Bob Vylan Sues BBC for Defamation After Glastonbury Backlash

Bob Vylan are taking the BBC to court. The hardcore rap duo filed a defamation suit, alleging the broadcaster’s response to their Glastonbury set this summer crossed from editorial regret into reputational harm. The announcement came Friday via social media, with the duo writing: “The BBC wasted no time in placing labels upon us that did not, do not and never will fit.”

On stage in June 2025, frontman Bobby Vylan led chants of “Free Palestine” and “Death to the IDF,” while a backdrop message accused the BBC of sanitizing the war in Gaza. The BBC, which aired the performance, later issued a statement calling the behavior “offensive and deplorable” and unequivocally rejecting any space for antisemitism at the broadcaster.

Bob Vylan insists the target was a military apparatus, not a people. They clarified after the festival that the chants called for the “dismantling of a violent military machine.” In their lawsuit announcement, they framed the BBC’s language as part of a pattern: “The BBC have attempted to silence those that oppose the heinous crimes taking place in Palestine,” adding that the network has edited speeches, removed content, and blocked documentaries to control the narrative.

The defamation claim follows a police investigation that led to no charges and a U.S. visa revocation that the duo called government targeting. What began as a Glastonbury protest has now hardened into a legal test of how institutions label and punish political speech on stage.