Earlier this year, popular YouTube person Felix Kjellberg lost a lucrative sponsorship deal with Disney following an anti-Semitic video. This week, the streamer better known as PewDiePie faced criticism for using a racial slur during a livestream—which latterly saw Firewatch developer Campo Santo issuing Kjellberg with DMCA takedown notice.
After two days of silence, Kjellberg has responded via a video posted to his social media channels. Here's his statement in full as transcribed from the video below:
Hello I wanted to make a statement on what I said in my previous livestream.
You probably won't believe me when I say this, but whenever I go online and I hear other players use the same kind of language that I did, I always find it extremely immature and stupid, and I hate how I now personally fed into that part of gaming as well. It was something that I said in the heat of the moment, I said the worst word that I could possibly think of and it just sort of slipped out. I'm not going to make any excuses to why it did because there are no excuses for it.
I'm disappointed in myself because it seems like I've learned nothing from all these past controversies, and it's not that I think I can say or do whatever I wanted and get away with it, that's not it at all, I'm just an idiot. But that doesn't make what I said or how I said it okay. It was not okay. I'm really sorry if I offended, hurt or disappointed anyone with all of this. Being in the position that I am, I should know better.
I know I can't keep messing up like this. I owe to my audience and to myself to do better than this, because I know I'm better than this. I really want to improve myself and better myself—not just for me, but for anyone that looks up to me or anyone that's influenced by me. And that's how I want to move forward away from this. That's all I have to say, thank you for watching. Bye.
