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British Airways has paused its sponsorship of The Louis Theroux Podcast following an interview with Bob Vylan’s frontman – a move Bobby Vylan has since addressed in a social media post.
Bobby Vylan, whose real name is Pascal Robinson-Foster, one half of the outspoken punk duo, appeared on Theroux’s show, where he said he was "not regretful" of his chants of "death, death to the IDF" at Glastonbury earlier this year.
In the episode, Vylan described his chants as "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."
Following the release of the episode, British Airways confirmed it had pulled its sponsorship, saying the content breached its policy.
A spokesperson for the airline 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."
Vylan has since broken his silence on the matter in a social media post, accusing the decision of being a "scare tactic".
He said he went on the podcast and claimed the media "couldn't twist anything I said," and instead, "resorted to lobbying for Louis' sponsorship to be pulled in an attempt to scare others out of giving me a platform".
He added that some expected a "dumb angry punk ranting," but instead "got articulate and considered responses to each question with facts to back it up when needed".
Vylan also called for British Airways to be added to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for "such cowardly capitulation".
Indy100 reached out to British Airways for comment
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