Shane Dawson apologizes for blackface and ‘all the racism’ in past videos

American YouTuber Shane Dawson has issued a public apology for his use of blackface and “all the racism” in his past sketch comedy videos.

In a 20-minute new video titled “Taking Accountability,” Dawson also apologized for using the “n-word” while in blackface.

“I’m sorry that I added to the normalization of blackface or the normalization of saying the N-word,” he said.

“It’s not a funny word. Especially for a white person to say.”

Dawson also told his 22.7 million YouTube subscribers that he was sorry for all the harm that the racist content in his videos may have caused.

“I am so sorry to anybody that saw that and also saw that people were lifting me up and saying, ‘You’re so funny, Shane,'” Dawson said.

“I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be black and see this white f—ing guy doing blackface and the whole Internet at that time being like, ‘LOL.’ That's insane and I am so sorry.”

Dawson posted the video in the wake of widespread Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, who died after a white police officer pinned him to the ground by pressing a knee onto his neck for several minutes.

“I’m willing to lose everything,” Dawson remarked.

“At this point, realizing how many people I’ve hurt or how many people I’ve inspired to say awful things or do anything awful, to finally just own up to all of this and be accountable is worth losing everything to me,” he added.

Shane Dawson, known for doing comedy sketches and “collabs” with fellow YouTube stars, joined YouTube in 2005.

In his video posted on June 27, the internet star said he was sorry for all offensive remarks he had made towards other cultures since launching his channel 15 years ago.

“I’m going to start with all the racism I put onto the internet as an adult, not a child,” Dawson said.

“I was at least 20 when I started YouTube, and I made the decision to play stereotypes of Black people, or Asian people, or Mexicans, or pretty much every race. I made that decision. I said, ‘Oh this is funny,’ and I put that on the internet,” he added.

Dawson, however, said he was aware that an apology at this point in time would not undo what has been done in the past.

"I have done a lot of things in my past that I hate, that I wish I could make go away, that I tried to make go away by deleting videos, or un-tagging my Instagram, literally doing whatever I can to pretend those things didn't happen," Dawson said.

"Because yes, I apologized for a lot of them but I'm 31, almost 32. Those apologies suck. I don't know who that person is anymore.,” he added. — Margaret Claire Layug/LA, GMA News