DANCE MUSIC PRODUCER and DJ Ten Walls has been pulled from a number of festivals after comparing gay people to Irish paedophile priests.
The Lithuanian, who had a UK top 10 hit last year with his track Walking With Elephants, has since apologised for the Facebook rant, in which he called gay people “a different breed”.
Ten Walls, real name Marijus Adomaitis, has deleted the posts from his personal account, but has been dropped from high-profile festivals.
He said he had been talking to another musician whom he had rebuked for trying to “brainwash him” about being more open and tolerant to gays.
One of my first gigs in Ireland, on my way to hotel I saw a church with a fence decorated with hundreds of baby shoes.
Unfortunately a priest’s lie for many years was uncovered when children were massively raped. Unfortunately the people of other breed continue to do it and everyone knows it but does nothing.
That led to the DJ, who played in Westmeath last week, being taken off the bills for Creamfields, Pitch, Sonar and Urban Art Forms.
In a statement, Creamfields said:
Whilst we respect freedom of speech, we find his defamatory and prejudiced comments about the gay community extremely offensive and feel that this is not in line with the spirit of Creamfields or an opinion that we support. Creamfields is celebrated for being a festival that welcomes all and we have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to hate of any kind. Everyone who attends our shows should feel welcome and safe. Comments like this, coming from one of the artists contradicts our festival ethos.
Barcelona-based Sonar has said:
Following Ten Walls statements over the weekend, we feel his comments are at odds with the nature and ethos of the festival. For this reason, Ten Walls will no longer be appearing at Sónar2015. Here’s to a diverse and enjoyable 2015.
Ten Walls apologised on his Facebook page, saying the post was “out of character”.
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