PewDiePie Rescinds 50K Pledge to Anti Defamation League After Fan Backlash
PewDiePie pulls $50,000 pledge to Jewish anti-hate group after fan backlash https://t.co/moqWiMtp46 pic.twitter.com/Ej6WWVi7qH
- The Verge (@verge) September 12, 2019
In a recent video to celebrate 100 million subscribers, YouTuber Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg initially announced he'd be donating $50,000 to the Anti-Defamation League, which he praised as "an organisation that fights bigotry and prejudice in all its forms” and which he'd acknowledged (in a now deleted tweet) as a group that had spoken against him in the past. He claimed that he wanted to put a leg forward in his career and "come to terms with the responsibility I have as a creator-about 100,000,000 subs too late, but you know".
Pewdiepie statement on the ADL donation https://t.co/eGTYDdCEEx pic.twitter.com/RAzEh7eBJM
- PewDiePie Submissions (@LWIAY_bot) September 11, 2019
But after a backlash from his fanbase (who started a conspiracy theory about how the ADL was blackmailing him into making the donation), he has now rescinded the donation that he'd never really made in the first place.
A spokesperson for the ADL commented: “ADL learned about the potential donation from Felix Kjellberg when everyone else did: when he made the announcement on his channel yesterday. We have not received any communication from him beyond that.”
Kjellberg said in a recent video that he "didn’t know a lot of things that surfaced throughout this whole thing about the charity" and that "I made the mistake of picking a charity that I was advised to instead of picking a charity that I’m personally passionate about. Which is 100 percent my fault.”
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