Rory O’Neill appears on TV3’s Midday in first Irish television interview since ‘Pantigate’.

Tuesday 11th, 12:52pm

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Sharon McHugh
TV3 PRESS OFFICE
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publicity@tv3.ie

Ciara Byrne
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TV3 GROUP RELEASE

IMMEDIATE: Tuesday 11th February, 2014.

Rory O’Neill appears on TV3’s Midday in first Irish television interview since ‘Pantigate’.

Rory O’Neill, AKA Panti Bliss, appeared on TV3’s Midday today, in his first Irish television interview since ‘Pantigate’ began.

Sybil Mulcahy spoke to Rory about the controversy around his appearance on The Saturday Night Show, why he is expecting an apology and the support he has been receiving from celebrities.

Midday airs Monday to Friday from 11.45am – 12.45pm on TV3.

Drag artist Rory O’Neill, AKA Panti Bliss, has been engulfed in controversy following his appearance on The Saturday Night Show two weeks ago. Midday’s Sybil Mulcahy spoke to Rory in his first Irish television interview since the controversy, nicknamed ‘Pantigate’, began.

The controversy surrounding Pantigate has also been met with widespread praise after Panti took to the stage at The Abbey Theatre to deliver a passionate speech on gay rights, homophobia and the nature of oppression - entitled 'Panti's Noble Call'. Rory uploaded the ten-minute speech to Youtube (view here) and it has more than 450, 000 views to date.

‘Pantigate’ began when Rory appeared on RTÉ’s The Saturday Night Show with host Brendan O’Connor during which Rory mentioned particular names – columnists John Waters, Breda O’Brien and the Iona Institute - in relation to a discussion about ‘homophobia’.

Two weeks after the interview, and a week after an apology was broadcast on the show, RTÉ paid compensation of €85,000 to Mr Waters, Ms O’Brien and members of the Iona Institute for defamation.

During Rory’s interview on Midday, he told Sybil that the defamation laws in Ireland need to be reviewed as people are not free to discuss issues that need to be brought to the foreground as they fear legal action will be taken against them. He said that although he is not happy with the outcome, he is happy to have created the discussion.

“I regret nothing. I don’t feel I said anything wrong. I don’t feel I did anything wrong and I’m certainly glad that this discussion that I think the country needed to have, I’m glad we’re having it.”

Rory said that his problem does not lie with RTÉ or The Saturday Night Show but with RTÉ’s head of TV Glen Killane.

“If he [Killane] asked his mother ‘What should I do here?’ – his mother would say to him – ‘You should apologise to that guy because you treated him badly.’

“I don’t want a public apology, I’m not going to be reading out what he says to me, you know, on Twitter or anything. I just want a phone call from him to tell me from one man to another that yeah we messed up, I’m sorry”

When it came to his celebrity support Rory was tight-lipped about his message from Queen of Pop Madonna however he did reveal that it was three lines and one read “Xxx, M.”

Rory said that while he appreciates all the support, he is trying not to take the celebrity interest too seriously.

“It’s helped to get my message out. I know that it’s meaningless in a sense. I mean does it make a big difference that Martina Navratilova tweeted? I love that because Martina Navratilova, she bestrode my youth like a dykey colossus and I absolutely love her so of course that’s fun, I’d be lying if I said it’s not fun and you know when Stephen Fry tweets you, it’s fun and it has helped to get the message out and for that I am really grateful.”

When Sybil asked Rory if he believed that people who were against gay marriage were homophobic, he explained that although he does believe this to be true butit does not make a person terrible; it is just that they have absorbed some of the prejudice from the culture that they grew up in.

Rory also explained that people are often caught up with what is defined as homophobic.

“During this whole debate people are constantly whinging about ‘what’s the definition of homophobia?’ There is no legal definition of homophobia. You’ll find that if you open every dictionary, they’ll all have a slightly different version of it but I’m sorry, somebody who harbours an irrational discomfort with gay people for no reason is in my opinion, yeah, homophobic.

“I think most people understand that calling somebody homophobic or saying that some people have homophobic feelings of some kind isn’t the worst thing to say about somebody. It’s kind of a normal thing to say about somebody but as I said, if you are going to go and go on TV and write columns in newspapers and argue that gay people need to be treated differently under the law, that’s entirely different and yes I will call that out hard.”

Although Rory feels very strongly about the issues discussed, he does not wish to become involved in politics and he would prefer not to have to speak out at all.

“I want to shut up about it, everyone else wants me to shut up about it and the wonderful thing about it is, we can all achieve that so easily if other people would just get out of our gay lives. Just let us get on with our lives and you can get on with your lives. That’s all we ask and if you can agree to do that, you’ll never hear from me again and how wonderful would that be?”

Midday airs Monday to Friday from 11.45am – 12.45pm on TV3.

To view 'Panti's Noble Call' on Youtube, click here.

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ENDS

For further information
Jean O’Donovan

Press & Publicity Assistant

01 419 3428

Sharon McHugh
Head of Press & Publicity

087 922 4143

publicity@tv3.ie
www.tv3.ie

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