YouTube

Shane Dawson Demonetized on YouTube Amid Reckoning for Racist Videos, Beauty Guru Drama

Dawson was accused Tuesday of masterminding an attempt to discredit James Charles, a YouTuber who rose to fame as a teenager by creating makeup videos

Shane Dawson
John Lamparski/WireImage

YouTube demonetized one of its biggest creators on Tuesday as Shane Dawson faces a reckoning for past videos which featured racist jokes and the sexualization of minors, as well as his involvement in drama from last year that nearly destroyed a beauty YouTuber’s career.

The platform has suspended the ability to monetize views with ads on Dawson’s three channels indefinitely, according to YouTube. Dawson, who has been on the platform for more than 15 years, has been considered one of YouTube’s biggest creators and occasionally dubbed the “King of Youtube.”

But in recent weeks, Dawson has been called to task over his past behavior, including racist sketches that featured blackface, a video that showed him sexually gratifying himself to a poster of an 11-year-old Willow Smith, and accusations that he worked to orchestrate the cancellation of another content creator.

On Friday, Dawson made a 20-minute long video addressing his racist videos and the times he made jokes about pedophilia, acknowledging that his previous apologies were not enough.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com.

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