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After Colleen Ballinger posted a video in response to the grooming and predatory behaviour allegations made against her, Adam McIntyre one of the first to speak about his experience with Ballinger whilst she was an adult and he was a minor, uploaded his own video. McIntyre, who is now 22, had raised issues publicly about Ballinger back in 2020. At the time, the 36-year-old known for YouTube personality 'Miranda Sings', responded to his claims, admitting to sending him a bra when he was just a teenager. During that apology video, she had said: "I don't know what part of my brain was missing at the time. But I am not a monster, I am not a groomer, and I shouldn't kill myself." At the time, people had largely accepted her apology and many turned on McIntyre as a result. But this year, McIntyre posted another video, this time over an hour long, documenting his relationship with Ballinger. In the video, he shared screenshots of a group chat he was in with Ballinger and other fans of her's called "Colleeny's Weenies," where she had asked a teenage McIntyre what his "favourite position" was. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter McIntyre's allegations led to others coming out about how Ballinger had made them uncomfortable whilst they were minors. McIntyre has initially responded to the video on Twitter saying: "As much as Colleen discredited & made fun of me, I'm glad her video did ONE thing, show you all Exactly the type of evil woman she is". However, McIntyre has now posted a response of his own, with the same title and same 'style'. hi. www.youtube.com At the beginning of his video, McIntyre picks up a ukulele, starts strumming the strings randomly and says: "Hey. It seems this is the only way she'll listen." "What was not true?" McIntyre asks when she says that the claims going around "aren't quite true." Later on, he says "we're all ears" when Ballinger claims that people don't care about her side of the story. He says that Ballinger "harassed" him for "three years in group chats." He also argues that in her 2020 apology video she "edited evidence to make a 17-year-old look bad." As well as saying that she doesn't have any facts to disprove his claims. When Ballinger tries to explain she was just trying to be "besties with everybody", McIntyre says: "Besties with children? Don't really know if that's helping your case." However he agrees with her when she says her behaviour was "weird": "It was weird," he sings, before bluntly saying, "very, actually." He also disagrees with Ballinger's claim that she "changed her behaviours and took accountability." He simply asks, "where? Where did you do that?" "There's making a mistake and then there's what you've done, for years," McIntyre adds. When Ballinger says that her YouTube persona Miranda Sings has always been PG-13 and that she has "always relied on parents to decide if they're comfortable with their families watching my YouTube videos or coming to my live shows." "You cater towards children," McIntyre says, "let's not pretend that Miranda Sings has not been a character catered towards children." In her song, Ballinger minimises an ex-fan named Becky, who came forward saying that when she was about 16 she went to a Miranda Sings show and got called up on stage for the "yoga challenge". "I am laying down and Colleen is spreading my legs," explains Becky. "She spreads them so far that you can see the spandex I was wearing under my romper." "I was lying under Colleen and she was smirking down at me while thousands of people were laughing and I was terrified that my body wasn't covered enough by the spandex or the romper. I basically felt naked, so it felt incredibly sexually violating," Becky shares. "For her to use my body as entertainment on stage really set my confidence back quite a lot." Becky also said that afterwards she felt that many men were staring at her in "a very predatory way." Colleen then referred to this situation in her song as simply a "fart joke." McIntyre puts down his ukulele and says: "You didn't make a fart joke. You called a fan, who was a minor, up on stage and spread their legs and made their body a joke, so much so that they felt threatened leaving the venue." He adds, "how dare you diminish what Becky spoke up about." Many viewers enjoyed McIntyre's response, with one fan commenting "Adam had the chance to do the funniest thing possible and he did." 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.

A Georgia county police officer got quite a surprise when he pulled over a speeding vehicle late last month.

A legal battle appears set to erupt over the sale of a British author’s LGBT+- themed webcomic and graphic novel in Hungary, after Viktor Orban’s government attempted to ban a bookshop from selling it without closed packaging. The country’s second largest bookshop chain Lira has announced that it plans to take legal action after a Budapest government office fined it 12 million forints (£27,500), claiming it broke the law by selling Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper among other books for young adults without wrapping them in plastic foil. The sale of the Kent-born author’s book has fallen foul of a law passed by Mr Orban’s strongly Christian-conservative government banning the “display and promotion of homosexuality” to under-18s, a move viewed as resonating with rural voters ahead of his fourth-term election win in 2022. While the passage of the law in 2021 came despite strong criticism from human rights groups and the EU, the large fine now handed to Lira emerged on the same day that 38 countries, including Germany and the US, urged Budapest to protect the rights of LGBT+ people and scrap its discriminatory laws. Krisztian Nyary, a well-known author who works as creative director at Lira, told Reuters the fine was disproportionate, and criticised the law as vaguely worded as he indicated that the bookshop would respond legally. “As this is a resolution about a fine it cannot be appealed, it can only be attacked – in what way, our lawyers will assess,” he said. “We will use all legal means at our disposal.” Mr Nyary said that some publishers had already voluntarily wrapped their books in plastic coverings in an attempt to comply, but warned that it was not clear whether it was sufficient to place books affected by the law on a shelf for literature aimed for adults. He also said it was uncertain whether LGBT+-themed books meant for adults would also have to be wrapped up or if those could be sold without packaging, adding: “This is all not clear.” The law, which the government claims is aimed at protecting children, has caused anxiety in the LGBT+ community. It currently bans the display of LGBT+ content to minors in schools, literature, films, TV and adverts, while prohibiting the public display of products depicting gender reassignment. More than a dozen EU member states have backed legal action against the law – branded a “disgrace” by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen – in the European Court of Justice. In a statement reported by state news agency MTI this week, the Budapest metropolitan government office said an “investigation found that the books in question depicted homosexuality, but they were nevertheless placed in the category of children’s books and youth literature, and were not distributed in closed packaging”. While it is not the first time a Hungarian government office has fined a bookshop for violating the law, the fresh fine came ahead of a Pride march in Budapest on Saturday. Heartstopper has sold millions of copies and has been read more than 50 million times online, prompting streaming giant Netflix to release an adaptation of the ongoing series last April. Ms Oseman, a 28-year-old born in the Kent town of Chatham, who first secured a publishing deal aged 17, was handed two prizes at last year’s Children's and Family Emmy Awards and was nominated for a Bafta over the Netflix adaptation of Heartstopper, which also won Waterstones Book of the Year in 2022. Additional reporting by Reuters Read More Hungary's Orban bemoans liberal 'virus' at CPAC conference ‘Less drag queens, more Chuck Norris!’: Hungary’s Orban wows Republicans The Independent Pride List 2023: The LGBT+ people making change happen Netflix announces Heartstopper season 2 release date

Asset and wealth manager Northern Trust reported a 17% drop in second-quarter profit on Wednesday, as lower fee-based