The saga of former Breitbart personality and ex-Twitter troll Milo Yiannopoulos’ lawsuit against book publisher Simon & Schuster has finally come to a close. In a statement released to the press on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the publisher said, “We are pleased that Mr Yiannopoulos’ lawsuit has been withdrawn, with prejudice, and with no payment from Simon & Schuster. We stand by our decision to terminate the publication of Mr Yiannopoulos’ book.” In a Facebook post, Yiannopoulos described his decision as “tough,” adding that that “[he thought] it was the right one” to make.
Yiannopoulos first announced his intention to sue Simon & Schuster in July, five months after the publisher suddenly pulled out of its controversial book deal with him following his apparent public condoning of pedophilia. The professional troll was subsequently uninvited from a speaking gig at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), and forced to resign from his editorial post at Breitbart. He managed to obtain an unpaid post at The Daily Caller, but the conservative website quickly cut ties with him — as did Robert Mercer, the billionaire benefactor of Breitbart.
The lawsuit itself drew plenty of ire for Yiannopoulous, especially after he decided to shun his attorneys and represent himself at trial. This coincided with the public release of court documents pertaining to Yiannopoulos’ lawsuit against Simon & Schuster, including a complete copy of the editorial notes for a draft of the would-be memoir, Dangerous.
In his Facebook post, Yiannopoulos said “they wrongfully terminated my contract in bad faith” based on the court documents. He then theorized that the publisher had only agreed to publish “knowing they’d never publish it and then tried to make me walk away with excessive editing.” As for Simon & Schuster’s claim that they had made “no payment” to their former client, Yiannopoulos decried it as a “lie,” saying: “Not only did I keep the advance they retroactively claimed I owed back, but they have spent enormous funds on lawyers because they refused to admit they had done wrong.” Then again, the lawsuit was dropped “with prejudice,” so it’s not like he can try and sue them again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(Via The Book Seller and Milo Yiannopoulos)