Homophobic ‘Walking with Elephants’ DJ dropped from festivals
By Will Stroude
Lithuanian DJ Ten Walls has been dropped from a series of summer festivals including Creamfields, Sonar, Urban Art Forms and Pitch festival after calling gay people a “different breed” and comparing them to paedophiles.
32-year-old Marijus Adomaitis, who scored a UK Top 10 single with popular Ibiza circuit song Walking with Elephants last year, made the series of outrageous comments in a now-deleted Facebook post last week, Gay Star News reports.
Adomaitis wrote: “I remember producing music for one Lithuanian musician, who tried to wash my brain that I don’t need to be so conservative and intolerant about them”.
He added: “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.”
According to BBC Newsbeat, nearly all the events the DJ was scheduled to play at this summer have dropped him from the lineup.
A spokesperson for 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”.
Barcelona’s Sonar festival called the comments “at odds with the nature and ethos” of the event.
Electronic artist Fort Romeau has also cancelled his slot supporting Ten Walls at Koko in London in November, explaining: “While cancelling one gig is hardly going to change the world, it does stand as a personal rejection of bigotry, fear and intolerance”.
After facing backlash and deleting the post, Ten Walls attempted apologise earlier today (June 8), writing: “Last week I wrote a Facebook post that was wrong and completely out of character and the result was a badly written post that was unacceptable. It was never my intention to offend anyone. I’m really saddened by everything that has happened and I would like to apologise to everyone I’ve let down, especially to my friends in the gay community, and my fans.
He added – erroneously – that he had voluntarily decided to take a break from upcoming shows, writing: “I now need to take a break and have cancelled my upcoming shows”.
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