Logan Paul is still only 28, but he’s already turned his hand to a lot of things during his career. He’s made his name as a YouTuber, as well as becoming a business mogul, podcaster, and turning his hand to both boxing and wrestling. It’s not been plain sailing in that time for the influencer – despite becoming one of the most-watched people online in that time, he’s also had more than his fair share of scandals to deal with. These are his most controversial moments to date. CryptoZoo The now-infamous CryptoZoo was first launched and endorsed by Logan in 2021. It was designed as a game where people could “breed, collect, and trade” hybrid animals as NFTs. The game got off to a bad start and Logan was the subject of a backlash after users hit out at the poor quality of the NFT, with many claiming that regular stock images of animals had been used. CryptoZoo soon went south and Logan was hit with a class-action lawsuit. Logan previously promised to refund those who had invested in the game to the tune of around $1.8 million but the money has yet to be refunded. He was also recently challenged by his upcoming boxing opponent Dillon Danis, who asked why he had yet to repay the people affected. Racist tweets unearthed in 2017 Old tweets from 2012 containing jokes made at the expense of Black and Asian people were unearthed in 2017. One post was criticised for stereotyping both Asian men and Black men, reading: “Watermelon makes your penis bigger – black men. Soy increases the estrogen in your body, decreasing penis size – asians.” Prime controversy Paul launched the hugely successful Prime energy drink with KSI in 2022, and the company was forced to defend the levels of caffeine in its beverages after facing a backlash in 2023. It came after health experts called on the US Food and Drug Administration to investigate the energy drink company. A 12 oz can of Prime contains 200mg of caffeine, equivalent to about half a dozen Coke cans or nearly two Red Bulls. The brand released a statement to People on July 11, saying: “PRIME Energy, sold in a can, dropped in 2023 and contains a comparable amount of caffeine to other top selling energy drinks, all falling within the legal limit of the countries it’s sold in.” The spokesperson for the brand said that the drink “complied with all FDA guidelines” prior to hitting the market and indicated on the packaging that PRIME energy drinks are “not made for anyone under the age of 18.” “As a brand, our top priority is consumer safety, so we welcome discussions with the FDA or any other organisation regarding suggested industry changes they feel are necessary in order to protect consumers,” they added. Video of him lassoing women from 2014 Back in 2021, an old video of Paul and YouTuber Sam Pepper lassoing unsuspecting women in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, and refusing to let them go till they kissed the two men, resurfaced and sparked a backlash. The video, posted in 2014, was shared by @MeTubeDoc account on Twitter which describes itself as the “untold #MeToo stories of YouTube.” It showed the YouTubers using a rope to lasso women and not letting them go till they agreed to kiss them. The account wrote: “We have a deleted 2014 video of Logan Paul lassoing women in the street and not letting some go until they kiss him.” “It was a collab Youtube video with Sam Pepper, who weeks later would be investigated by LA police for a violent sexual assault,” the post said. In the video, Paul says: “We’re doing a thing where we pick up women with lassos.” Suicide Forest The biggest scandal of Paul’s career came in 2017, when he filmed and posted a video of himself entering Aokigahara Forest in Japan – which is often referred to as the “suicide forest”. The video showed him filming a dead body, and it was on YouTube for a day before it was deleted by Paul following heavy criticism. The clip had already received many views, though. People highlighted at the time that many of Logan’s fans are younger viewers, and will have been traumatised by the clip. Paul apologised and claimed he was trying to raise awareness of suicide. Addressing the “monsoon of negativity” in a statement, he said that he had intended to “raise awareness for suicide and suicide prevention.” He added: “I didn't do it for views. I get views. I'm often reminded of how big of a reach I truly have & with great power comes great [responsibility]... for the first time in my life I'm regretful to say I handled that power incorrectly. It won't happen again.” ‘Going gay for a month’ Just over a year later, in 2019, Paul faced another negative reaction after saying he was going to “go gay for a month" as part of his New Year’s resolutions. Speaking on his podcast, he said: “March... it's male-only March. We're going to attempt to go one way, swing, and then go back." Charity Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) was one of the groups to hit out at the comments, saying: "That's not how it works, @LoganPaul." Paul then replied to GLAAD, saying: "very poor choice of words... my fault. let's get together and talk about it on my podcast next week?" GLAAD did not respond, and Logan continued to face criticism from other social media users at the time. Accused of victimising a model Logan Paul- No Handlebars [Official Music Video] www.youtube.com Model Eliza Johnson spoke out about her experience on the set of a Logan Paul video in 2018, saying she felt victimised during the shoot. Johnson spoke to Psychology Today about the video for satirical video ‘No Handlebars’, which saw Paul ride her like a human bicycle. Explaining how she hadn’t been told what the video would involve, Johnson told the publication: “I felt kind of abused. Of course, I felt ashamed, and when something like this happens and we kind of become victimized, we don’t really realize it, we want to just block it out, or say maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s not happening. It’s a very confusing type of thing to experience.” Johnson also referred to herself as the only "plus-size" model on the shoot. "I was the only one who was plus-size. I'm the base of the bike," she said. "I definitely became uncomfortable when he wanted to just get on my back like that because it's rare that you're on set and they just throw something at you. Con artists do things like that." She added: "I reached my breaking point after the sixth take and my legs were giving out. I was so physically exhausted, I wasn't even able to process what was going on… "I did [find the shoot demeaning], as far as the way the other models were dressed as well. I was kind of thankful that they didn't make me as risqué looking. They kind of had me fully clothed, but that says another thing about the whole plus-size model idea, at least in my brain." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Danny Dyer has revealed that he is the proud owner of a loyalty card to Toby Carvery. The former EastEnders star, 45, said he has a “platinum gold card” for the roast dinner restaurant chain, but admitted that he does have a pet peeve when visiting. Speaking on the latest episode of Kathy Burke’s podcast Where There’s A Will There’s A Way, Dyer admitted that people who have an exclusive Nando’s “black card” were “cool”, but he was pleased with his Toby Carvery card. “I’ve got a platinum gold card, I don’t know why,” he told Burke. “I go in now and again, I don’t know what they’ve heard. Some people get the black Nando’s card, that’s the cool one, but I’ve got the f***ing Toby Carvery gold f***ing platinum card. So I’m going there when I want, and I have what I want.” He added that he “loves it in there”, before continuing: “If [Toby Carvery] are listening, I don’t want to lose the card so I’m not taking the piss but there’s something about standing there with your f***ing plate, there’s a geezer in front of you and I can see the taters I want and I can see he’s looking at the same f***ing taters.” Only a select few people are lucky enough to receive a Toby Carvery gold card. It is unclear if the restaurant chain has a “platinum gold” card, as claimed by Dyer, but a handful of other celebrities have posted on social media about getting their hands on one of the special cards. It has been claimed that the cardholder is entitled to free all-you-can-eat roast dinner when they visit a Toby Carvery branch. These include Geordie Shore star Chloe Ferry, who got one in 2019; The Chase star Mark Labbett, who is said to have won over his girlfriend Hayley Palmer with his gold card; Olympian hockey player Samantha Quek; and The Circle star Freddie Bentley. When asked how people can get the elusive gold card, Toby Carvery has kept the secret close. On social media, customer service representatives have told members of the public that they can “neither confirm nor deny the Gold Card exists”. In reply to one person who asked what they “need to do” to get a gold card, Toby Carvery replied coyly: “Gold card? Afraid we don’t know anything about that!” The Independent has contacted Toby Carvery for comment. Elsewhere in the podcast, Dyer also opened up about seeing his daughter Dani Dyer taking part in Love Island. Dani, 26, appeared in the fourth series of the ITV dating reality show in 2018 and won alongside partner Jack Fincham. Dyer said he had never watched Love Island before his daughter entered the villa and admitted that they had “a little row over it” because he “didn’t want her to do it”. “She wanted to be an actor and I was going, ‘Babe, listen, f***ing hell’ and then off she went,” he said. “I sat back and watched it, me and my Mrs, sobbing me heart out every night. I’m a very emotional man, a very sensitive soul. So watching her, she was unbelievable in it. She couldn’t put a foot wrong, she won it from day two. It makes me proud that she come out of my b*****ks, Kath.” Dyer recently became a grandfather for the second time after Dani welcomed twin girls in May with boyfriend Jarrod Bowen. She is also mum to two-year-old son Santiago, who she shares with former partner Sammy Kimmence. Read More How dogs became my greatest adversary on the dating scene Influencers called out for visiting and promoting Shein’s factory in China Paralympian Ellie Simmonds reveals she was adopted as she reconnects with birth mother Three quick and easy plant-based fakeaways to create at home The Union Rye, review: Finally, a decent restaurant in this charming East Sussex town Celebrity chef bans vegans from his restaurant ‘for mental health reasons’

Comedian turned commentator Russell Brand has weighed in on the ongoing wildfires in Maui, Hawaii, flouting conspiracy theories in his usual fast-paced, flamboyant style which are so outlandish, that he’s being compared to GB News anti-vaxxer Neil Oliver. Brand, who’s switched appearances on comedy films such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek for his Stay Free podcast in recent years, uploaded a video to his six million subscriber strong YouTube channel on Thursday with the title, “Something Doesn’t Seem Right”. As the baseless conspiracy theory that the devastating crisis on the US island was not aided by climate change but rather a ‘space laser’ continue to spread online, Brand jumped in and dismissed those rightly questioning such a nonsensical argument. “Now, some people would say, ‘Oh, that’s dangerous misinformation – that should be shut down.’ I think the opposite. “Discuss it, look at it, investigate it. Either it’s true or it’s not true, we can decide for ourselves, let’s not get excited,” he says. We have, Russell – that’s kind of what journalists do for a job… Towards the end of the almost 23-minute-long video, Brand turns to the conspiracy that the fires in Hawaii were “started deliberately to benefit rich elites” such as the investment management company and financial services provider BlackRock. He continues: “Now look at the Ukraine war. Ukraine have already done a deal with BlackRock to rebuild their nation using BlackRock investment. “If you apply that mentality to this situation, if BlackRock end up benefitting from the fires in Hawaii, then the conspiracy is almost a redundant detail. Did they start it? Didn’t they start it? “Is it inevitable that the suffering of ordinary people leads to the benefit of rich elites and massive organisations like BlackRock and billionaires across the globe and why is Bill Gates buying all this agricultural land when he’s not a farmer?” Yes, that’s one whole sentence. “Doesn’t it all feel like a kind of macro-conspiracy that’s so diffuse, institutional, oddly abstracted and bureaucratically opaque, that sometimes you just want to simplify it into ‘they started this fire! They started it with a laser from space!’ “And whether it’s true or not, it not only feels true, in terms of its results it is kind of true. There is a conspiracy to keep you poor and benefit rich elites,” he vented, adding that the “next time there’s a pandemic” the elite are “gonna control you more”. In other news, thesauruses are in short supply around the world. And it’s Brand’s ranting about a shadowy elite and government control during a pandemic which has likely led to social media users on Twitter/X branding Brand (ha) a “frappucino Neil Oliver”, the GB News host who has long peddled conspiracy theories about vaccines and an impending “one-world government”. Back in August 2021 he said he’d happily catch Covid – y’know, an actually deadly virus – “for the sake of freedom”, just so you know the kind of dangerous nonsense we’re dealing with here. Others, however, have pointed out to user Matthew Dimitri – who shared a clip of Brand on X – that Brand was actually making an argument about elites and organisations benefitting from natural disasters like the one in Hawaii, and that Dimitri has “misrepresented” Brand: Except instead of rejecting the laser conspiracy theory outright, remember, Brand said he ‘thinks the opposite’ and that instead we should “discuss it, look at it [and] investigate it”, which isn’t a complete dismissal of the idea. He doesn’t really give a definitive answer on whether the claim is true or not, but rather suggests that the result of the whole ‘is it or isn’t it’ debate is more important, as if it’s part of a broader conspiracy or distraction “to keep you poor and benefit rich elites”. Perhaps a far more compelling argument around all this is that Brand should learn to keep things succinct, for the benefit of everyone... Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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