Die Antwoord Cameraman Slams Claims He Edited Footage Of Band’s Alleged Hate Crime
Ben Crossman admits being involved in the alleged assault, but denies doctoring the footage in any way.
Former Die Antwoord cameraman Ben Crossman has hit back at claims he “doctored” footage seen in a recent viral video which appears to show the South African band hurling homophobic abuse at a gay musician back in 2012.
The video originally surfaced a few weeks ago, and has been taken down and re-uploaded a number of times since then (at the time of writing, it is offline). It depicts the band in an altercation with artist Andy Butler of the band Hercules and Love Affair at Future Music Festival in Adelaide in 2012.
In the footage, Die Antwoord’s frontman Ninja — real name Watkin Tudor Jones — appears to run up to spit in Butler’s face, while bandmate Yolandi — real name Anri du Toit — can be heard using the word “fa**ot” repeatedly. At one point in the video, we can hear someone, apparently Yolandi, yelling “Run, fa**ot, run! Run for your life bitch.”
The band were subsequently dropped from the line-ups of two festivals — Life is Beautiful, and Louder and Life — and released a statement declaring the video was “cleverly edited” by Crossman.
“Ben Crossman has been on a rampage to make us look bad in the media because we fired him years ago, for being mentally unstable, and malicious towards our family,” Ninja wrote on the band’s Facebook page. He then claims that Crossman was the one who assaulted Butler.
In a statement delivered to edm.com today, Crossman has stood firm that the footage was not edited in any way, but admits he was involved in the assault on Butler.
“The footage has not been doctored,” he told edm.com. “Edwin from Edwins Generation on YouTube and Griffin the founder of [South African blog] Wat Kyk Jy both have the unedited clips and they can vouch that it is not doctored.”
He states that during the incident he grabbed Butler’s head, whereupon Butler retaliated and ripped his shirt. Crossman claims he did not punch Butler. He says he had been led to believe that Butler had assaulted Yolandi, and that was the reason he participated in the incident.
“My apologies go out to Andrew Butler,” he writes. “I was utilised as a flying monkey by Ninja and Yolandi in this instance and for that I am not proud.”
Butler has not yet publicly discussed the incident.