“Shut up. … Just shut up for one [redacted] second.” — Bill Maher to Milo Yiannopoulos on Real Time with Bill Maher, two nights before audio from Milo’s infamous 2015 Drunken Peasants podcast appearance leaked.
Milo Yiannopoulos wasn’t always Milo Yiannopoulos.
He was first Milo Hanrahan, then Milo Andreas Wagner. He was a student at Manchester, a student at Cambridge, a poet (though perhaps only “as a joke”), Bianca Jagger’s speechwriter, a tech journalist, the founder of several startups, including a tech blog-cum-tabloid well-regarded enough to be acquired by the Daily Dot, “a cross between a pitbull and Oscar Wilde,” a media personality, a disgraced media personality, a gay man, an ex-gay man, and once the world’s most popular right-wing influencer.
Much has been written of the rise and fall of Milo’s star: his storied history as a journalist, his “big break” as a vocal anti-feminist during #Gamergate, Simon & Schuster’s decision to pull its $250,000 advance for his autobiography, Dangerous, after audio emerged from a 2015 podcast in which he appeared to defend ephebophilia in the gay community, and most recently, his attempts at a comeback as a “sodomy-free ex-gay” on a mission to spread the good word of conversion therapy. Everyone has a theory about what happened to Milo, and most everyone agrees that he, as with so many others, was a “victim of celebrity.”
Occasionally, you’ll run into a contrarian fan who says that Milo was always misunderstood or that he did nothing wrong and was sabotaged by jealous people. But for the most part, the consensus is that he loved the limelight and it got the better of him.
It’s a tale as old as time — celebrity chews people up and spits people out.
The Daily Beast once asked, “Other than attention, what is it Yiannopoulos even wants?”
This is the kind of question one can ask only after someone’s been discredited. Attention is the elephant in the room when it comes to any career path that attracts it. Writers, actors, musicians — none of us are allowed to say we actually want the audience we perform for. We must always pretend that they’re incidental at best, a byproduct of what we really care about: the work.
Milo is a hard person to defend, even from the Right, if not for his myriad bullying campaigns, then for some of his more desperate pleas for attention, including his rebranding as an “ex-homosexual.” And this is to say nothing of the comments that ended his career, in which he defended the sexual victimization of minors within the gay community. Even at the height of his fame, Milo was an adult who had the full capacity to make decisions, and they were often irresponsible ones.
But while I accept that Milo had to be held accountable for his actions, my mind is constantly drawn back to his Feb. 17, 2017, appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher, just two days before his excommunication. He’s dressed up in pearls, perfectly campy and filled with ebullience and interruptions, begging to be hated, like a drag queen whose shtick is calling you frumpy or pointing to a woman in the audience and suggesting that she’d have more fun at a K.D. Lang show than at a drag bar.
As I write this, my sister looks over my shoulder and asks, “Wasn’t Milo a Nazi?”
I’m reminded of how Milo encouraged people to cast him as the sort of extremist it’s hard to believe he ever truly was at a time when so-called white nationalist extremism was America’s favorite sideshow attraction. The Left lapped it up with a mix of fear, self-aggrandizement, and unfettered enjoyment. Lost amid the circus was Milo’s real, relevant cultural commentary, frequently overshadowed by comments meant to provoke and offend.
If you don’t buy the theory that Milo was a government operative paid to discredit the populist Right, you might look at his body of work and assume he’s a man who always wanted to be heard — and finally was.
There’s something to be said for the rush of breaking through to mainstream attention, even if it comes “by any means necessary” — for the positive reinforcement you get as a provocateur, even if it happens behind closed doors. You say what everyone is thinking, and they cheer you on. You dog whistle as a campy, theatrical wink and think everyone is laughing with you, and maybe they are. You think you can say and do anything. You’re on top of the world.
Suddenly, after trying for so long, important people are listening to you. You become a vessel for the ideas they can’t voice. They enjoy seeing you push the envelope as far as you can, and you enjoy the attention they give you in return. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can sneak in some ideas of your own.
But not even the professionally famous know how to sustain fame. And the people who pay attention to you once you get there don’t really want to listen to you. You’re not one of them — you’re a canvas for their most controversial ideas. Milo’s enablers weren’t true believers, and he wasn’t their equal. He was an entertainment piece.
Whether his downfall was the product of willful sabotage or his own self-destruction, when Milo’s wings melted, there was no one there to catch his fall.
Only Maher gave him the advice he needed to hear: Shut up, Milo. Shut up.
For the love of God, Milo, shut up.
Katherine Dee is a writer and co-host of the podcast After the Orgy. Find more of her work at defaultfriend.substack.com or on Twitter @default_friend.
