In a brief filing made late last week in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Milo Yiannopoulos withdrew his lawsuit, with prejudice, against Simon & Schuster. The move effectively ends his legal battle with the publisher.
Last summer the former Breitbart News senior editor and conservative provocateur filed a $10 million lawsuit against S&S claiming breach of contract. S&S had paid Yiannopoulos a $80,000 advance in December 2016 to publish his memoir, Dangerous.
After the deal was struck, S&S was dogged by accusations—coming from factions within the media, as well as the publishing industry itself—that it was giving a major platform to a person responsible for hate speech. S&S then dropped the book in February 2017, after Yiannopoulos’s controversial comments on pedophilia got him disinvited from speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
S&S gave Yiannnopoulos the rights to his book back, and he self-published Dangerous in July 2017 (the book has sold about 80,000 copies, according to NPD BookScan). Then, shortly after the book’s release, he filed his suit against S&S. A judge allowed the case to proceed last fall but, in January, Yiannopoulos' legal counsel quit. The author then announced he would represent himself.
In a prepared statement, S&S said it was pleased that the lawsuit had been withdrawn, noting that no money exchanged hands. “We stand by our decision to terminate the publication of Mr. Yiannopoulos’ book,” the statement concluded.
