NEWS
Massive Attack have threatened legal action against an Israeli influencer who accused them of “incitement” relating to them displaying footage of late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on a video screen during a concert.
Sinwar was the Hamas Political Bureau chairman and was killed last year by Israeli troops in Gaza. He was a chief architect of the attack on October 7, 2023 that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 others taken hostage.
Zionist influencer and author Hen Mazzig shared an 11-second clip of a Massive Attack live show, which showed footage of Sinwar. The post accused the Bristol band of encouraging their fans to “sympathise with Hamas.”
“Why is the self proclaimed ‘pro peace’ band @MassiveAttackUK screening footage of Yahya Sinwar during their concert?” Mazzig wrote. “Sinwar masterminded the slaughter of innocents at a music festival, yet they’re celebrating him at a similar event.
“If you’re booking the UK’s largest arena, you should care a lot more about the message you’re spreading. Encouraging 23,000+ people to sympathize with Hamas is more than irresponsible — it’s incitement.”
In response, Massive Attack said on X/Twitter that they viewed the tweet as “defamatory” and have passed it to their lawyers. They told Mazzig that he must “must delete this post & issue an apology, or further action will follow.”
The trip-hop veterans then posted a further statement to their social media channels. They emphasised that the footage of political leaders that they use in live shows is not intended as an endorsement and that anyone who says otherwise is engaging in “deliberate context removal.”
“Massive Attack categorically reject any suggestion that footage or reportage used as part of an artistic digital collage in our live show seeks to glorify or celebrate any featured subject,” the statement began.
“To isolate a single section of reportage from the artistic context within which it sits — a digital array that spans a wide variety of issues and themes (and explores how they are reported & presented via mainstream & social media) including war, insurgency, climate emergency, corporate tax avoidance, and the mineral exploitation of global south nations, and includes a multiplicity of highly controversial current and historical political figures — is tantamount to a wilful device to create conditions for misinterpretation, or distortion.”
The band went on: “In the specific case of the film loop that includes reportage of Yahya Sinwar, the entire sequence interplays with scenes from Jean Cocteau’s film Orpheus, creating both a placement and implicit tone of horrified lament; that an individual of power can take people down into hell.
“It would be bizarre (and perhaps revealing) that any observer of the live show films would solely home in on the Sinwar/IDF footage and completely overlook all other controversial figures featured in the reportage loops.”
They continued: “Would “x” observer suggest we sought to glorify Vladimir Putin, who appears in four loops? Or Donald Trump who appears in several? Or J Edgar Hoover? Or indeed the IDF soldiers who feature in the exact same location reportage as the Yahya Sinwar footage cited by various social media accounts?
“Unfortunately, the only reasonable conclusion is that this level of delierate context removal, and such a leap of misinterpretation has political motivations.
“In a highly charged atmosphere, public figures including artists who consistently speak out against Israeli war crimes, apartheid and human rights abuses, and in defense of the Palestinian people are subjected to determined and spurious attempts to discredit us, as a deterrent to us from speaking out.
“These spurious attempts will always fail.”
The original post has since been deleted, but Mazzig is yet to further respond.
The band have been vocal supporters of Palestine for years, participating in a cultural boycott of Israel since 1999.
Their headline set at London’s LIDO Festival on Friday (June 6) saw them joined by actor and activist Khalid Abdalla and Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) in a show of solidarity with Palestine.
The Bristol trip-hop icons were beckoned on stage by a large swathe of fans waving Palestinian flags when Abdalla gave a lengthy and impassioned introductory speech calling for peace in the middle East and an immediate ceasefire alongside the deployment of aid to the people of Gaza.
“Make some noise if you want your favourite artists to stand up for Palestine,” he said towards the end of his speech. “Put your hand on your heart if you have wept over images of children, and mothers, and fathers, over last two years. And you know what? Make some noise – because it means you have a beating heart. That heart is the key to our future.”
“The Palestine Solidarity Movement is the civil rights movement of our time,” he concluded. “It is the anti-apartheid movement of our time. It is the anti-genocide movement of our time.”
Elsewhere, their set featured numerous tributes, with Robert Del Naja paying tribute to innocent children and journalists that have lost their lives in conflict. The band also showing footage of the devastation and of the imprisoned Palestinian political leader Marwan Barghouti declaring that “security will be achieved by one way: by peace”.
They then displayed Nelson Mandela’s 2002 quote “what is happening to Barghouti is exactly the same as what happened to me”, honouring the call for peace and a two-state solution, before a Palestinian flag adorned the screen and calls of “Free Palestine” rang out.
This comes after Massive Attack played in Manchester’s Co-Op Live earlier this week when they spoke out against Barclays’ sponsorship of the venue – taking aim at their “profoundly unethical corporate identity” due to its investment in arms companies that supply Israel “in its genocidal onslaught of Gaza and war crimes in the West Bank”, as well as their “large-scale financing of new fossil fuel extraction”.
As the conflict escalates, Israel deny allegations of war crimes and genocide.
NEWS
It has been just over seven months since Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce revealed their engagement through an Instagram post that quickly went viral.
Since that announcement, both stars have stayed extremely busy with their careers. Swift dropped her 15th No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, The Life of a Showgirl, in October, selling an impressive 4 million equivalent album units. Around the same time, Kelce confirmed he would return to the Kansas City Chiefs for his 14th NFL season earlier this month.
Even though they have both expressed excitement about organizing their wedding, their current focus remains on their professional commitments.
“I’m just doing the album thing now,” Swift shared during an October interview on The Graham Norton Show after Norton asked whether wedding preparations had started. “And then I think the wedding is after that.”
After Swift and Kelce made their first joint awards show appearance at the iHeartRadio Music Awards on March 26, curiosity about their wedding plans has started building again.
People close to the couple, often referred to as the Tayvis circle, have mostly stayed quiet about any confirmed plans. Kelce’s mother Donna Kelce declined to comment when approached by a photographer at LAX about whether she would help with the planning. “I’m just happy. I’m so happy for them,” she said.
At the same time, Swift’s future sister in law Kylie Kelce, who is married to Travis’ brother Jason, asked listeners on her Not Gonna Lie podcast on April 2 to stop asking for insider information. “Quit asking me and my mother in law [Donna] about upcoming nuptials,” she said directly to viewers. “Nobody’s f—ing telling you anything.” She continued by saying, “I don’t have any details. I have no details. I have none. Look at that. That’s how many details I have. None. None.”
While Donna and Kylie have chosen to stay private, a handful of people within the couple’s inner circle, including Taylor and Travis themselves, have occasionally shared small insights about the wedding.
Here is what has been revealed so far about the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce wedding.
Swift is interested in having the ceremony in another location
During an interview on BBC Radio 1, host Greg James thanked Swift for supposedly inviting him to the celebration, joking that although he usually avoids destination weddings, he would gladly attend hers. When he asked where she might hold the event, Swift kept things mysterious, replying, “I’m going to let you know at a different time.”
The guest list could be very large
If you are hoping to receive an invitation to the Tayvis wedding, there might actually be a chance.
During an October 2025 appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Swift joked that Norton would eventually find out when he asked whether the wedding might take place in 2026. She clarified that she plans to invite him along with practically everyone she has spent time with.
“I know it’s going to be fun to plan because I think the only stressful weddings are the ones where you have a small amount, and people are on the bubble,” Swift said. “And you have to evaluate or assess your relationship with them to see if they should be there. I’m not going to do that.”
She added, “Anyone I’ve ever talked to.”
Watch the full clip below.
A live band will probably provide the music
It appears the couple is leaning toward live performers rather than a DJ.
On a September episode of the Kelce brothers’ New Heights podcast, guest Jimmy Fallon asked Travis whether they had begun thinking about wedding details.
“Are you gonna do DJ or band? Are you thinking about all this stuff?” Fallon asked.
Kelce answered by sharing their preference, saying, “Yeah, I think we’re live music kind of people, you know?”
Although he likely would not be the only performer, Swift hinted in an October interview with Hits Radio that her close friend and collaborator Ed Sheeran could perform during the celebration.
“It’s like, ‘Ed, if there’s a stage, you know that you’ll be on it,” Swift said. “He knows what people want and he wants to give people what they want.”
The wedding could happen before summer ends
Fans hoping for an autumn themed ceremony might be disappointed, as the couple may be considering a summer timeframe.
During a January 2025 episode of New Heights, recorded months before the engagement, Kelce explained why fall weddings can be difficult due to the football season.
“I actually don’t know people who have gotten married in the fall,” he said. “All the weddings I’ve been to, and all my friends do it in the summer.”
If they do move forward with a wedding this year, it may happen before the end of the summer. Kelce recently confirmed he would return to the Chiefs for another season, partly inspired by Swift’s dedication to her work. ESPN reporter Nate Taylor also mentioned that Kelce “plans to marry [Swift] before training camp,” which begins July 22. If they want to avoid conflicts with football, the ceremony would likely need to happen before that date.
Invitations may not have been sent yet
Even with speculation pointing toward a summer ceremony, no confirmed date has been publicly shared, and even people close to them say they are unsure.
In a September interview on SiriusXM’s Small Stage Series, Ed Sheeran said he had not yet received a save the date. He also mentioned that he found out about their engagement through Instagram just like everyone else.
“You didn’t even get a DM in advance?” host Andy Cohen asked.
“No,” Sheeran responded.
More recently, Kylie Kelce said during a January appearance on Today with Savannah Guthrie that she had no idea whether the wedding would happen this year.
“I’m not gonna lie,” Kylie admitted when discussing how little she knows about the plans.
Kylie also repeated that she has no inside information during an appearance on the podcast Conversations With Cam. “I would love to give you all the details. I don’t have them,” she said after host Cam Rogers asked what fans should expect from the wedding.
