Content advisory: This article mentions sexual abuse of animals, please read with caution.
Not only is Shane Dawson one of the more popular YouTubers, with more than 19 million subscribers, he’s also one of the OGs. He started his channel waaay back in 2005, only a few months after YouTube was started. It’s safe to say he’s evolved a lot over the years, but there’s one event from Dawson’s past that’s almost too weird to ignore.
… There’s no really easy way to say this, but it involves a self-own about Dawson’s sexual behavior, and his cat. It’s pretty gross and disturbing, and Dawson’s admission happened in a 2015 interview on Dawson’s former podcast. So what did he say? Again, this is incredibly graphic and NSFW, so use your own discretion. If you don’t want to read or hear about a man talking about a sex act with a cat, this is your cue to exit. For the rest of you, I’m sorry.
Back in 2020 (doesn’t that seem like forever ago?), someone found the clip and Dawson’s description. “One time I laid my cat down on her back,” Dawson said. “I moved her little chicken legs spread open or whatever. I came all over the cat. It was like my first sexual experience. I was also like 19.” Listen at your own peril.
Well guess what happened next? Dawson was forced to confront the online frenzy head on, and shared a lengthy apology on Twitter that started with “I didn’t f**k my cat. I didn’t c*m on my cat. I didn’t put my d**k anywhere near my cat. I’ve never done anything weird with my cats.” Oh boy, and he’s just getting started.
“I promised myself I wasn’t going to make apology videos after last year’s thing so I’m just trying to be as short and honest with this as possible,” he said. “I’ve apologized many times for all the dumb s**t I’ve said in videos and podcasts over the years. I’ve learned my lesson over and over again and I’m more confident now in my ability to be entertaining by just being myself and not being so shocking for laughs.”
So where did the idea for this particular piece of “dumb s**t” come from? “A dumb awful sketch idea I had years ago that i never made (THANK GOD).” He said there was a moment on the podcast where he felt like he could insert a funny story and he just told it like it was true, “which was DISGUSTING AND VERY VERY DUMB,” he said. His goal with the podcast was to “tell shocking stories” that would make people “laugh and scream “OMG NO U DIDNT!!” and think i was ‘soooo crazy.’”
Well, to be fair, telling everyone something like that will easily accomplish that goal. So, success? Apparently not, because Dawson goes on to say that “It’s embarrassing and I … hate myself for it.” He said he’s now putting out stuff that “means something” and how “all of my offensive jokes, over the top stories, and insensitive jokes are something that still haunt me and something I Have to be faced with everyday on the internet. And it never gets easier.”
The apology continues (it’s a long one) with Shane apologizing “for what I said about my cat” and anything else “that was offensive” and for being “someone who thought being super offensive and shocking all the time was funny.” That journey, he said, made him who is today and allowed him to grow and “spend my energy on things that actually mean something.”
“This has been the best two years of my life and it’s because I’ve been able to drop the act and be myself. And I’m sorry for not doing it sooner,” he said at the end of his long missive.
Unfortunately, Dawson kind of has a history with doing things like this, as there were some other questionable antics that surfaced. For one, he impersonated Wendy Williams, and unfortunately painted his face black to do it. He explained this in a video.
“Blackface was something I did a lot — like, I did it a lot on my channel — and there’s no excuse for it. There’s literally no excuse,” Dawson said. “I made a video six years ago talking about it and I gave excuses. And I knew it was wrong, I never wanted to do it again, but I didn’t do the work. I didn’t actually look into the history of it and why it’s so wrong, and why people were so upset.”
He also said he was sorry he contributed to normalizing racism and making people think it was funny through his videos. “… I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be Black and see this white … guy do blackface and the whole internet at that time being like, lol.”
Guess what though, Dawson wasn’t done! He was also forced to apologize for a “child molester character,” through which he made inappropriate comments about singer Willow Smith when she was just 11 years old.
Both Jaden Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith responded at the time. Jaden said he was “DISGUSTED” and that sexualizing an 11-year-old girl was the “FURTHEST THING FROM FUNNY AND NOT OKAY IN THE SLIGHTEST BIT.” Jada told him she was done with his excuses.
He released another video called “Regarding the rumors about me today.” On Twitter, he wrote “i’m not a pedophile. i can’t believe i even have to say that. it literally feels like i’m in a nightmare.”
His big refrain is that he hates that version of himself, who was “filled with sadness, filled with anger about their own issues, in the closet, constantly projecting on others.” To be honest, he seems to have ridden out the controversy just fine. While he did lose some subscribers, he is still getting out there and making content at a brisk pace. He still has mountains of followers, and his videos still get an obscene amount of eyeballs on them. Dawson’s latest video, posted earlier this month, is about “mind blowing conspiracy theories.” It has 2.4 million views.