M.I.A. dropped from GQ Awards following controversial posts about vaccines
M.I.A. has revealed that she’ll not be concerned on this 12 months’s GQ Males Of The Yr Awards, with the journal severing ties together with her over controversial tweets about vaccines.
Final Thursday (October 13), the artist – whose actual identify is Mathangi Arulpragasam – shared a collection of tweets evaluating vaccines for COVID-19 to Alex Jones’ reprehensible conspiracy theories in regards to the 2012 Sandy Hook bloodbath. Earlier that day, Jones was ordered to pay nearly $1billion in damages to the households of the victims he’d slandered, having spent a lot of the previous decade spreading falsehoods in regards to the legitimacy of the capturing.
In her first Tweet, Arulpragasam posted the rhetorical query that if Jones was to face penalties for mendacity, “shouldn’t each superstar pushing vaccines pay too?”
In a follow-up, she additional in contrast Jones’ misinformation to “Pfizer mendacity”, sharing a screenshot of her Twitter’s ‘trending’ web page that confirmed an article about Jones’ trial subsequent to 1 in regards to the impact of vaccines on COVID transmission. She accompanied it with the declaration that “when you’ve got no important pondering college, that is about as loopy as we must always get earlier than a nuclear warfare wipe out the human race [sic]”.
If Alex jones pays for mendacity shouldn’t each superstar pushing vaccines pay too ?
— M.I.A. (@MIAuniverse) October 12, 2022
Alex jones mendacity and Pfizer mendacity each trending . One with penalty different with out. When you’ve got no important pondering college, that is about as loopy as we must always get earlier than a nuclear warfare wipe out the human race. pic.twitter.com/li0yz5qHvj
— M.I.A. (@MIAuniverse) October 12, 2022
After Arulpragasam’s tweets went viral – with most commenters declaring the absurdity of her comparability and sharing proof that vaccines are largely efficient – a consultant for GQ appeared to succeed in out to someone on her workforce, alerting them that the journal can be cancelling plans it needed to collaborate together with her.
Arulpragasam herself shared a screenshot of the message, which explains that “attributable to [the] controversial nature” of the artist’s “Twitter exercise”, GQ can be cancelling her involvement in its 2022 Males Of The Yr Awards, in addition to a deliberate photoshoot. It’s unclear what function Arulpragasam was to have within the Awards, that are slated to be celebrated on Wednesday November 16.
In a caption shared with the screenshot, Arulpragasam wrote: “You print phrases for dwelling [sic]. How do you decide man of the 12 months while you don’t have balls?”
You print phrases for dwelling . How do you decide man of the 12 months while you don’t have balls ? pic.twitter.com/2dMlu0MAVJ
— M.I.A. (@MIAuniverse) October 14, 2022
A day after Arulpragasam made comparisons between the COVID-19 vaccine and Alex Jones’ conspiracies, she was profiled by The Guardian, who requested her about her views on vaccine skepticism. On the subject, she mentioned: “The language they use to assault anyone is to say: ‘Oh, she’s an anti-vaxxer’ or blah blah blah. And it’s like, no, probably not.
“I do know three individuals who have died from taking the vaccine and I do know three individuals who have died from COVID. That is in my life, in my expertise. If anybody goes to disclaim that have and gaslight me, saying: ‘No, that’s not your expertise,’ then what’s the level of something?”
She added: “What’s the existence that you’re attempting to guard by giving me a vaccine if I can’t even have an expertise and course of that info in my very own mind and are available to some kind of conclusion? And stay inside a society the place I’ve to make decisions every single day?
This isn’t the primary time Arulpragasam has aired polarising views on the COVID-19 vaccine. In 2020, the artist responded to backlash after saying that she would “select dying” over being vaccinated. She later clarified that whereas she’s “not towards vaccines”, she doesn’t need them produced by “corporations who care extra for revenue [than] people.”
Within the wake of that controversy, Arulpragasam claimed that British Vogue pulled a feature on her, quoting its editor as saying: “Contemplating our August is a matter the place we’re chronicling the struggles of the NHS to manage whereas a vaccine is tried to be made we don’t really feel we are able to have her concerned. It simply wouldn’t be proper. All of our points July-September will likely be supporting the frontline healthcare staff and we have to be respectful of them and all they’re doing till a vaccine exists.”
Arulpragasam’s new feedback overshadowed the discharge of her sixth studio album, ‘MATA’, which arrived final Friday (October 14) and was previewed by singles ‘The One’, ‘In style’ and ‘Beep’. In August, she partially attributed the album’s prolonged rollout to delayed visitor spots from Doja Cat and Nicki Minaj (which don’t seem on the album), saying that “if [the album] isn’t out [in September] I’ll leak it myself”.