Parade Grand Marshall Milo Yiannopoulos is seen at the Boston Straight Pride Parade and Rally organized by Super Happy Fun America on August 31, 2019 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo credit: Maverick Pictures / Shutterstock)
Far-right British provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, once Kanye West's chief of staff and now his publicist, has reportedly been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Daily Mail reported — the same agency he's spent years championing as a fierce advocate for mass deportations.
The commentator was taken into custody at a Louisiana airport, sources told the outlet. He was being held at a detention center in the state, according to government records. Why he was traveling there remains unclear, but West is set for a performance at New Orleans' Superdome on Friday.
Yiannopoulos once worked as a commentator for far-right Breitbart News, but resigned following outrage after he defended relationships between "younger boys and older men."
He has previously said he's in the U.S. on an O-1 visa, one of the types of so-called "Einstein visas" reserved for people with "extraordinary ability" in fields like science, business or the arts, requiring sponsorship by an employer or agent. It's unclear what triggered his detention or whether it's connected to his visa status.
The detention adds a strange twist to Yiannopoulos's long, chaotic association with West, whose rap career took a hard detour after he proclaimed his admiration for Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
In 2022, Yiannopoulos helped orchestrate the rapper's infamous 2022 Mar-a-Lago dinner with President Trump and white nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes — a relationship Yiannopoulos has since soured on, now regularly mocking Fuentes on X. Two years later, he served as West's director of political operations for his ill-fated 2024 presidential run.
Yiannopoulos married a man in Hawaii in 2017, publicly identifying him only as "John" while otherwise keeping his identity confidential. It remains unconfirmed whether that marriage ever made Yiannopoulos eligible for U.S. citizenship or a green card. He's since described himself as "ex-gay" since 2021 and has filed for divorce from his husband.