PewDiePie pays tribute to Sushant Singh Rajput, says he can’t believe someone with his mindset could take their own life

Popular YouTuber PewDiePie has paid tribute to Sushant Singh Rajput, ahead of the release of the actor’s final film, Dil Bechara.

Popular YouTuber PewDiePie, who operates the second most-subscribed channel on the platform, has released a new video, in tribute of the late Sushant Singh Rajput. Sushant died by suicide on June 14, at the age of 34. His final film, Dil Bechara, will be released on Friday.

PewDiePie in a screengrab from his tribute video.

“I’m not going to pretend like I know who this guy was,” he said in his video, and added that people ‘freaked out’ after he recently spoke about him in an earlier video. He said he made the video as a tribute. The 24-minute video is currently trending at number five on YouTube, and has accumulated over 3.4 million views.

PewDiePie said, “He’s such a cool dude, such a smart guy, such a good message as well that I so wholeheartedly believe in just such a tragedy..it really makes you sad to think that he passed away at such a young age.” He added, “Police say that he died of suicide but at least personally... I cannot make sense out of committing suicide and there’s been this whole controversy and theories about did he really commit suicide or what happened... I don’t want to get into that but want it just to be a video (paying tribute to him) because I think he’s a cool dude and I wanted to share with my audience.”

The tribute video is essentially PewDiePie’s reaction to a speech Sushant gave university students in 2016. “All these years, I was obsessed with what’s going to happen. I was constantly swinging from past to future, not living in an actual sense. And for the first time, in a long a time, I understood the true meaning of success, which was not money plus recognition but ‘now’ plus excitement,” Sushant had said.

PewDiePie connected with this. He said in his video, “It’s just this statement he had about living in the moment...obviously this was a couple of years ago but it’s just you wouldn’t commit suicide if you had this mindset...I don’t believe that at all but then again I don’t want to add to that... Rest In Peace Sushant... I would love to meet you..seem like an awesome dude and thank you for being you.”

PewDiePie was previously involved in a feud with producer Ekta Kapoor, and later campaigned against a major Indian record label in an effort to become the most-subscribed YouTube channel.

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