Milo Yiannopoulos drops S&S lawsuit

Milo Yiannopoulos has dropped his multi-million pound legal case against Simon & Schuster US.

The document revealing the alt-right columnist’s withdrawal from the New York State Supreme Court was circulated by the publisher on Tuesday (20th February) along with a statement saying it “stands by” the decision to terminate its book deal with the controversial figure. 

A S&S US spokesperson said: “We are pleased that Mr Yiannopoulos’ lawsuit has been withdrawn, with prejudice, and with no payment from Simon & Schuster. We stand by our decision to terminate the publication of Mr Yiannopoulos’ book.”

Confirming the move, the British commentator said on Facebook that despite withdrawing the suit he gave the US publisher "one hell of a bloody nose".

"I cost Simon & Schuster a fortune in legal fees and gave them one hell of a bloody nose. And I proved that libertarians and conservatives don’t need liberal publishers to succeed. My book was a New York Times bestseller for five weeks and made me millions. The era of all-powerful publishers and cowering authors is over. We can do it without them!"

Yiannopoulos had been suing S&S US for $10m (£7m) after it dropped his memoir, Dangerous, in February following comments he made in a podcast interview which appeared to condone paedophilia. The publishing house severed ties with Yiannopoulos despite having already paid an advance of $80,000 (of a total $255,000 advance) in January on signing the deal.

Last month Yiannopoulos announced that he would represent himself following a “breakdown in the relationship” between the former Breitbart editor and his lawyers. Attorneys at New York-based law firm Meister Seelig & Fein [MSF] said the parties had experienced a “fundamental disagreement”.

In December, S&S US’s documents, submitted to the New York County Clerk's office, revealed editorial notes on an early version of the memoir suggesting that the book’s principal editor, Mitchell Ivers, saw it as unfit to publish. However Yiannopoulos described the edits as a “cover-up” to justify dropping his book.

Yiannopoulos went on to self-publish Dangerous on Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing platform on 4th July through his Dangerous Books imprint. The title has sold 79,304 print units in the US through Nielsen BookScan and 3,443 copies in the UK to date.