Logan Paul Apologizes for Posting Video of Apparent Suicide Victim: ‘I Didn’t Do It for Views’

Internet star Logan Paul faced an immediate backlash after posting a YouTube video Sunday that included footage of a person who had apparently died from a suicide.

Paul was visiting Japan’s Aokigahara forest near Mt. Fuji — which has become notorious as a place for suicides — when he and his crew came upon a person hanging from a tree. A video showing the dead body was posted to Paul’s YouTube channel with the title “We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest…” before it was removed several hours later.

“Suicide is not a joke,” Paul said in the now-deleted video. “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 lot of people are going through a lot of sh** in their lives.”

On Monday morning Japan time, Paul posted an apology for the video in a Twitter post.

“I’m sorry,” he wrote. “I’ve never faced criticism like this before, because I’ve never made a mistake like this before… I didn’t do it for views. I get views. I did it because I though I could make a positive ripple on the internet, not cause a monsoon of negativity.”

In the controversial video, Paul taunted one of the members of his team who expressed discomfort with the situation, saying, “What, you never stand next to a dead guy?” and then laughed.

Here’s his full apology:

Logan Paul, who rose to fame on Twitter’s Vine, now has more than 15 million subscribers for his YouTube channel. He’s repped by CAA and affiliated with digital-media company Studio71.

Paul has starred in feature-length thriller “The Thinning” on YouTube Red and appeared in series including Freeform drama “Stitchers” and AwesomenessTV’s romantic comedy “Foursome” for YouTube Red.

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