Bob Geldof was censored on air and was cut off the British TV
Bob Geldof’s efforts to promote the new Band Aid single were curtailed when he refused to stop swearing during a live television interview, forcing producers to cut him off.
Faced with criticism of the record, which is raising funds for the fight against Ebola, Geldof twice responded with the word “b——s”.
In the mid-morning interview on Sky News, Geldof was asked for his response to critics who claim that some of the millionaire pop stars appearing on the record are tax avoiders.
“There are a lot of detractors saying, ‘Look at a lot of those people in that room… if they all paid their taxes in the right way we wouldn’t need these kind of fundraising singles,’” the presenter Jayne Secker said.
“I think they’re talking b——s,” Geldof replied.
After an uncomfortable silence, the presenter admonished: “Pretty colourful language – if you could not use any more, we’d appreciate it.”
However, asked to respond “less colourfully” to accusations that the record is patronising to Africans, Geldof said: “Complete and utter b——s.”
The interview was then suspended, with Secker telling viewers: “I’m afraid we have to apologise for that language again, and there we have to leave it.”
The re-working of the Do They Know It’s Christmas? single, first recorded in 1984, has already raised more than £1 million in sales and pre-orders.
It is top of the iTunes chart and all but certain to be number one on Sunday. The video had over 120,000 views on YouTube in its first eight hours, although it is not known how many of those viewers followed a link to donate.
Source: The Telegraph
