YouTube star Jenna Marbles on Thursday announced that she is ending her channel after racially offensive videos resurfaced in the wake of the reignited Black Lives Matter movement.
Marbles, 33, is under fire for wearing blackface while impersonating Nicki Minaj in 2011, as well as for past racist remarks. The influencer addressed her problematic behavior, which included her making fun of Asians in a 2012 rap parody, in a video posted to her channel on Thursday. Marbles also admitted she was wrong for previously slamming women who “slept around.”
“It was not my intention to do blackface,” she said of the Minaj impersonation. “I do want to tell you how unbelievably sorry I am if I ever offended you by posting this video or by doing this impression and that that was never my intention. It’s not OK. It’s shameful. It’s awful. I wish it wasn’t part of my past.”
Acknowledging her song attacking Asians, which included the lyric “Hey Ching Chong Wing Wong, shake your King Kong ding dong,” Marbles said her words were “inexcusable” and “shouldn’t have existed.”
Marbles went on to say that she has since made the offensive material no longer viewable to the public. “For now, I just can’t exist on this channel … I think I’m just going to move on from this channel for now,” she said in her video. “I don’t know how long it’s going to be. I just want to make sure the things I’m putting in the world aren’t hurting anyone … so I need to be done with this channel, for now or for forever.”
Marbles, whose real name is Jenna Mourey, was one of the first women to build a career as a YouTube creator. She began posting videos on the platform in 2010 and built a following for her often comedic vlogs about her dog, gaming, beauty and more. Today, she has more than 20 million YouTube subscribers and ranks among the top 200 most-subscribed channels on the platform, according to SocialBlade.
Watch her announcement below.
