Resurfaced video shows new Blue Peter presenter and YouTuber Adam B pretending to 'come out' as a 'prank'

YouTuber Adam Beales, better known as "Adam B" was announced this week as the new presenter for BBC's Blue Peter.

The 20-year-old influencer has been making videos since 2012 and has almost 3 million subscribers on the platform, where he mainly plays pranks on his friends, as well as his little brother Callum.

Here's an example:

Beals revealed his new job on Twitter on Twitter on Tuesday, and his fans were quick to share their congratulations.

However, an old video he made in 2016 quickly resurfaced, drawing some criticism.

The video in question, which is no longer available to watch, featured Beales "pranking" his friends by using the lyrics to Diana Ross's 'I'm coming out', ostensibly because his friends "think I'm gay". The premise seemed to be to try and "trick" his friends into thinking he was gay.

According to the Daily Mail the video had received 280,000 views since it was posted, and showed Beales saying his prank had "failed" because his friends' responses were largely unremarkable.

He reportedly said:

But, in all seriousness guys, there's nothing wrong with being gay, but I'm not gay. I am not gay even though I tried to prank people and they still think I'm gay.

While the video is arguably somewhat insensitive, people were quick to defend the YouTuber, who didn't appear to do this out of malice or in an attempt to ridicule or demean the LGBTQ+ community.

The Mail spoke to LGBTQ+ campaigner Peter Tatchell, who highlighted that coming out shouldn't be "trivialised or pranked".

However, he added that the video didn't appear to have been made with homophobic intent, and that "if anything, Adam himself became the butt of his own prank".

Tatchell went on to say:

There are bigger issues to get angry about.

On social media, people broadly agreed, thinking it was wrong to try and "cancel" Beales for a joke, especially as he was just a teenager when the video was made.

Beales has not responded to the controversy, but it seems people are willing to forgive and forget this one.

He appeared on his first live Blue Peter show on Thursday.