Former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos attempted to fund a “magnificent 2019 comeback” on the crowdfunding platform Patreon, only to be banned after one day. Yiannopoulos’ Patreon campaign, whose banner image is seen above, garnered around 250 patrons pledging an unknown amount of money before being kicked off the service.
“Milo Yiannopoulos was removed from Patreon as we don’t allow association with or supporting hate groups on Patreon,” the company said in a tweet. Leaked emails have linked Yiannopoulos to white supremacists, and a 2016 video showed him singing karaoke in a bar while audience members, including white nationalist Richard Spencer, gave Nazi salutes.
Hi there, thanks for the tweet. Milo Yiannopoulos was removed from Patreon as we don’t allow association with or supporting hate groups on Patreon. For more info, please see our Community Guidelines. https://t.co/L7737I1ENi
— Patreon (@Patreon) December 5, 2018
“I’ve had a miserable year or two, banned and de-platformed and censored and blacklisted,” Yiannopoulos wrote in his Patreon profile. He asked patrons to help fund a weekly late-night TV talk show, and to help him “pay essential staff and service providers.” The Guardian reported earlier this week that Yiannopoulos was $2 million in debt, a number Yiannopoulos later claimed was actually “at least” $4 million in a flippant Instagram post.
In return, patrons would get rewards like “free Milo ringtones,” a signed poster of Yiannopoulos, and an “elite-tier Milo coffee mug.” Backers who pledged at least $500 per month got more personal perks like “Milo will call you on your birthday,” and for $750 per month, “Milo will fly to you and take you and a friend out for dinner once a year.”
Yiannopoulos has been banned from other platforms, including Twitter, where he encouraged harassment of comedian and Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones. (He lost his verification checkmark prior to his suspension, something he complained about in 2016 during a White House press conference.) He was also disowned by parts of the conservative movement after video clips showed him making statements apparently supportive of pedophilia.
Earlier this year, Yiannopoulos said on Facebook — where he is not banned — that he had “been betrayed and abandoned by everyone who ever called themselves [his] friend, with a small handful of notable exceptions.” He also called his Facebook followers “entitled fucking babies” for criticizing his spending habits. “I’ll still be soliciting investment and donations from wealthy private supporters,” he assured readers in his Patreon profile — referring to supporters like the Mercer family, which distanced itself from him last year. “But I need you to help me get back to work.”