A video making the Tumblr rounds shows Sam Pepper, the popular vlogger facing sexual-abuse allegations, apologizing and tearing up. It’s fake.
Understandably, fans still frustrated with the YouTuber’s actions in the past week.
Pepper came under fire last week for a prank video where he pinched women on their behinds without their consent, followed by an outpouring of allegations of sexual misconduct by Pepper in his interactions with female fans. Pepper released two subsequent videos, claiming that the entire series was a social experiment aimed at bringing awareness to domestic abuse, specifically female-on-male abuse. Much of the YouTube community and fans cried foul, and addressed the issues with their own videos.
Now a new video shows Pepper crying and telling the camera that it’s “been a really hard day for me and I can’t go on.” However, this video is edited from a June 11 video from his secondary vlogging channel called “I Suck at Vlogging.” 1wannbeyourdog, the original poster, went back to tag it “sorry if I mislead you” after the video began to go viral.
Pepper is not the only YouTuber to come under fire recently. Jason Viohni, 20, better known as VeeOneEye, was accused of sleeping with a 15-year-old fan in the U.K., where the age of consent is 16. Viohni is a pit reporter for Warped Tour and commands almost half a million subscribers. He filmed a video addressing the accusations and saying he’s not denying the charges. He blames the actions on his Mormon upbringing and alcohol dependence.
Viohni has stopped posting on Twitter since he tweeted out this video. Pepper has stopped addressing the incident on his social media, but also hasn’t updated his twitter since Sept. 26. Pepper was dropped by Collective Digital Studio, the MCN that represented him.
Screenshot via 16bitSam/YouTube