British Airways ends sponsorship of Louis Theroux podcast over Bob Vylan interview

British Airways cut its sponsorship of British journalist Louis Theroux’s podcast on Saturday after he released an interview with anti-Israel band Bob Vylan’s frontman, Pascal Robinson-Foster, which veered into antisemitism and conspiracy theories about Israel and saw the rapper double down on his “death to the IDF” chant at Glastonbury Festival.

The interview, which was recorded on October 1 and described as too “soft” by former BBC director of television Danny Cohen, was Robinson-Foster’s first since his controversial stunt at the music festival in June, which included an anti-Zionist tirade and resulted in the cancellation and postponement of some of the band’s booked performances and the US revoking the members’ visas.

Robinson-Foster said he had refused interview requests from numerous news agencies in the UK, as well as hosts like Piers Morgan, but that he had reached out to Theroux and asked to be interviewed on his podcast.

Asked why he had chosen to speak to Theroux specifically when he had refused all other requests, Robinson-Foster replied that no one other than Theroux was “looking to explore the nuances around anything that has taken place,” implying he did not want to speak to anyone who may challenge him.

Indeed, the two did not consider any differing views during the interview, and while Theroux asked Robinson-Foster to elaborate on his chant and his deeply anti-Israel views, he did not challenge him on any of his comments, and the two appeared to agree on all issues discussed.

‘Disproportionate’ response

Robinson-Foster told Theroux that while he was surprised by the extent of the backlash he received for his chant, he did not regret it and would do it again.

“If I was to go on Glastonbury again tomorrow, yes I would do it again. I’m not regretful of it. I’d do it again tomorrow, twice on Sundays,” he said, adding that he had asked fans not to repeat the chant at a later performance, not because he regretted his actions, but because he was worried about the legal repercussions, as there are multiple active investigations into Bob Vylan over the chant.

The backlash he faced was minimal, he asserted, compared to “what people in Palestine are going through.”

The chant meant “an end to the oppression that Palestinian people are facing, an end to the apartheid regime that has been created,” he continued, seemingly standing by the violence it called for.

Robinson-Foster said he did not want to overstate the importance of the chant, “but if I have [Palestinians’] support, they’re the people that I’m doing it for, they’re the people that I’m being vocal for, then what is there to regret? Oh, because I’ve upset some right-wing politician or some right-wing media?”

Theroux seemingly agreed with Robinson-Foster that the response was too big, accusing Israel of using it to distract from a report published by Haaretz just before the Glastonbury incident that claimed IDF soldiers were being ordered to shoot at unarmed Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza.

White supremacy and Zionism

Agreeing with a comment made by Robinson-Foster that “white supremacy is displayed so vividly in Zionism,” Theroux added that “Jewish identity in the Jewish community, as expressed in Israel, has become almost like an acceptable ‘way of understanding ethno-nationalism.'”

“It’s become sort of this certain sense of post-Holocaust Jewish exceptionalism or Zionist exceptionalism, [which] has become a role model on the national stage for what these white identitarians would like to do in their own countries,” Theroux said, with Robinson-Foster agreeing with him.

However, the formation of the State of Israel, which Zionism centers around, came as a direct response to the horrors of the Holocaust, in which the Nazis murdered some six million Jews. Its function as the Jewish state is seen as a safety net for Jews globally to escape high levels of antisemitism, which have only risen steadily over the last few years.

The musician baselessly blamed Israel for racism among US law enforcement in the state of Georgia, citing the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program, “where American law enforcement have direct relationships with the IDF” and are sent to train in Israel.

GILEE is a program where law enforcement officers from Georgia are sent abroad to train with foreign police services, including to Israel, where they train with the Israel Police, which is a separate organization from the IDF.

Regardless, Robinson-Foster claimed the tactics learned by Georgia’s law enforcement “are then exported directly to the US soil, and they are then used… disproportionately in Black and brown communities.”

GILEE was founded in 1992, and Georgia’s history with its black citizens long precedes that and includes slavery, segregation and racial discrimination. The state’s law enforcement was accused of racism well into the 70s and 80s, with massive civil rights protests taking place across both decades and accusations and protests continuing well into the present day.

Rising antisemitism

Robinson-Foster was also asked to respond to a report by the Community Security Trust that named the day after his chant as the worst day for antisemitism in the UK in the first half of 2025, with 26 incidents reported. In a footnote to the podcast episode after the interview, Theroux said 16 of these incidents were “anti-Jewish responses to Jewish organizations condemning the chant.”

Addressing the report, Robinson-Foster expressed skepticism at the reliability of what the CST considered antisemitism (the organization uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition) and denied encouraging antisemitism with his chant.

“I don’t think I have created an unsafe atmosphere for the Jewish community,” he said, adding that “if there were large numbers of people going out and going like ‘Bob Vylan made me do this,’ I might go, oof, I’ve had a negative impact here.”

A few days after the episode was published, the podcast’s sponsor, British Airways, told the UK Jewish News that it was pulling its sponsorship.

“Our sponsorship of the series has now been paused, and the advert has been removed,” the airline said.

“We’re grateful that this was brought to our attention, as the content clearly breaches our sponsorship policy in relation to politically sensitive or controversial subject matters. We and our third-party media agency have processes in place to ensure these issues don’t occur, and we’re investigating how this happened.”

Responding to a Sky News request for comment, Mindhouse Productions, which was founded by Theroux and produces the podcast, said that “Louis is a journalist with a long history of speaking to controversial figures who may divide opinion.”

“We would suggest people watch or listen to the interview in its entirety to get the full context of the conversation,” the company added.