YouTube star Logan Paul apologizes after video showed apparent suicide victim
YouTube star Logan Paul apologized Monday after receiving backlash for posting a video called "We Found a Dead Body in Japan's Suicide Forest" that showed a body hanging from a tree in what appeared to be a suicide. One day after the video was posted, YouTube posted a message that the video had been removed by the user.
In an apology posted on Twitter, Paul wrote that he "intended to raise awareness for suicide and suicide prevention ... I was misguided by the shock and awe, as portrayed in the video."
Although the video initially was supposed to be part of his "Tokyo Adventures," Paul says in the intro "this is the most real vlog I've ever posted to this channel." When he posted the video Sunday night, he tweeted "idk man just go."
In the video, Paul and his entourage are wandering around the woods when they happen across what appears to be a body hanging from a tree. At first, Paul said "Yo, are you alive ... are you [expletive] with us?" before turning the camera back on himself and saying "a lot of things going through my mind right now ... this literally probably just happened."
He and his entourage briefly describe the body before Paul laughs uncomfortably and says "it was all going to be a joke ... why did it become so real?"
The Internet, however, did not have sympathy for Paul.
According to New York magazine's Select All, the video was viewed more than 6.3 million times before it was taken down.
