Jada Pinket Smith and her son, Jaden Smith, took to Twitter to slam YouTube star Shane Dawson after a disturbing video of him “sexualizing” Willow Smith when she was 11 years old. Several videos of Dawson using blackface, the N-word and other offensive language have surfaced in the past few days, prompting him to release a video called “Taking Accountability” on Friday. Jaden said he was “disgusted” by Dawson’s behavior, while Pinkett-Smith said there were no excuses.
On Friday, Jaden, 21, published a tweet with just censored angry emojis before posting, “IM SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS.” In his next tweet, Jaden was more specific about his anger, telling Dawson he is “disgusted” by his behavior. “YOU SEXUALIZING AN 11 YEAR OLD GIRL WHO HAPPENS TO BE MY SISTER!!!!!! IS THE FURTHEST THING FROM FUNNY AND NOT OKAY IN THE SLIGHTEST BIT,” Jaden wrote. Later, the actor noted Dawson also used blackface, adding that the younger generation should “support creators who support us and our morals. This is not okay.”
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Pinkett-Smith agreed with her son. “To Shane Dawson… I’m done with the excuses,” she wrote. Jaden retweeted his mother’s message. Dawson’s offensive video appears to show him touching himself inappropriately in front of an old Radio Disney poster with Willow on it, taken when she was 11.
Dawson, 31, began his YouTube channel over a decade ago and has more than 23 million subscribers for his main “shane” channel and over 8.3 million subscribers for the “ShaneDawsonTV” channel. He has been criticized for using blackface and the N-word for years and has also published content with conspiracy theories. These controversies came up again during the protests against racism, so Dawson published a new, 20-minute apology video in which he acknowledged that his previous apologies were not good enough.
“I have done a lot of things in my past that I hate, that I wish I could make go away, that I tried to make go away by deleting videos, or un-tagging my Instagram, literally doing whatever I can to pretend those things didn’t happen,” Dawson said in the video, notes E! News. “Because yes, I apologized for a lot of them but I’m 31, almost 32. Those apologies suck. I don’t know who that person is anymore.” Dawson said his new video was “coming from a place of just wanting to own up to my sโ, wanting to own up to everything I’ve done on the internet that has hurt people, that has added to the problem, that has not been handled well. I should have been punished for things.”
Dawson is not the only YouTuber to share a video apologizing for past offensive content. Jenna Marbles said she would stop blogging after videos of her wearing blackface and telling racist jokes resurfaced. “I want to make sure the things that I put into the world are not hurting anyone,” Marbles said.