Back in July, video emerged of South African hip-hop group Die Antwoord allegedly assaulting and shouting homophobic slurs at Andy Butler of Hercules and Love Affair.
The video captures the incident at Future Music in Adelaide in 2012, and was uploaded by the band’s former videographer.
In the video, Die Antwoord’s Ninja is first seen running up to the openly gay Butler, spitting in his face and saying “It’s nice to see you! I haven’t seen you for so long.”
As Butler moves away from the group, Die Antwoord’s Yolandi Visser can be heard yelling “Run, fa**got, run. Run for your life, bitch.”
In the wake of the video’s publication, the band were dropped from two American festival lineups, Louder Than Life and Life Is Beautiful. Both festivals are yet to explicitly link their removal to the video, Louder Than Life made a Facebook post last week stating that the band would no longer be appearing due to “unforeseen circumstances”.
Now, Die Antwoord have released a statement hitting back at the claims, claiming their former cameraman “cleverly edited” the clip to make it appear as though the band committed the hate crime, and saying that it was in fact Crossman who assaulted Butler.
“This was just a fight with someone who fucked with us. Not a hate crime,” writes Ninja in the post. “This fight had nothing to do with the fact that this guy was gay.”
Ninja goes on to accuse Butler of harassing Visser, writing that he “followed Yo-landi into the girls bathroom and wouldn’t let her out, and she had to physically push past him to get out of the bathroom.”
Butler is yet to respond to the video or Die Antwoord’s response.
Read the full statement below.
