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PewDiePie has over 100 million subscribers on YouTube, but he's faced controversy for using racial slurs during live streams.He has been labeled an anti-Semite and racist. And now popular but controversial Swedish vlogger Felix Kjelberg, better known as PewDiePie, says he is “taking break from YouTube” in early 2020, because, as he put it, “I’m tired, I’m feeling very tired.”
PewDiePie made the announcement in a video posted on the platform over the weekend.
The hiatus is apparently temporary; PewDiePie said he’ll be away from YouTube “a little while,” and would explain more later.
The online video megastar, who has 102 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, often vlogs about video games and memes. But his divisive views have also been embraced by elements of the far-right.
In 2017, Disney and YouTube owner Google severed ties with PewDiePie, who had been heard using racial slurs during live streams. He also hosted a video featuring two men holding up a sign reading “Death to all Jews".
And earlier this year the alleged white supremacist gunman who took the lives of at least 50 people at two New Zealand mosques referenced PewDiePie in a hateful 74-page manifesto.
PewDiePie himself tweeted at the time, “I feel absolutely sickened having my name uttered by this person.”
Though he has denied the racist and anti-Semitic allegations against him, PewDiePie did cancel a previous pledge in September to donate $50,000 to the Jewish anti-hate Anti-Defamation League charity.
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