After two months, YouTuber Shane Dawson made his return to the internet in a new vlog uploaded by his fiancé, Ryland Adams, on Wednesday, September 9. According to a caption at the start of the video, the footage seemed to be filmed on June 15, just days before Shane was involved in multiple scandals online.
“Oh my god, wait. Oh my god, this is scary,” the Internet Famous star, 32, said when Ryland, 29, turned the camera toward him. He went on to explain that he was afraid to reveal a new haircut to fans.
Shane’s return comes after he faced backlash for “sexualizing” Willow Smith when she was 11 years old, and “doing blackface on the regular” in resurfaced old clips. He was also slammed online after Tati Westbrook posted a tell-all video on June 30 claiming that Shane and Jeffree Star “coerced and manipulated” her into accusing James Charles of lying, manipulating and being a disrespectful person after he supported one of her rival vitamin companies last year.
Although Shane didn’t acknowledge any of his scandals in the recent video — which showed off his and Ryland’s newly redecorated bedroom — he did comment on “15 years of hate comments” that he’s received since the start of his YouTube career.
Fans reacted on social media to Shane’s return with some calling it “bold” while others found it “disrespectful” that he never made an official apology following all the drama.
However, Shane did address the fan criticism he received for past offensive comments with a video called “Taking Accountability,” which was uploaded on June 26.
“I have done a lot of things in my past that I hate, that I wish I could make go away,” he admitted. “This video is coming from a place of just wanting to own up to my s**t, wanting to own up to everything I’ve done on the internet that has hurt people, that has added to the problem, that has not been handled well. I should have been punished for things.”
Aside from saying there was “no excuse” for his use of blackface, Shane also addressed past accusations that he sexualized minors.
“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 was 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 … It’s all gross and I promise that is not real. That is not me.”
Ryland also asked fans not to “cancel” Shane because of his past.
“I understand that Shane’s made highly insensitive and offensive jokes, and I know that while they were far in his past, it’s hard to separate that person from who he is today — especially when seeing them in real-time and your feelings are being hurt right now,” he said in a video from August 3. “I can never take that away from you and I would never say that you have to take his apology or even ask you to do that.”
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