Rebecca Trent, the owner and operator of Long Island City’s The Creek and The Cave comedy bar, said that she heard secondhand that her venue was going to get a visit from arguably the most widely known name brand of the alt-right media sphere: Milo Yiannopoulos.
“Legion of Skanks,” a podcast that the club hosts every week, is currently scheduled to host Yiannopoulos at 9:30 p.m. on May 27, according to the podcast’s Twitter feed. Once she heard about their plan to host the rightwing troll, Trent said, she asked the podcasters to relocate their event to another studio or venue.
Trent said that she has been getting messages not just from outsiders on social media, but people in the comedy scene and others close to her asking her not to host the controversial character.
After Yiannopoulos became famous in his former role as a Breitbart editor, the rightwing provocateur has had a series of setbacks over the past two years.
Publisher Simon & Schuster canceled his book deal in 2017 after he publicly defended sexual relationships between adult men and boys. Facebook and Instagram also deleted his accounts this past May for promoting “violence and hate.”
Hey everybody, that hate-speech lovin, pedophilia apologist Milo is going to be at @creekandcave next week, so hopefully none of you will be. Ever again. Sorry, creek, loved ya but this is a real bad look. Comedy peeps, speak up!
— ””””””””””””””””””””””Ke (@kevinasarobot) May 23, 2019
The Legion of Skanks podcast is no stranger to alt-right figures. Last year, they hosted Gavin McInnes, leader of the Proud Boys, a far-right group with strong white nationalist ties.
On Wednesday, Luis J. Gomez, one of the co-hosts, posted a Twitter video explaining his decision to invite Yiannopoulos, and saying that he did not see the controversy coming.
“I don’t pay attention to politics at all. At all. The only thing I know about Milo is from these Youtube videos like ‘Milo destroys a feminist,’ and he’s just a flamboyant homo. It’s hilarious,” Gomez said.
Gomez goes on to say that he does not have a solid understanding of the outrage over Yiannopoulos and entreats anyone viewing the video “to shed some light on this.”
Trent’s push to get the event out of her venue is not resolved, but she emphasized that it was the podcast’s idea to invite Milo, not the venue’s. She says she hopes to take the event off the calendar soon.
Trent said she would have liked to have avoided this “dumpster fire” altogether. She doesn’t want to provide a forum for Yiannopoulos nor, in the likelihood that the event would attract protesters, create a spectacle that would provide him with the attention he craves.
