YouTube star Logan Paul came under heavy fire Monday after he posted video of he and his friends stumbling upon a suicide victim’s body in Japan.
The now-deleted video showed the 22-year-old vlogger visiting the Aokigahara forest at the base of Mount Fuji, an area infamous for suicides in Japan, the BBC reported. Paul framed the video as he and his friends going to visit a “haunted” forest, but when they came across the body of an apparent suicide victim, Paul cracked a few jokes before realizing the severity of the situation, and the internet soon pelted him with accusations of monetizing a man’s death.
“Yo, are you alive?” Paul can be seen saying to the body. “Are you f—ing with us?”
“This is a first for me. This literally probably just happened,” Paul says.
Someone off-camera then says “I don’t feel good.”
“What, you never stand next to a dead guy,” Paul relplies.
Laughing, Paul continues, “It was gonna be a joke. This was all a joke. Why did it become so real?”
Only then does the vlogger assume a more somber tone.
“This is the most real vlog I’ve ever posted to this channel,” Paul says. “Suicide is not a joke … Depression and mental illness are not a joke. We came here with an intent to focus on the ‘haunted’ aspect of the forest. This obviously just became very real, and obviously a lotta people are going through a lotta s— in their lives.
WATCH:
6m+ views about a mans final moment on this planet captured by @LoganPaul being ridiculed and made fun of whilst #loganpaul has the audacity to offer advice for people with depression. If it was @jakepaul hanging from that tree would you still have vlogged it? Shameful.. #youtube pic.twitter.com/3U0DKc4uuV
— WUSKUL (@MrWuskul) January 2, 2018
It didn’t take long for celebrities like Aaron Paul (no relation) of “Breaking Bad” fame to call him out on Twitter.
Dear @LoganPaul,
How dare you! You disgust me. I can’t believe that so many young people look up to you. So sad. Hopefully this latest video woke them up. You are pure trash. Plain and simple. Suicide is not a joke. Go rot in hell.
Ap
— Aaron Paul (@aaronpaul_8) January 2, 2018
Dear @LoganPaul,
When my brother found my sister’s body, he screamed with horror & confusion & grief & tried to save her. That body was a person someone loved.
You do not walk into a suicide forest with a camera and claim mental health awareness.
— Anna Akana (@AnnaAkana) January 2, 2018
Paul issued an apology on Twitter soon after the backlash started, claiming he had “never made a mistake like this before.”
Dear Internet, pic.twitter.com/42OCDBhiWg
— Logan Paul (@LoganPaul) January 2, 2018
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