Milo Yiannopoulos

Milo Yiannopoulos (né Hanrahan; born 18 October 1984) is a British far-right political commentator.

His speeches and writings criticise Islam, feminism, social justice, and political correctness.

Yiannopoulos is a former editor of Breitbart News, an American far-right news and opinion website.

In 2009, Yiannopoulos moved to technology journalism with The Daily Telegraph.

His Telegraph columnist biography described him in 2009 as one who "writes sceptically about Web 2.0 and social media but enthusiastically about the internet in general."

In June 2022, Yiannopoulos became an unpaid intern for American Republican Party politician Marjorie Taylor Greene.

He attended the University of Manchester but dropped out before graduating; he then read English at Wolfson College, Cambridge, but was sent down (expelled) in 2010.

In November 2011, Yiannopoulos co-founded The Kernel.

In March 2013, The Kernel was shut down amidst allegations of unpaid wages, at a time when Yiannopoulos was editor-in-chief and sole director of its parent company, Sentinel Media.

It was reopened later that year under Kernel Media, with Yiannopoulos remaining as editor-in-chief and having privately settled the previous debts.

Yiannopoulos worked for Breitbart from 2014 to 2017.

During this time, he rose to prominence as a significant voice in the Gamergate controversy.

In 2014, The Kernel was acquired by Daily Dot Media, the parent company of The Daily Dot.

After the acquisition by Daily Dot Media, Yiannopoulos stepped down as editor-in-chief, although he remained an adviser to the company.

In 2014, Yiannopoulos started writing for Breitbart News, and in October 2015, Breitbart placed Yiannopoulos in charge of its new "Breitbart Tech" section.

In 2014, Yiannopoulos emerged as a "lead actor" in the Gamergate harassment campaign through his work at Breitbart, becoming one of the most vocal of Gamergate's supporters.

Yiannopoulos employed Gamergate as a basis for online attacks on women, and his role in Gamergate allowed him to become one of the central figures in the mainstream growth of the alt-right.

Before Gamergate, Yiannopoulos referred to gamers as "pungent beta male bollock scratchers" and also said that "Few things are more embarrassing than grown men getting over-excited about video games".

In July 2016, he was permanently banned from Twitter for online harassment of actress Leslie Jones.

According to emails by Yiannopoulos leaked by BuzzFeed News in late 2017, Yiannopoulos solicited white nationalists, such as American Renaissance editor Devin Saucier, for story ideas and editing suggestions during his tenure at Breitbart.

Yiannopoulos has been accused of advocating paedophilia after the emergence of several video clips in which he said that sexual relationships between 13-year-old boys and adults can be "perfectly consensual" and positive experiences for such boys.

Following the release of the video clips, Yiannopoulos resigned his position at Breitbart, his invitation to speak before the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was rescinded, and a contract to publish his autobiography with Simon & Schuster was cancelled.

Yiannopoulos has said that he is not a supporter of paedophilic relationships and that his statements were attempts to cope with his own victimhood, as an object of child sexual abuse by unidentified men.

In 2022, Yiannopoulos served as an intern for United States Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, then worked with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and rapper Kanye West on West's 2024 U.S. presidential election campaign.

Born as Milo Hanrahan, Yiannopoulos was born and raised in Chatham, Kent, England.

His father is of half-Greek and half-Irish ancestry and his mother is Jewish.

He is described as a practising Roman Catholic.

His parents divorced when he was a child.

Raised by his mother and her second husband, Yiannopoulos has stated that he did not have a good relationship with his stepfather.

As a teenager, Yiannopoulos lived with his paternal grandmother whose surname, Yiannopoulos, he later adopted.

Family and religion:

Yiannopoulos was educated at Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury from which he has said he was expelled.

In 2017, Yiannopoulos was a U.S. resident alien on O-1 visa status.

He married his long-term boyfriend in Hawaii in September 2017.

In March 2021, during an interview with right-wing publication LifeSiteNews, Yiannopoulos stated he was no longer homosexual and that his husband had been "demoted to housemate".

After he dropped out of university, Yiannopoulos initially secured a job at The Catholic Herald.

The site had six full-time staff, including esports specialist Richard Lewis, and was edited by Yiannopoulos until his resignation on 21 February 2017.

In early October 2017, BuzzFeed News published leaked email chains from Yiannopoulos' tenure at Breitbart.

According to the report, Yiannopoulos and his ghostwriter Allum Bokhari regularly solicited ideas for stories and comments from people associated with the alt-right and neo-Nazi movements.

He was permanently banned from Facebook in 2019.