Fatboy Slim has demonstrated his support for Gary Lineker in an unusual way.
On Friday night, the famed DJ, actual name Normal Quentin Cook, was performing a large performance in Manchester when he seized the chance to express his “respect” for the commentator.
Lineker is mired in a dispute with the BBC about impartiality after comparing the UK government’s stance on immigration to that of 1930s Germany.
Lineker announced on Friday that he would’step aside’ from hosting the BBC show Match Of The Day ‘until an agreement on his social media use is reached.’
As a result, a number of commentators declined to appear on the event, with the network now saying that the show will ‘concentrate on match action without presentation or punditry.’
Slim has now demonstrated his support for Lineker by getting crowds to cheer in sympathy with the sports announcer.
Lineker’s visage was projected on stage as part of the visual effects employed during a performance at Manchester’s O2 Victoria Warehouse.
Slim turned his back on the audience to applause as his face emerged, asking the audience to do the same, and the throng erupted in cheers.
Other renowned faces, such as Prince and Greta Thunberg, were also shown on stage at various points during the night.
Slim subsequently turned to Twitter to upload a video of the incident, captioning it, ‘Enough respect #ImWithGary.’
The BBC has stated that Lineker, a freelance employee who has hosted MOTD since 1999, must ‘avoid taking sides on party political matters or political scandals’ in order for the network to remain neutral.
Lineker had earlier this week replied to a video on Twitter by Home Secretary Suella Braverman in which she urged to’stop the boats’ with a new Illegal Migration Law, sparking a significant debate about free speech and impartiality.
He described the video as a “immeasurably brutal policy geared at the most vulnerable individuals in language not unlike that utilised by Nazism in the 1930s.”
Lineker was previously judged to have violated the BBC’s impartiality standards with a tweet criticising Liz Truss and the Conservative Party last year.
Source My Celebrity Life.
