British Airways (BA) removed sponsor store from Louis TherouxPodcast after an interview with the frontman of the controversial hip-hop duo Every Vilan.
This was reported by a representative of the airline. Guardian the interview “violates our sponsorship policy regarding politically sensitive or controversial topics.”
“We and our third-party media agency have developed procedures to ensure that issues like this do not arise, and we are investigating how this happened,” the spokesperson added. “Our sponsorship of the series has been suspended and advertising removed.”
Speaking at a conference earlier this month, frontman Bobby Whelan, whose real name is Pascal Robinson-Foster, said he had no regrets about his “Death to the IDF”. [Israel Defence Forces]”Glastonbury Singing, Would Do It Again and stated that BBC staff applauded him for his singing, although the BBC has not commented on the latter remark. “I don't regret it at all, nor the subsequent backlash I faced. It's minimal,” he said. “It’s minimal compared to what people go through in Palestine.”
Theroux and his production company Mindhouse declined to comment. The famed documentarian's interview podcast has recently featured stars such as Steve Coogan, Bella Ramsey and Ed Sheeran.
Bob Wylan was widely criticized for his performance at Glastonbury earlier this year, during which they chanted “Death to the IDF” and spoke about working for “fucking Zionists”. The BBC later apologized for broadcasting the performance on iPlayer, but the incident caused a huge furor.
At the moment of singing Deadline reported that UTA dropped Bob Whelan shortly after the set. Whelan told Theroux that the decision was made by UTA's senior management. Since then, the group has had to cancel several concerts and festival performances.
Theroux recently directed a documentary called Settlers in which he returned to the growing community of religious-nationalist Israelis who had settled in the occupied West Bank.
