The CEO of Pornhub has spoken out for the first time since his unfinished $16 million (£11,727,920) mega-mansion was burned down last year.
Montreal Police received reports of two people breaking into the construction area of the home on 25 April 2021.
The resulting arson attack then took 80 firefighters nearly three hours to put out the blaze.
Now, Feras Antoon, addressed the events in a rare interview with Vanity Fair, giving his thoughts on who he suspects is behind the attack.
The 46-year-old said: “Could the extreme religious groups have incited and encouraged someone to do this? Absolutely.
“When you use extremist language and QAnon sentiment toward child trafficking, your words are going to attract and mobilize some of the darkest corners of the internet.”
During 2016, Antoon reportedly spent $1.8 million (£1,319,625) on two plots of land that backed on to Montreal’s ‘Mafia Row’, where many crime figures reside.
He then spent millions more building luxury amenities, such as a nine-car garage, seven bathrooms and eight bedrooms, which have now become a pile of rubble.
However, Antoon had put his unfinished mansion up for sale weeks before the fire, as he was facing financial ruin due to a string of allegations coming out against Pornhub and its videos containing underage girls.
Nicholas Kristof, who first exposed Pornhub in a New York Times column, said: “Its site is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags.”
Following the controversy, major credit card companies such as Mastercard and Visa cut ties with the porn site, forcing it to delete 80 percent of its content.
In a further bid to clean up its act, the site has completely banned downloading and has introduced stringent restrictions on uploading videos.
Despite the mansion now just a site of ruin, it has been listed for $15.9 million.
Speaking to Vanity Fair about his decision to sell the mega mansion, Antoon said: “It attracted too much attention. I felt a very negative karma about it.
“It was supposed to bring joy and I felt it was only bringing negativity, so we decided to sell it.”
Explaining why he agreed to such a rare interview, Antoon said that ignoring questions could appear ‘dodgy’ - an impression he is keen to shake off.
Abbi Murray