Milo Yiannopoulos could stand to lose his job as editor at Breitbart News over newly unearthed comments he once made about pedophilia, the FOX Business Network reported.
According to the financial network “there is a fierce internal debate at Breitbart over whether he should remain with the website over his latest comments,” with some at the right-wing site telling Fox News that Yiannopoulos could be dismissed as early as end of the day Monday.
Yiannopoulos was disinvited from Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Monday after a video of him talking about pedophilia resurfaced over the weekend. In it, Yiannopoulos can be heard saying that some relationships between adults and 13-year-olds are consensual and joking that his own experience as a victim of molestation made him good at oral sex.
In response to the backlash, Yiannopoulos explained that his comments have been taken out of context.
Fox Business reports that some inside Breitbart say the decision on whether to keep Yiannopoulos “will ultimately be a business one” and that senior executives there are weighing how “damaging his comments are to the Breitbart brand.”
“Breitbart already has advertising issues regarding its association with the Alt-Right, and this doesn’t help the business side,” a person with “direct knowledge of the debate inside Breitbart” told Fox Business.
Meanwhile the Washingtonian reports that “at least a half-dozen” employees are prepared to leave the company if Yiannopoulos isn’t “promptly” fired. The site quotes an unnamed senior editor at Breitbart.
“The fact of the matter is that there’s been so many things that have been objectionable about Milo over the last couple of years, quite frankly. This is something far more sinister,” the senior editor says. “If the company isn’t willing to act, there are at least half a dozen people who are willing to walk out over it.”
A spokesperson for Breitbart declined TheWrap’s request for comment.
You can watch the complete Fox Business report in the video above.