Eurovision hopefuls Wild Youth has said they are trying to stay in a “positive mindset” – after author J.K. Rowling accused them of “misogyny” for sacking their Eurovision creative director over his social media comments.
The band’s Eurovision performance was thrown into chaos on Tuesday after the group “cut all ties” with Ian Banham, their staging director, for his social media comments on Ukraine winning the song contest and his remarks on a story about a convicted transgender woman.
The comments sparked major reaction on Twitter, with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling waded in on the row, accusing the act of “preening, self-satisfied misogyny”.
Singer Conor O’Donohoe remained silent on J.K. 's remarks but said he wanted to stay in a positive mindset just weeks before they are due to perform on stage in Liverpool at the first semi-final on May 9.
READ MORE: https://www.irishmirror.ie/showbiz/jk-rowling-wild-youth-row-29816018
He told us: “Honestly, we’re just trying to stay in a positive mindset. We don’t want anything to creep in on the fact that we’re living our dream at the moment, and we have wanted to do this for so long.
“We’re just four Irish guys and we’re representing our country and it is something that we always wanted to do so I think it’s such an incredible achievement for us and it is something we are so proud of and it is something that is so positive and I think being in a band and after going through the last few years of Covid and everything, we’re at this point now that we can say we are so happy doing what we love again.
"I think that is an incredibly positive thing so I think we’re just trying to focus on those kinds of points.”
A row erupted on Tuesday after Wild Youth released a statement saying they were parting ways with Ian Banham and would no longer let him “near our team” after a screenshot circulated on Twitter appearing to be from his account.
Frontman Conor later said reading the tweet had made him “feel sick”.
The post referred to an article about Zara Jade, a transgender woman who stabbed her partner before tying her up and leaving with her bank card, which featured a headline referring to Jade as a “woman”.
has worked with artists such as Lily Allen, Kylie Minogue and Cheryl and on TV series including Dancing On Ice and Dancing With The Stars.
On Wednesday, Rowling posted a defence of the creative director alongside the hashtag #IStandWithIanBanham.
She said: “The re-traumatisation of female rape survivors, including this man’s victims, on seeing him called a woman by the press counts for nothing, naturally.
“The so-called kindness and inclusivity of @bandwildyouth is preening, self-satisfied misogyny.
“For those confused as to why Ian Banham was fired and publicly lambasted by @bandwildyouth, here’s one of his ‘horrifying’ tweets.
“His crime is standing against the insanity of pretending knife-wielding rapists are women if they say they are.”
In March, Jade was jailed for nine years with an additional three years on licence after pleading guilty to six offences including false imprisonment, assault and robbery, to serve the time in a male prison.
But Conor and the band refused to be drawn in on J.K.’s comments – but said sacking Mr Banham - who has worked with artists such as Kylie Minogue on TV series including Dancing On Ice and Dancing With The Stars - from their creative team won’t upset their staging on the night, saying they had their own staging ideas from the beginning.
Conor confirmed Mr Banham will not be replaced.
He said: “Yeah, we’re just doing our own staging.
“As a band, and it has always been like this for any tours or anything, it has always been our vision. What we envision the stage being, how we plan on it looking, the lighting... Of course, people come in along the way and they try and bring that vision to life, but it is always based on ideas that we have and how when we close our eyes and how we see that stage and how we see it all looking.
“Creatively, it will always come from us.”
Conor described the stage as “quite retro” and there will be tributes paid on the night to past Irish winners including Johnny Logan and Niamh Kavanagh, also.
“In terms of the staging, I feel like it feels quite retro, and I think there is something we have as part of our staging that when I watched a performance from a long time ago – it was one of Johnny Logan’s performances.
"People will probably see it and go ‘what?’ but it is something that I saw in that performance that was a setting feature that maybe inspired something.”
“You get to see your stage and they do stand ins and they perform and then they send it over to you so you get to make adjustments so if it doesn’t look exactly how it want it to look, you can make final adjustments so that has all been done and we saw a little snippet of it yesterday. We’re feeling happy.”
READ NEXT:
