Arts & Entertainment

Author Roxane Gay pulls Simon & Schuster book over Milo Yiannopoulos deal

the author had planned to release ‘How to be Heard’ through TED Books

Published

10 years ago

January 26, 2017

Mariah Cooper

(Screenshot via YouTube.)

Author Roxane Gay has pulled her book deal with Simon & Schuster in response to the publisher’s $250,000 contract with Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos.

Gay, who is bisexual, had a deal with the publisher to release her book “How to Be Heard” through TED Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, 2018. Yiannopoulos also has a deal with Simon & Schuster for his autobiography, “Dangerous,” to be released in March.

For Gay, she couldn’t justify releasing her book from the same platform.

“I was supposed to turn the book in this month and I kept thinking about how egregious it is to give someone like Milo a platform for his blunt, inelegant hate and provocation,” Gay said in a statement to BuzzFeed.”I just couldn’t bring myself to turn the book in. My editor emailed me last week and I kept staring at that email in my inbox and finally over the weekend I asked my agent to pull the book.”

“And to be clear, this isn’t about censorship. Milo has every right to say what he wants to say, however distasteful I and many others find it to be,” Gay continues. “He doesn’t have a right to have a book published by a major publisher but he has, in some bizarre twist of fate, been afforded that privilege. So be it. I’m not interested in doing business with a publisher willing to grant him that privilege. I am also fortunate enough to be in a position to make this decision. I recognize that other writers aren’t and understand that completely.”

Simon & Schuster has defended its deal with Yiannopoulos by promising that the book will not contain hate speech.

Gay is known for her essay collection “Bad Feminist” and the novel “An Untamed State.” She says that although she does not have a new publisher for “How to be Heard” she hopes the book will be published one day.

Related Topics:BuzzFeed Dangerous How to be Heard Milo Yiannopoulos Roxane Gay Simon & Schuster

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Online Culture

Clavicular charged in alleged rape of teenage influencer

Online personality’s real name is Braden Peters

Published

1 hour ago

September 23, 2026

Joe Reberkenny

Braden Peters a.k.a. "Clavicular" (Screen capture via NBC News/YouTube)

Online personality Clavicular, whose real name is Braden Peters, has been accused of rape.

According to NBC, Aleksandra Vasilevna Mendoza, an 18-year-old influencer known online as Alorah or Alorah Ziva, accused Peters of sexual assault, and the case is making its way through the court system.

The alleged incident occurred on May 23, 2025, when Mendoza was 17.

According to a criminal complaint from the Chatham (Mass.) Police Department, Peters called her an Uber to his family’s home. Once there, he allegedly got her drunk on vodka while they livestreamed on Twitch and then raped her. His mother and grandmother were allegedly in the house.

The documents allege Clavicular committed rape, drugging a person for sexual intercourse, and procuring and providing liquor to a person under 21.

According to court documents acquired by NPR, Mendoza began communicating with Peters on Instagram, where he paid her to appear on his livestreams to help her “make her name known on social media.”

According to those documents, Peters arranged for the minor to come to Cape Cod home to participate in a videostream for his 437,000 followers on Kick, 1.2 million followers on TikTok, and more than 1 million followers on Instagram.

At his home, Peters allegedly instructed Mendoza to say she was 18 on his videostream and to claim the alcohol on camera was water instead of vodka. Mendoza said she felt peer-pressured to drink the spirit and that she became noticeably intoxicated after a couple of drinks.

The allegations go on to state that after stopping the stream, Peters and Mendoza kissed on a couch and then had sex in his bed without her consent. Mendoza said she did not receive a sexual assault forensic exam after the incident. NPR does not name alleged victims of sexual assault.

The charges come months after Mendoza sued Peters in Miami, accusing him of sexual battery in connection with the events of May 2025. The civil lawsuit also separately alleges that he injected her face with a non-FDA-approved fat-dissolving substance during a November livestream in Florida.

Peters is known for his “looksmaxxing” concept of vanity, which is at the core of his online presence. The “looksmaxxing” culture he has helped cultivate combines elements of incel culture and heterosexuality, with the stated goal of attracting the opposite sex. He has gone as far as to say he has undergone “bonesmashing,” or hitting his own face with a hammer; taken anabolic steroids to more rapidly grow muscle; and used crystal meth as an appetite suppressant.

At the same time, looksmaxxing has been described as having elements of homoeroticism, with “looksmaxxers” appearing more concerned with impressing other men than women. Peters has multiple times pointed to openly gay actor Matt Bomer as the gold standard for male facial aesthetics.

Peters’s arraignment is scheduled for Oct. 14.