Bob Vylan has commented on British Airways dropping its sponsorship for Louis Theroux’s podcast following the frontman’s appearance, calling the incident a “scare tactic”.
Earlier this week, Bobby Vylan, the frontman for the punk outfit Bob Vylan, would appear on journalist and documentarian Louis Theroux’s podcast to give his first in-depth interview following his controversial performance at Glastonbury in June.
During the performance, Vylan would refer to the conflict in Palestine, and would ask the crowd to chant “Death, death to the IDF”.
Following the performance, a BBC spokesperson would condemn the chant, calling it “deeply offensive”. Avon and Somerset police would later announce that both were launching investigations into Vylna’s performance to see if any offences had been committed.
Despite the backlash, Vylan would share that he did not regret making the chant, and that “I’d do it again tomorrow, twice on Sundays. I’m not regretful of it at all.”
This has led to British Airways to pull their advertisements from Theroux’s podcast, claiming that Vylan’s interview breached its sponsorship policy.
Vylan would later share a statement via X, writing:
“Make no mistake, this is a scare tactic. I went on the podcast and as hard as the lobby groups and media tried, they couldn’t twist anything I said. So they have resorted to lobbying for Louis’ sponsorship to be pulled in an attempt to scare others out of giving me a platform.”
In a follow up tweet, he wrote: “They thought they were going to get a dumb angry punk ranting. Instead they got articulate and considered responses to each question with facts to back it up when needed. Their hope to further vilify me couldn’t run, so they target Louis to make an example for sitting with me.”
“The lobby groups, the British government and media are determined to make an example of me, all because I dare to want an end to a genocidal occupying force guilty of war crimes.”
A spokesperson for British Airways would later tell The Guardian: “Our sponsorship of the series has now been paused and the advert has been removed.”
“We’re grateful that this was brought to our attention, as the content clearly breaches our sponsorship policy in relation to politically sensitive or controversial subject matters,” the statement continued.
“We and our third-party media agency have processes in place to ensure these issues don’t occur and we’re investigating how this happened.”
During Theroux’s interview, Vylan shared that the backlash did not phase him.
“It’s minimal compared to what people in Palestine are going through. If that can be my contribution and if I can have my Palestinian friends and people that I meet from Palestine that have had to flee, that have lost members in double digits of their family and they can say: ‘Yo, your chant, I love it.’ Or it gave me a breath of fresh air or whatever.”
However, the frontman wanted to downplay the importance of the chant, sharing, “That’s not what I’m trying to do, but if I have their support, they’re the people that I’m doing it for, they’re the people that I’m being vocal for, then what is there to regret? Oh, because I’ve upset some rightwing politician or some rightwing media?”
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