Culture

Jenna Marbles Has Officially Quit YouTube Amid Controversy Over Past Racist Videos

Following claims of blackface, slut-shaming and racist Asian jokes, Jenna Marbles has left the platform.

by Michelle Rennex  26 June 2020
jenna marbles quits youtube

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

After 10 years creating content on the platform, Jenna Marbles has announced today that she is quitting YouTube over “things in my past I’m not proud of”.

The decision came after fans asked Jenna Marbles — real name Jenna Mourey — to apologise for her past racist videos, which she had since put on private because she doesn’t want “anyone to feel upset over anything”.

“For now, I can’t exist on this channel,” Jenna said. “Hopefully I’ve taken down anything that would upset someone and I hope you know that’s not my intent. That’s not what I ever set out to do, to hurt anyone’s feelings or to make anyone feel bad.”

Among these now-private videos, people were mainly upset over Jenna’s decision to do blackface in 2011 during a Nicki Minaj spoof and for a racist joke she made about Asian men in her ‘Bounce that Dick’ music video from the same year.

“It was not my intention to do blackface,” Jenna Marbles said in regards to the Nicki Minaj video. “I don’t know how else to say this but it doesn’t matter because all that matters is that people were offended and it hurt them. And for that, I am so unbelievably sorry. It’s shameful, it’s awful. I wish it wasn’t part of my past.”

After playing the offensive line from ‘Bounce That Dick’ — which said “Hey ching chong wing wong, shake your King Kong ding dong, sorry that was racist, I’m bad at rap songs” — Jenna, again, profusely apologised.

“It’s awful, it doesn’t need to exist, it’s inexcusable, it’s not okay,” she said about the racist line. “I’m incredibly sorry if this offended then, now, whenever, it doesn’t need to exist. It shouldn’t have existed. I shouldn’t have said that ever. It’s not cool, it’s not cute, it’s not okay, and I’m embarrassed that I ever made that, period.”

Moving along to 2012, despite no one “demanding an apology”, Jenna then briefly addressed her past videos that were slut-shaming in nature or that boxed in gender identities.

“I fucked up. I had a lot of internalised misogyny, at that time in my life. It does not reflect my attitude to anyone and their bodies,” Jenna continued. “And I want to say that I’m sorry if I ever made you feel bad about yourself or your choices. Anything.”

Despite explaining that she always tries to grow and change whenever she is criticised, Jenna Marbles announced to her 20 million subscribers that she “just can’t exist on this channel”.

“So, I think I’m just going to move on from this channel for now. I don’t know if that’s forever. I don’t know how long that’s going to be. I want to be sure that the things that I’m putting into the world are not hurting anyone. I’m just going to stop. For now or forever. I don’t know.”

Since the announcement, Jenna Marbles fans have flocked to Twitter to share their heartache over her sudden departure from the platform.

Others, however, took the opportunity to highlight the hypocrisy in cancelling Jenna Marbles for a “fake spray tan” while still supporting a bunch of other problematic YouTubers.

In particular, people noted that despite creators like Shane Dawson literally doing blackface on his YouTube channel and making jokes about pedophilia, he is still able to thrive on the platform. Similarly, Jeffree Star has even released a video addressing his racist past but has been given room to flourish online. Even Trisha Paytas, arguably one of the most problematic creators on the platform, has not been bullied into leaving YouTube the same way Jenna Marbles appears to have been.

But at the end of the day, no one can really accept Jenna Marbles apology or excuse her actions other than the people who were directly affected by her racial stereotypes and jokes.