Citing a “festival insider,” London’s Daily Mail says Wireless Festival organizers were worried that gay rights groups protesting Eminem’s first major U.K. tour in nine years might disrupt the yearly multi-day festival.
When Em toured the United Kingdom in 2001, gay rights group OutRage! accused the rapper of using homophobic lyrics and protested outside venues while he was performing.
“The organisers were afraid campaigners could potentially ruin the event,” the inside source told the Daily Mail. “So there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and Eminem only agreed to sign up when assurances had been made that there would not be any protests,” adding that any demonstration would have been “disastrous.”
Although Eminem’s last U.K. tour was in 2001, the artist made a few festival appearances in England and Scotland in 2003 and performed in a secret show at London’s O2 Academy Islington in 2004. A planned 2005 tour of Europe and the U.K. was canceled after Eminem entered a clinic to kick a dependency to sleeping pills.
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