Logan Paul, YouTube Star, Apologizes As Critics Slam Video Showing Dead Body

After publishing images of a visit to Japan's "suicide forest" that included footage of a dead body, YouTube star Logan Paul is apologizing — and critics are denouncing both the video and Logan's behavior in it. The video was watched millions of times before he removed it.

I didn't do it for views. I get views," said Paul, who has some 15 million YouTube subscribers. "I did it because I thought I could make a positive ripple on the internet, not cause a monsoon of negativity. That's never the intention."

The video was filmed in the Aokigahara forest at the edge of Mount Fuji, an area that for years has been famous for its popularity among people who want to carry out a suicide. In his video, Paul blurred out the face of the person who had died, but he showed other parts of the body as he and his friends stood near it and talked.

Intended or not, an intense backlash has hit Paul, including calls for YouTube to remove his channel.

The negative feedback included a tweet from actress and online video veteran Anna Akana, who lost her sister, Kristina, to suicide 10 years ago.

Akana wrote:

"Dear @LoganPaul, When my brother found my sister's body, he screamed with horror & confusion & grief & tried to save her. That body was a person someone loved. You do not walk into a suicide forest with a camera and claim mental health awareness."

Akana was responding to Paul's attempt at an apology, in which he wrote, "I intended to raise awareness for suicide and suicide prevention and while I thought 'if this video saves just ONE life, it'll be worth it,' I was misguided by shock and awe, as portrayed in the video. I still am."

An edited version of the video was later posted to Twitter; it does not include footage of the body. Rather, it shows some of Paul's reactions and comments.
Paul said that he had "demonetized" the video, which included a segment in the parking lot near the forest in which he told viewers that his laughter and attempts at humor were a coping mechanism after seeing the body. He had initially cast the outing as an attempt to look for ghosts — but the Aokigahara's reputation as a suicide hotspot is well-known. It was the subject of a Vice documentary back in 2012, for instance.