PewDiePie Takes Back $50K Pledge To Jewish Anti-Hate Group After His Fans Make A Fuss About It!

PewDiePie really wants to move past his anti-Semitic controversies, but his fans aren’t making it easy.

The popular YouTube star (real name Felix Kjellberg) revealed he’s pulling his $50,000 pledge to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) after his initial announcement sparked outrage amongst his passionate fandom.

In a video uploaded on Thursday, the gamer said he didn’t do much research into the Jewish anti-hate group before making the pledge, which was supposed to be an attempt to make up for the racist and anti-Semitic scandals he’s been caught in over the past few years.

After seeing the feedback from some of his fans following the announcement, however, the Swedish internet star admitted he “didn’t know a lot of things that surfaced throughout this whole thing about the charity.” 

Pewds’ initial announcement was met with outrage from fans, who questioned why the 29-year-old was making a donation to a group that had previously spoken out against him. Other fans criticized him for helping out an organization they claim is anti-free speech by their apparent policing of hate speech.

(You really gotta consider the source though if the source wants to protect hate.)

As for why he decided to rescind his donation, PewDiePie said:

“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.”

The YouTuber previously addressed the fan criticism against his donation in a since-deleted tweet, writing: 

“aking a donation to the ADL doesn’t make sense to everyone, especially since they’ve outright spoken against me.” 

PewDiePie said in his recent video he saw the donation as an “opportunity” to distance himself from the alt right, months after the suspect in a mass shooting in New Zealand told viewers on a livestream to “subscribe to PewDiePie” moments before over 50 people were killed. 

The beloved gamer said in his video:

“ wasn’t to try to clear my name or save grace. If it was, I would’ve done it years ago. But after the Christchurch tragedy, I felt a responsibility to do something about it, because it’s no longer just about me. It affected other people in a way, and I’m not OK with that.”

The Minecraft expert previously drew global condemnation for paying two men on Fiverr to hold up a sign with anti-Semetic imagery in February 2017. He was then caught using the n-word during a gaming live stream on YouTube.

As for the ADL, a spokesperson told The Verge they learned about the “potential donation when everyone else did: when he made the announcement on his channel yesterday,” adding:

“We have not received any communication from him beyond that.”

Now, the gamer said he’s planning to take the time to “properly” choose where to send his $50,000 guilt money, which he received as a sponsorship from coupon-finding browser extension Honey.

Let’s hope his next donation sticks…

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