YouTube star Alfie Deyes has been forced to apologise after posing on an AIDS memorial at Brighton Pride.
The vlogger angered fans after he posted a picture of himself sat on the memorial waving a rainbow flag during the weekend’s LGBTQ celebrations.
Alfie, who is in a relationship with fellow YouTuber Zoe ‘Zoella’ Suggs, was slammed for being “disrespectful”, but claimed not to have had any idea what the statue was as he apologised on Twitter.
After removing the photo from his social media accounts, he told his 5.5 million Twitter followers: “Just seen a tweet saying that in the picture I tweeted of myself celebrating Brighton Pride, I was sitting on the edge of an Aids Memorial.
“For sure didn’t realise that and didn’t mean to offend anyone if the picture did. I’ve deleted it! Thanks for letting me know x.”
However, he faced further criticism when he made light of the outrage, tweeting fellow YouTuber Evan Edinger: “I just stepped on an ant as I walked down the road..I hope no one saw... ‘ALFIE DEYES STAMPS ON INNOCENT ANIMAL UNTIL IT DIES’.”
Replying to one follower who called out his comment, he said: “I for sure didn’t compare aids to an ant? I was saying I could do literally anything and it will offend someone. e.g I didn’t know I was sitting on the memorial, but instead of people educating me, people attack me instantly as if I did it on purpose.”
He has since deleted his tweet to Evan, but later added: “I’ll never understand why people always think the worst. The replies I’m getting about sitting on the memorial..I didn’t even know it was a memorial and yet people are tweeting saying I don’t care about aids..
“Spend your time educating others, rather than just instantly attacking.”
Alfie, 24, has 5.3m subscribers on his YouTube channel and previously faced criticism over a video he posted where he challenged himself to live off £1 a day.
It was branded “insensitive” and “tone deaf”, with some claiming the millionaire had made poverty seem like a game.
He issued an apology at the time, saying: “I’m so sorry if this has upset you, that was never my intention.
“I’d seen many others do this video recently and wanted to try it myself.”
He later changed the title of the video to try and better reflect the video’s content.
Alfie’s girlfriend Zoella has found herself at the centre of similiar backlashes, most notably when historic homophobic comments were unearthed on her Twitter account.