British Airways (BA) has pulled sponsorshop from Louis Theroux’s podcast following an interview with the frontman of controversial hip-hop duo Bob Vylan.
A spokesperson for the airline told The Guardian the interview “breaches our sponsorship policy in relation to politically sensitive or controversial subject matters.”
“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,” added the spokesperson. “Our sponsorship of the series has now been paused and the advert has been removed.”
Speaking on the pod earlier this month, frontman Bobby Vylan, whose real name is Pascal Robinson-Foster, said he did not regret his “Death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]” Glastonbury chant, would do it again, and alleged that he was hailed by BBC employees for the chant, although the BBC did not comment on the latter remark. “I’m not regretful of it at all, like the subsequent backlash that I’ve faced. It’s minimal,” he said. “It’s minimal compared to what people in Palestine are going through.”
Theroux and his production company Mindhouse declined comment. The celebrated documentarian’s interview podcast has of late featured big stars like Steve Coogan, Bella Ramsey and Ed Sheeran.
Bob Vylan were widely condemned for their Glastonbury performance earlier this year during which they chanted “death to the IDF” and made remarks about working for “f***ing Zionists.” The BBC later apologized for streaming the performance on iPlayer but the incident caused a huge furor.
At the time of the chant, Deadline reported that UTA had dropped Bob Vylan soon after the set. Vylan told Theroux that the decision came from UTA’s senior leaders. The band have since had to cancel several gigs and festival performances.
Theroux made a recent documentary titled The Settlers in which he returned to the growing community of religious-nationalist Israelis who have settled in the occupied West Bank.
