YouTuber Felix Kjellberg, known as “PewDiePie”, has withdrawn a £40,000 donation to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which he initially offered amid allegations of antisemitism.
Kjellberg, who is Swedish but lives in Brighton, announced the donation this week in a video made to celebrate gaining 100 million subscribers – but the ADL later said it had not been contacted by the vlogger.
Amid a backlash from his fans and the emergence of conspiracy theories that he had been pressured to make the donation, Kjellberg rescinded the offer in a video published on Thursday.
He said: “I made the mistake of picking a charity I was advised, instead of picking a charity I’m personally passionate about, which is 100 per cent my fault.
“When I uploaded the video talking about the charity, it was very brief and people could tell something was off. The whole internet just didn’t believe it. Why is he donating to this charity? Look at his face – full conspiracy mode.”
The YouTuber has been accused of making antisemitic jokes in his videos and evoking Nazi imagery.
In January 2017, Kjellberg published a video in which he paid two men to hold up a sign reading “Death to all Jews”, also videoing his reaction.
The following month, companies which had business deals with the YouTube star – including Disney, Google and YouTube itself – cut ties with him.
He has also attracted fans from the far-right, and was referred to in a video by the Christchurch mosque shooter, who asked viewers to “subscribe to PewDiePie”.
Kjellberg said he offered to donate £40,000 to the ADL, an international group dedicated to fighting antisemitism and defending civil rights, to “put an end to these alt-right claims that have been thrown against me”.
He added on Thursday that, since making the offer, “a lot of things surfaced throughout this whole thing about the charity that doesn’t fit at all”.
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