Despacito Video Mysteriously Deleted Off YouTube

VEVO/Youtube

The record-breaking music video for Despacito has been deleted from YouTube in a reported hacking.

Last week, it was announced the video for the song, which is by Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee had become the first YouTube video in history to have reached five billion views.

A Justin Bieber remix helped spread the song to English-speaking markets.

But now, a still on the video shows masked figures pointing guns from the Netflix show Money Heist – or La Casa de Papel – and when fans attempt to press play on the video, it is ‘unavailable’.

Elsewhere on YouTube, artists including Shakira, Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift and Drake have also been affected.

The hackers, calling themselves Prosox and Kuroi’sh, have written ‘Free Palestine’ beneath the videos, according to The Independent.

The reggaeton-pop tune is universally loved – whether you’ll admit it or not. Despacito – which translates to ‘slowly’ and is actually pretty NSFW lyrically – has been dubbed ‘the most authentically Latin chart-topper in the US’ as America’s first Spanish language number one hit.

VEVO/Youtube

In July 2017, it was reported tourist interest in the country increased by 45 per cent since the worldwide success of the song and tour operators cite the song’s music video for increasing interest in the locale.

Club La Factoría got a revived clientele and the brightly coloured houses of the La Perla district in Old San Juan, a seaside slum which had long been notorious as a violent enclave, serving as Puerto Rico’s biggest distribution point for heroin, became a tourist trap.

Tragically, the district was hit by Hurricane Maria and Fonsi was quick to help the hundreds of volunteers to distribute aid to the now-destroyed setting for his song and its colourful video.

The video – shot in Spanish and without Justin Bieber’s additional verses – was first posted on January 12, 2017, and raced to be crowned as the most-watched video on YouTube.

Fonsi tweeted news of the big milestone, saying:

Thank you for supporting family. Thanks Puerto Rico.

It has bested Wiz Khalifa’s 2015 hit See You Again featuring Charlie Puth, which honours the late Paul Walker and currently sits at 3.15 billion views, as well as Psy’s former record-setter Gangnam Style from 2012 which has 2.97 billion views.

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Since its release, Despacito has set records and broken ground left, right and centre, setting Vevo records for most views of a Spanish-language video in 24 hours with 5.4 million hits, as well as for the fastest such video to reach 200 million views, 2 billion views and 3 billion views.

Universal

Last September, Despacito landed a 16th week atop the Billboard Hot 100, the most weeks at number one ever for a single, equalling the reign of Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men’s One Sweet Day which ruled for a long stretch in 1995-96.

It has been remixed a whole bunch of times now, and in a comical way, a woman recorded her husband’s snores over the course of four years, before remixing the footage with Despacito.

The result is as hilarious as it is catchy. The track, entitled Ronquidito – ft. Raul Amadar Marquez, was a joint effort between the mischievous woman and her nephew. (Rondiquito is the Spanish term for snore!)

The unnamed woman opens the clip with a sneaky smile and the following message:

I’ve been recording my husband’s snoring for four years.
After mixing it in a special way with my nephew, this came out.
Enjoy it!

And here it is:

UPDATE*

Despacito is now playing again having been unavailable for a short period.

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