Singer calls march ‘pathetic, disgusting’
Jesse Hughes, frontman for the SoCal rock band Eagles of Death Metal, finds himself in hot water after posting disturbing comments about the survivors of the Parkland, Florida, school massacre.
He called the students who organized the March for Our Lives protest, many of whom have become visible proponents of tighter gun-control rules, “vile abusers of the dead” during a series of instagram posts on Sunday, according to the BBC.
That would be disturbing coming from anyone. But despite being onstage at the Bataclan nightclub in Paris during a terror attack in 2015, this is not the first time the rocker’s mouth has gotten him in trouble.
After the attack, a shooting that left 89 dead and dozens more injured, Hughes made comments critical of France’s restrictive gun laws.
In remarks reported in the Guardian, Hughes said: “Did your French gun control stop a single person from dying at the Bataclan? If anyone can answer yes, I’d like to hear it, because I don’t think so.”
Months later, he intimated that the attacks may have been an inside job.
Hughes later apologized for those remarks. When the venue reopened in November 2016, the singer was reportedly refused entry, the Guardian reported.
In Hughes’ more recent comments about the antigun-violence marches, the singer went on to accuse one student of “treason,” according to the BBC.
And he claimed the organizers were “‘exploiting the deaths of their fellow students with their demonstrations and media appearances,” according to the Huffington Post.
Referring to his experience during the Bataclan attack, according to Sky News, he wrote: “As a survivor of a mass shooting I can tell you from firsthand experience that all of you protesting and taking days off from school insult the memory of those who were killed and abuse and insult me and every other lover of liberty by your every action.”
Not surprisingly, Hughes has been lit up on social media for his comments.