Logan Paul Reflects on Career Downturn: 'I Was So Used to People Liking Me'

Logan Paul
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The infamous YouTuber is coming clean on his regrets and what comes next.

Logan Paul wants his life back.

The polarizing 23-year-old recently sat down for an in-depth interview in which he discussed his visit to Japan’s “Suicide Forest” and the endless hostility he’s received online ever since, explaining that it has forced him to reexamine his choices and his career’s trajectory.

"My first feeling was just dis-f**kingbelief,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter of filming the discovery of a dead body, which was posted at the end of 2017. “I should have felt empathy. I should have been like, ‘Hey, this is wrong. Let’s not do what we’re doing.’” 

Soon after releasing the video from Aokigahara forest, Paul became a pariah, projects were shelved and he found himself the object of ridicule, no matter how many times he apologized. He recalled sitting down for a crisis meeting with his over 10-person publicity team as they attempted to weather the storm.

“Can you imagine,” he says. “We [were] building the biggest f**king brand in the world. We’re on the verge of, like, product launches. We were about to create the next Axe [body spray]! And here we are just trying to wrap our heads around what happened… The first question I asked myself at the beginning of the year was, ‘How do we fix this?’ — when the question I should have asked myself was, ‘How do I fix me?’"

In the interview, the YouTube sensation discusses the toll of the endless animus he’s coped with online ever since the “Suicide Forest” video: “I was so used to people liking me. But being hated? I hate it. I hate being hated!”

This interview comes just weeks after reports surfaced that he and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. actress Chloe Bennet parted ways. During the chat, Paul says that, before his trip to Japan, she warned him that his wild antics would catch up with him someday.

Christopher Patey

“She’s like, ‘Yo, this behavior is going to bite you in the a**. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but you’re going to crash and burn,’" he relays.

As for the future, the online personality plans to launch a podcast, named Impaulsive, a pun taking aim at his “tendencies.” He’s even installed a broadcast studio in his L.A. home for the venture. "If I'm going to do something," he says, "I might as well go for it." 

And, although he’s often heard that he’s “canceled,” Paul has no intention of giving up.

“Good luck trying to cancel me,” he says. “It’s so easy for anyone to be like, ‘Logan Paul just ended his career, he’s done.’ But the only person who will ever decide whether that’s true is me. Like, if I sleep for the rest of my life, maybe. But, like, dog — I love this sh*t. This creating? It’s my passion.” 

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