YouTuber Shane Dawson aimed to set the record straight on Sunday, after audio leaked of him joking about sexually abusing his cat. He strongly denied such abuse occurred.
A Twitter user unearthed audio of Dawson, 30, from a 2015 podcast where he claimed to have had his "first sexual experience" at 19 when he "came all over" his cat. Dawson took to Twitter on Sunday to deny the validity of this story and suggest it was a bad joke. He also apologized for making the remarks in the first place through a series of tweets.
"I didn't f*** my cat. I didn't c** on my cat. I didn't put my d*** anywhere near my cat. I've never done anything weird with my cats," Dawson tweeted Sunday. "I promised myself I wasn't going to make apology videos after last years [sic] thing so I'm just trying to be as short and honest with this as possible."
"I've apologized many times for all the dumb s**t I've said in videos and podcasts over the years. I've learned my lesson over and over again and I'm more confident now in my ability to be entertaining by just being myself and not being so shocking for laughs," he added in another tweet.
I found the audio!! Shane Dawson came on his cat! WTF!!!!! This was on his podcast pic.twitter.com/6slFQRxIeE
— Sandwich Ruler (@magician_dragon) March 17, 2019
Dawson explained that the cat abuse story "was fake" and "based on a dumb awful sketch idea" that he never completed. He claimed to have told the joke as if it actually happened, which he recognized as a "disgusting" and "very dumb" thing to do.
The YouTube personality admitted to being "proud" of how far he's come in his career. Dawson, who currently boasts more than 10 million Instagram followers, is considered one of the original YouTubers after launching his channel ShaneDawsonTV in 2008. Despite this, he's not satisfied with all facets of his past.
"All of my offensive jokes, over the top stories, and insensitive jokes are something that still haunt me and something I have to be faced with everyday on the internet. And it never gets easier," he tweeted Sunday.
Dawson has drawn controversy for his jokes over the years. In 2014, he issued an apology for making insensitive videos after fellow YouTuber Franchesca Ramsey slammed his racist comedy. His videos featuring characters in blackface, in particular, drew backlash. He removed much of his controversial video content following the scandal, according to a report from The Washington Post in 2014.
"This video is an apology. It's not a fake apology. Nobody told me to do this. If anything, people have told me not to do this.... I want to," he said. "I want to raise attention to it because I want to turn this around into a learning experience because a lot of people watch my videos."
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Dory Jackson is a New York-based entertainment journalist from Maryland. She graduated from Randolph-Macon College—in May 2016—with a focus in Communication ... Read more
