When you mess with one member of the Smith family, you mess with all of them — a lesson controversial YouTuber Shane Dawson learned the hard way over the weekend.
Dawson, one of YouTube’s biggest creators with a following of over 22 million subscribers, apologized for his past racist and offensive videos in which he frequently used blackface and joked about pedophilia, among other things.
In his video titled “Taking Accountability” released last week, the 31-year-old, however, didn’t mention an old clip of him simulating masturbation to a poster of Willow Smith, who was just 11 years old at the time.
But the internet was quick to remind Dawson and bring the video to the attention of Jada Pinkett Smith and Jaden Smith, who both called out the YouTuber on Twitter Saturday.
“To Shane Dawson … I’m done with the excuses,” Pinkett Smith wrote.
A “disgusted” Jaden Smith also weighed in following his mother’s tweet.
“SHANE DAWSON I AM DISGUSTED BY YOU. YOU SEXUALIZING AN 11 YEAR OLD GIRL WHO HAPPENS TO BE MY SISTER!!!!!! IS THE FURTHEST THING FROM FUNNY AND NOT OKAY IN THE SLIGHTEST BIT,” he wrote in all caps.
“This Man Was Also Doing Black Face On The Regular,” the rapper continued in a separate tweet. “As The Youth We Need To Support Creators Who Support Us And Our Morals. This Is Not Okay.”
Dawson expressed regret in his apology video over creating a “child molester character” in past sketches.
“I swear on my life, I am not somebody who would ever talk about a child, like in seriousness, I would never talk about a child in any way that is inappropriate,” he said. “That is disgusting, that is gross, it is not something I would ever do. It is something I did for shock value or because I thought it was funny or, like ‘Oh my god, my child molester character,’ or whatever.”
But it’s not exactly the first apology for Dawson, who asked for forgiveness back in 2018 over his “really shitty fucking jokes” concerning pedophilia, especially given his young fan base.
In his recent video, Dawson also said there is “literally no excuse” for his past use of blackface and the N-word on his channel.
“Blackface was something I did a lot — like, I did it a lot on my channel,” he explained. “I made a video six years ago talking about it and I gave excuses. I knew it was wrong, I knew I never wanted to do it again, but I didn’t do the work. I didn’t actually look into the history of it and why it’s so wrong, and why people were so upset.”
Dawson is the latest YouTube star in recent days to wrestle with their own racist history. Earlier this month, Jenna Marbles said she would be leaving the platform after apologizing for making racist jokes and filming blackface videos at the start of her career.
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