YouTube star Jenna Marbles tearfully announced Thursday that she is quitting the platform and apologized for racist videos she posted between 2011 and 2012.
“I want to hold myself accountable, and it’s painful to do it and it’s not fun and it hurts and I’m ashamed of things I’ve done and said in my past but it’s important,” she said in a video. “I want to make sure that the things I’m putting into the world are not hurting anyone.”
She said many people had reached out to her to ask her to address videos from her past, specifically one parody of Nicki Minaj in blackface and another insulting Asian men and using racial slurs — both posted in 2011.
“It’s not cool, it’s not cute, it’s not OK,” she said Thursday. “And I’m embarrassed.”
Marbles, whose legal name is Jenna Mourey, also apologized for a video she posted in 2012 that “came across unbelievably slut shame-y.”
“I’m sorry, I just f—ed up,” she said. “I had a lot of internalized misogyny, and I’m sorry.”
“And that’s been eating me up inside for a long time and I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry if I ever made you feel sad about yourself or your body.”
She added she had set many of her videos to “private” and never intended to hurt anyone.
“And I try to make fun content, inclusive content, things that don’t offend people or upset people,” the 33-year-old said, announcing her plans to step back from her channel, which has more than 20 million subscribers and is more than a decade old.
“I’m just a person, trying to navigate the world, just like you are,” she said. “I don’t always know what’s right, what’s wrong and what the truth is. And I’m just trying my best.”