Louis Theroux in conversation with Bobby Vylan on the Oct. 24, 2025, episode of “The Louis Theroux Podcast.” Photo: YouTube screenshot

The frontman of the British punk rap duo Bob Vylan responded on Sunday to the decision by British Airways to withdraw sponsorship from Louis Theroux’s podcast following his interview with the musician, who said he did not regret his “death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]” chant at the Glastonbury Festival and would do it again.

A spokesperson for British Airways told PA Media that content in the interview “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,” added the spokesperson. “Our sponsorship of the series has now been paused, and the advert has been removed.”

Bob Vylan frontman Bobby Vylan, whose real name is Pascal Robinson-Foster, called the move a “scare tactic” in a post on X. “I went on the podcast and as hard as the lobby groups and media tried, they couldn’t twist anything I said. So, they have resorted to lobbying for Louis’ sponsorship to be pulled in an attempt to scare others out of giving me a platform.”

“Their hope to further vilify me couldn’t run, so they target Louis to make an example for sitting with me,” he wrote in separate posts. “The lobby groups, the British government, and media are determined to make an example of me, all because I dare to want an end to a genocidal occupying force guilty of war crimes.”

Robinson-Foster was a guest on Theroux’s podcast last week and talked in great length about the “death, death to the IDF” chant that he led at Glastonbury in June in Somerset, England. The musician told the podcast host and documentarian that he is “not regretful of it at all” and “would do it again tomorrow, [and] twice on Sundays.” He also called “death to the IDF” a “perfect chant.”

“The subsequent backlash that I’ve faced — it’s minimal,” he added. “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’ – and I don’t 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.”

Robinson-Foster also claimed that Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury set was praised and called “fantastic” by employees of the BBC, which live streamed the Glastonbury Festival. The BBC apologized for live streaming Bob Vylan’s “offensive and deplorable behavior” and BBC chairman Samir Shah separately apologized for the network’s mistake in broadcasting the band’s “unconscionable antisemitic views.” The anti-IDF chant was even condemned by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

After the Glastonbury incident, the United Talent Agency dropped Bob Vylan as its client, and the band had several concerts and festival performances canceled. Bob Vylan had their US visas revoked and are currently under criminal investigation in the UK because of the chant. There was a recorded rise in antisemitic incidents in the United Kingdom the day after Bob Vylan’s anti-IDF chant at Glastonbury, but Robinson-Foster told Theroux last week he does not believe he contributed to creating “an unsafe atmosphere for the Jewish community” in the UK following the festival.

The vocalist insisted in a social media post last month “there is nothing antisemitic or criminal about anything I said at Glastonbury.” Bob Vylan previously said in a statement on Instagram that the “death to the IDF” chant was a call “for the dismantling of a violent military machine.”

Robinson-Foster called for violence against Zionists during a September concert in Amsterdam, and while performing in Spain over the summer, he encouraged “armed resistance” against the IDF and proclaimed, “Down with Israel.”