A British lifestyle YouTuber has lost thousands of subscribers as backlash mounts over resurfaced racist tweets

• YouTuber Elle Darby and her boyfriend Connor Swift apologized after decade-old tweets resurfaced.
• The posts included racist, homophobic, and fatphobic comments.

British influencer Elle Darby has apologized after old tweets resurfaced appearing to show her making racist, fatphobic, and homophobic comments.

In a video posted to her YouTube channel on January 4 titled "i'm sorry," Darby said her 2011 tweets were "so disgusting, and so far from the person I am today."

"I am ashamed, I am disgusted in myself. There is not one person on this planet that hates me more than I do right now and the pain I know I have caused to so many of you eats me up," she said, adding that in the past 10 years she has grown and become more educated.

Various screenshots of what appear to be tweets made by Darby's account began to circulate on Twitter at the end of December. They include racist remarks about Polish, Indian, and Chinese people, as well as fatphobic and homophobic comments.

A clip of a seemingly old YouTube video appearing to show Darby referring to "foreign" men in a derogatory manner was also posted on Twitter on Saturday. It was purportedly posted to Darby's YouTube channel five years ago, but is no longer available on her channel.

According to social-analytics tracking site Social Blade, Darby's YouTube account lost 18,000 views on Monday, suggesting that some videos were deleted. The channel has been posting on YouTube since 2015, although the earliest video currently available on her channel is from 2018. The data also shows Darby's channel began to lose subscribers on Saturday, and has since dropped from around 609,000 to 596,000.

"I've let down everybody; there is no more humiliating feeling than that," Darby said in the apology video, which is three minutes and 40 seconds long and has the comments section disabled. "I'm going to be taking a little bit of time offline just to further reflect on everything that's happened and to process a situation that I don't think I'm ever going to forgive myself for."

Darby's boyfriend Connor Swift also posted an apology to his 180,000 Instagram followers on Tuesday, after a screenshot appeared to show an account by the name of @ConnorSwift123 using the N-word.

"I am so sorry to everyone who has been affected by my tweets and hurt by the words I used," he wrote. "I couldn't not address this situation further, this is the biggest lesson I could ever learn and I want to be held accountable for what I said.

He added that the tweets were made 10 years ago, and his views on the language used "have changed drastically" since.

Both Swift and Darby's Twitter accounts have since been deactivated.

The apologies come after Darby and Swift posted a joint statement about the tweets on their Instagram Stories, according to UK newspaper the Daily Star, which reported that the post said the couple had "decided to take some time to look through both of our histories on social" and were "ashamed" by what they found.

The statement is no longer available to view on Darby's Instagram account, but according to purported screenshots published by the Daily Star, it appears to have been posted at the end of 2021 as the sign-off read, "Have a great New Year's Eve."

Darby, who has 738,000 followers on Instagram at the time of writing, originally gained popularity with fitness-focused YouTube videos featuring workout routines, food recipes, and grocery hauls. In recent years, her content has spanned a range of lifestyle topics, including travel and fashion. She has also posted about her pregnancy and documented the birth of her and Swift's son in July 2021.

In January 2018, she faced widespread backlash after a Dublin hotel owner called her out for asking for a free stay in exchange for featuring on her social media. At the time, Darby posted a 17-minute response video in which she appeared to be crying while explaining the anxiety she faced as a result of the criticism. The video is no longer available to view on her channel.

Representatives for Darby and Swift did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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