Milo Yiannopoulos forced to leave New York bar as crowd chants ‘get out Nazi scum’

Mr Yiannopoulos says he was shoved twice, and that he is 'not a Nazi'

Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos has been shouted down and forced to leave a New York City bar after he walked in on what was apparently a Democratic Socialists of America meet-up.

In videos, Mr Yiannopoulos, a former editor at Breitbart News, is seen interacting with the bartender Sunday while a crowd yells “Nazi scum get out” at him repeatedly. He then left.

“I was just shoved and screamed at by a big group in a pub in Manhattan and force out of the place,” he later wrote on Instagram, accompanied by a photo of him wearing sunglasses inside.

“They were screaming at the top of their lungs about ‘Nazis’ and ‘KKK’. Initially I was going to stay put obviously but they blocked me from my table and my bag and yelled at me to leave and it was about to escalate into something ugly,” he continued.

Clips posted online do not show any physical violence, and those shouting appeared to leave a good distance between themselves and Mr Yiannopoulos. Mr Yiannopoulos told The Independent in an email that he had been shoved twice by people in the crowd.

“It happens fairly often,” Mr Yiannopoulos said in an email about the incident, before saying that the incidents are offset by people on the street asking for selfies. Mr Yiannopoulos said he is “100 per cent” sure the incident would have turned violent if he had stayed.

 

I was just shoved and screamed at by a big group in a pub in Manhattan and forced out of the place. One of them was a reporter for Gizmodo. They were screaming at the top of their lungs about “Nazis” and “KKK”. Initially I was going to stay put obviously but they blocked me from my table and my bag and yelled at me to leave and it was about to escalate into something ugly. It rattled me a little bit (just slightly!), perhaps because I have something to lose in life now. My first thought was John and not getting myself hurt or killed. I don’t know how I’d explain to my black husband that I got hurt for being a “white supremacist”. I didn’t have security with me so I had to just get out of there. I won’t name the place we were at because the staff were really understanding and cool about it. But jeez. It’s now impossible for me to safely go out for lunch in most major cities in America because I supported Trump at the last election and don’t like feminism.

A post shared by MILO (@milo.yiannopoulos) on Apr 22, 2018 at 1:14pm PDT

“Violence had already occurred. They shoved me twice,” he said. “Obviously they don’t post that bit of the video.”

The Instagram post references his husband, a black man, and says that he was concerned that he might have to explain to him that he had been injured by people who called him a white supremacist.

Mr Yiannopoulos, who gained prominence as a vocal anti-feminist figure and supporter of President Donald Trump, has been at the centre of controversy before, but has recently seen falling fortunes. After he was forced to resign from his Breitbart post, Mr Yiannopoulos saw a book deal of his fail to manifest — he later self-published — and has been kept from delivering a speech during Berkley Free Speech week.

When asked if he takes issue with the crowd calling him a Nazi, Mr Yiannopoulos affirmed.

“I take issue with being called a Nazi because I’m not one,” he said.