The Rise, Fall, And Deportation Of The Original Political Troll

A decade ago, putting Milo Yiannopoulos’ name on a university speaking calendar meant inviting violent student riots and salacious national headlines. Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested him at the New Orleans airport and deported him to the U.K. It’s such a perfectly scripted ending to his American career that it almost seems ghostwritten. Which, in Milo’s case, would be appropriate.

“It was physically degrading. It was frightening. I don’t think I’ve ever been frightened like that before,” Yiannopoulos said in an interview with Piers Morgan, a privilege not bestowed upon the average ICE deportee. In a piece in the Spectator, Yiannopoulos claimed that the ICE facility he was in was empty and that the Trump administration’s deportation policy was akin to a chess board lacking its pieces. But the experience, he said, opened his mind and his heart. “In the past,” he said, “I think I’ve been a little blasé when people talked about their trauma.”