delete ugh

Milo Yiannopoulos’s Book Editor Had the Most Savage Comments on His Manuscript

Enjoy. Photo: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Earlier this year, Milo Yiannopoulos’s book deal for his memoir Dangerous roiled the publishing industry — a decision that Simon & Schuster took back after comments Yiannopoulos made condoning pedophilia surfaced. Not one to back down from controversy, Yiannopoulos sued Simon & Schuster for $10 million for breach of contract. (Eventually, he self-published the book and threw himself a party.) Now at the close of 2017, the internet celebrates as evidence from the active lawsuit has been uploaded by the New York County Clerk’s office, including email exchanges between Yiannopoulous and his editor, Mitchell Ivers, as well as the entire annotated manuscript with every comment Ivers made. We’ve pored over all of the documents and present to you Ivers’s best burns without context, because it’s really better that way.

“When you refer to Leslie Jones in this book – AND YOU MUST – don’t resort to jokes about her looks.”

“Delete irrelevant and superfluous ethnic joke.”

“Gratuitous.”

“I will not accept a manuscript that labels an entire class of people ‘mentally ill.’

“So much inappropriate humor is irritating.”

“Let’s leave ‘cuck’ out of it here.”

“This is what people say about you.”

“You can’t say ugly people are drawn to the left. Have you seen people at a Trump rally?”

“Don’t start chapter with accusation that feminists = fat.”

“No need to drag the lesbians into this! And DON’T use lesbian as a slur!”

“Feminists can care for children. (So can lesbians.)”

“This section is very incendiary. Every syllable will have to be carefully measured and then vetted.”

“Not worth explaining why the Kardashians are anti-black.”

“Paris Hilton is NOT the best authority to quote here.”

“The way you casually bring up the KKK makes no sense.”

“This is not true.”

“This is not true either.”

“Let’s leave ‘fecal waste’ analogies out of this chapter.”

“Stick with virgins. ‘Perverts’ is unnecessary.”

“This is not the time or place for another black-dick joke.”

“Let’s not call South Africa ‘white.’”

“‘Autists’ sounds like a mental-health slur.”

“Don’t use ‘trannies’ here – it just derails your argument.”

“Absurd name calling.”

“The use of a phrase like ‘two faced backstabbing bitches’ diminishes your overall point.”

“Smorgasbords don’t have bottoms.”

“Careful that the egotistical boasting that your young audience finds humorous doesn’t make you seem juvenile to other readers.”

“This entire paragraph is just repeating Fake News. There was NO blood, NO semen and there was NO Satanism. Delete.”

“Stop spreading fake news.”

“If you want to make a case for gay men going back into the closet and marrying women just to have children, you’re going to have to employ a lot more intellectual rigor than you use here.”

“This rumor cannot appear in this book.”

“Throughout the book, you’re [sic] best points seem to be lost in a sea of self-aggrandizement and scattershot thinking.”

“This is a stupid way to end a terrible chapter.”

“NO!”

“DELETE UGH”

Early on in the editing process in January, Yiannopoulous gave his own suggestions for improving the book — “I’m used to writing for people who already know me,” he explains — which sounds like all he really wanted to do was write a lifestyle book:

- We need more personal anecdotes/more insight into my life – shopping, hotels entourage secret celebrity rendezvous, spending habits, haircare regime – proper 90s girl glam and the whole Ken doll from the underworld thing as I relate that to a tortured adolescence.


- Each chapter could start with a little tableau (see the Ugly chapter for an example) each designed to give a flavour of the MILO Experience and tips on how to be more like me, ending on something redeeming or amusing.

Other suggestions include:

- day I got banned [from Twitter] and how it felt? (I can pretend I felt something)


- how lovely the Trump movement really is


- letters from people i fat-shamed telling me how i changed their lives


- does it need more jokes?


- I still need to add more contemporary pop culture references and disses to really wind up social justice warriors aged 22 and not just SJWs 32 as currently

In his original email correspondences with Yiannopoulos, Ivers noted that the publisher still reserved the right to “additional review and discussion of acceptability.”

Full disclosure: New York Media has a four-book publishing deal with Simon & Schuster.

Milo Yiannopoulos’s Book Editor Had the Most Savage Feedback