Warning: This post contains explicit language.
YouTuber Jenna Marbles has announced that she’s “leaving” her YouTube channel after 10 years.
In a tearful video posted to her YouTube channel, which has more than 20 million subscribers, Jenna Mourey — better known by her pseudonym “Jenna Marbles” — said she made many of her old YouTube videos private and announced that she’s going to “move on from this channel for now.”
“I don’t know if that’s forever, I don’t know how long it’s going to be,” she said. “I just want to make sure that the things I’m putting into the world are not hurting anyone. I’m just going to stop, for now or forever. I don’t know.”
In the 11-minute video, titled A Message, Marbles apologized for her past actions and said: “We’re at a time where we are purging ourselves of anything and everything toxic.”
“(It’s) being requested that I address things that I’ve done in my past,” Marbles said in her video. “I also get a lot of tweets from people that are saying, ‘We love you, you unproblematic queen,’ which always makes me uncomfortable because I’m a person. Those of you that are familiar with how long I’ve been on the internet know that’s not true.”
She said she’s “definitely done things in the past that weren’t great” and she isn’t “completely unproblematic.”
Marbles said she’s tried her best to “grow up” and “be a better person.”
The YouTuber said she takes the criticism she receives from fans and tries to make “fun content and inclusive content and things that don’t offend people,” which is why she decided to disable many of her old videos.
“I think there was a time when having all of my old content exist on the internet showed how much I have grown up as a person, which I’m very proud of,” she said. “I think now it’s hard for that content to exist at all because I think people watch it and don’t bother to look at when it was posted or care about what path I took to get to where I am. It offends them now and, if that’s the case, where people will watch something and be offended now, I don’t want it to exist.”
Marbles addressed the 2011 video in which she did blackface for an impersonation of Nicki Minaj.
“I do want to tell you, it was not my intention to do blackface,” she said. “This is the end of the video where I took my wig off, I don’t know how else to say this, but it doesn’t matter.”
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She continued: “All that matters is that people were offended and it hurt them, and for that, I’m so unbelievably sorry. This isn’t OK, and it hasn’t existed on the internet for a long time because it’s not OK and I haven’t done anything remotely like that because I heard people say, ‘This is blackface.’ …It’s shameful, it’s awful, I wish it wasn’t part of my past.”
She also addressed another video from 2011 in which she made jokes about Asians in her song Bounce That D–k and rapped: “Hey ching chong ling wong shake your King Kong ding dong. That was racist. I’m bad at rap songs.”
“It’s awful, it’s racist, it doesn’t need to exist,” she said after playing the clip.
“It shouldn’t have existed. I shouldn’t have said that ever. It’s not cool, it’s not cute, it’s not OK,” she said.
Marbles also apologized for a video in 2012 that she said “came across unbelievably slut-shame-y.”
“I just f–ked up. I ranted about girls that ran around and slept around, and that’s wrong. I had a lot of internalized misogyny, I feel like at that time in my life, and I’m sorry if I ever offended you with the things that I said,” she said.
“That video’s been private for a long time — it does not reflect my attitude towards anyone and their bodies — that’s really been eating me up inside for a long time, and I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry if I ever made you feel bad about yourself or your choices or anything,” Marbles added.
She also addressed some of her popular videos where she would make content about “what girls do and what guys do.”
“I don’t think making jokes about your gender is funny,” Marbles said.
“I know that there’s a lot of people that struggle with their identity and that have varying fluid identities or anything and I just don’t want content in the world that’s like I don’t know. It just doesn’t make sense… it can be hurtful, can be harmful and I don’t want it there.
“I’m just a person trying to navigate the world the same way that you are so I don’t always know what’s right, what’s wrong, what the truth is. I’m just trying my best,” Marbles said as she fought back tears.
“As someone clearly with their own past that they’re not proud of, I do just try to see people for who they are right now, today, and that they’re not defined by their pasts. And I understand. I’m trying to do the same thing that you are and support and be friends of people that I’m proud of and that I love and I just know that I’m doing my best.”
Marbles told her subscribers that “for now, I just can’t exist on this channel.”
“I want to hold myself accountable, and it’s painful to do it,” she said. “It’s not fun and it hurts. I’m ashamed of things I’ve done and said in my past.”
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