British Airways has halted its sponsorship of Louis Theroux’s podcast over an interview with the frontman of Bob Vylan.
The airline has withdrawn its adverts from the journalist’s podcast after he interviewed Bobby Vylan – whose real name is Pascal Robinson-Foster.
On it, Vylan said he was “not regretful” of leading chants of “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]” during a performance at the Glastonbury festival this summer. He said he would “do it again tomorrow”.
British Airways told the PA Media that the podcast’s content breached its sponsorship policy.
A spokesperson said: “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.
“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.”
The rap duo had to postpone two gigs after the fallout from their Glastonbury performance – including a show in Manchester – after calls from MPs and Jewish community leaders.
Bob Vylan was dropped by its agency UTA, and the US state department revoked the members’ visas, forcing them to cancel a North American tour.
In the podcast, recorded on 1 October, when Theroux asked if Vylan stood by the chant and if he would do it again, he said: “Oh yeah. Like what if I was to go on Glastonbury again tomorrow, yes I would do it again.
“I’m not regretful of it. I’d do it again tomorrow, twice on Sundays. I’m not regretful of it at all, like the subsequent backlash that I’ve faced. It’s minimal.
“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.”
He said that he did not want to overstate the importance of the chant. “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?”
Vylan’s Glastonbury set was livestreamed by the BBC, which faced criticism for not pulling the feed. It was found to have broken its own editorial guidelines over “harm and offence”.
