversy. “I am NOT a f***ing pedophile,” he yelled in a response video where he slammed everyone for taking his soundbites out of context. “Here’s my statement cause everyone says ‘Shane, make a statement.’ I am not a f***king pedophile. I think it’s disgusting that people are saying I’m a f***ing pedophile because of some sh**y ass jokes from six years ago on a podcast,” he yelled unrepentantly. He went on to say that it was his “thing” and gimmick that he used to shock people earlier in his YouTube career. He blamed it on insecurity at the time and that he “wasn’t confident to make smarter jokes.” He added he did some “f***ed up comedy stuff” that he wasn’t proud of, including making racist, homophobic and fat-shaming jokes in the past. Well, at least he’s taking ownership of his mistakes.
Here’s his statement in response:
HollywoodLifers, do you love Shane or does he annoy the crap out of you?