An actor’s union has backtracked from comments it posted online branding Laurence Fox a ‘disgrace to our industry’ and calling on members to ‘unequivocally denounce him’ for comments he made on Question Time about Megxit.
Equity posted the statements online before later deleting them and claiming that they had been published by two rogue members of its Minority Ethnic Members committee.
However, in a later twist, actor and Equity MEM committee member Jassa Ahluwalia claimed the statement had been approved before being shared on social media.
The row comes after Fox, 41, accused university lecturer Rachel Boyle of ‘being racist’ on Question Time after she called him ‘a white privileged male’ for denying the Duchess of Sussex was hounded from Britain for being mixed-race.
Actor union Equity blasted Laurence Fox on social media for his Question Time comments before later deleting the comments
The Lewis star said ‘throwing the card of racism at everybody… [is] really starting to get boring’.
In the since-deleted posts, Equity called his words ‘disgraceful playing to the gallery’ and dubbed him a ‘disgrace to our industry’.
The union’s intervention triggered fury on social media, with actress and member Alice Evans saying: ‘This is not fair. Equity you are speaking on behalf of thousands of actors who have not shared this opinion. This is beyond your mandate.
‘I have not expressed views on either side but as a member of Equity I have certainly NOT denounced Laurence Fox and neither should my union be doing so on my behalf. Kind of shocked.’
It comes after Lily Allen launched an extraordinary attack on Fox saying she is ‘sick to death of luvvies forcing their opinions on everybody else’ following his Question Time racism row with an ethnicity lecturer.
The singer posted a string of messages on her Instagram, which has recently been made private, about Fox’s slanging match with Rachel Boyle, an academic at Edge Hill University on Merseyside.
In the Instagram stories, she admitted being ‘sick to death’ of ‘luvvies’ like Fox who are guilty of ‘forcing their opinions on everybody else’.
Lily Allen has shared a tirade of messages slamming Laurence Fox for his Question Time row with Rachel Boyle, an academic at Edge Hill University on Merseyside.
Allen added fuel to the fire following Fox’s interview where he was called a ‘white privileged male’ for denying the Duchess of Sussex was hounded from Britain for being mixed-race
During the BBC programme, the actor claimed ‘throwing the card of racism at everybody… [is[ really starting to get boring now’
‘He’ll never have to deal with what normal people have to deal with in his gated community.
‘BBC should be ashamed, this is not what we pay our TV license for.’
In the scathing attack, the pop star told him to ‘stick to acting mate, instead of ranting about things you don’t know about’.
As the backlash continued yesterday, Fox quoted Martin Luther King’s 1963 ‘I have a dream’ speech about living in a country where children will be judged ‘by the content of their character’.
Social media users accused him of ‘appropriating [Dr King] in order to prop up your own white privilege and toxic masculinity’.
He has since retweeted Allen’s messages with a sarcastic nod to her so-called political correctness by saying: ‘Lily Allen is the most stunningist and bravery artist in the whole wide world. #stunningandbrave’
Fox retweeted Allen’s messages in a sarcastic nod to her so-called political correctness
Social media users were quick to defend Fox and call Allen out on her ‘virtue-signalling’
And this is not the first time Allen has been slammed for her views expressed online.
In 2016, she received backlash for apologising to a teenage refugee in the Jungle camp in Calais ‘on behalf of the country’.
The pop artist said: ‘We’ve bombed your country, put you in the hands of the Taliban and now put you in danger of risking your life to get into our country.’
She cried upon seeing his living conditions and was openly criticised for comparing British action in the Middle East to Isis on the visit.
The 34-year-old wrote on Twitter: ‘Isis kill innocent people by the way, they cause horrific pain and destruction across the world, so do we. I’m sorry for that.’
Ms Allen, whose fortune has been estimated at as much as £15million, launched a tirade on British voters saying the reason Boris Johnson won the election was because ‘racism and misogyny runs so so deep’.
She was ‘holding out for a Labour majority’ and responded to accusations of being one-sided by saying ‘the left don’t have the resources of the right’ and she was still ‘holding out for a Labour majority’.