As you may have read this morning, Boy George has been forced to cancel his summer tour of North America because he has been denied a work visa. Some sources, such as the Express, have gone as far as saying that the former Culture Club singer was banned from entering the US because of his previous drug convictions and an upcoming trial in the United Kingdom. The singer argues that he had completed community service in New York City and was cleared for international travel by the Home Office. Despite his pleas, it seems as though the tour has been cancelled.
One thing the Express neglected to mention is that the US government does not publicly comment on individual immigration cases. Nobody from the Department of Homeland Security released a statement containing the explicit reasons for Boy George’s failure to obtain a performance visa. For all we know, somebody reviewing his case really hated “Karma Chameleon.” Immigration officials have been known to turn away people whose names are similar to those on the “no-fly list.” What makes you think that they wouldn’t refuse a pop star who’s trying to reclaim his former glory?
I read yesterday in Express that Martha Stewart was banned from entering Great Britain because of her felony conviction.
In the 80s the State Department would regulary hassle or outright ban reggae artists — I remember something about the Niyabingi Elders, a bunch of drum beatin’ old rastas from jamaica — from entering the US to tour because of known drug use, or socialist/communist affiliations.
June 24, 2008 at 4:18 pmFitsum,
You know what’s funny about the whole Martha Stewart situation? She was served time for insider trading and was subsequently denied entry into the UK. However, Snoop Dogg (a man with a rather sizeable rap sheet) recently had his travel ban overturned by the High Court, thereby allowing him to perform in the UK in the near future.
yeah i’m really disappointed by this too
had tix and was hoping to see one of New Romanticism’s touring stars for the first time
oh well, seeing Duran Duran last month
as well as Yazoo in July at the 9:30
and Human League/ABC/Flock of Seagulls/Belinda Carlisle in August at Wolf Trap
should make up for it
Visas have been a significant problem in music booking for the last few years. Shows are frequently cancelled at venues big and small across the country because the acts were denied visas for lots of random reasons. Welcome to the Age of Musical Isolationism.
June 24, 2008 at 11:59 pmThis just reminds me that earlier today at work I wrote an email that began “HIV transmission has been a signficant problem in nursing homes in recent years…” No joke.
June 25, 2008 at 12:00 amway to break the story patrick. 4 days later.
i guess it took that long to write such an in depth article. ohhhh and you referenced karma chameleon! GOOD JOB!
June 25, 2008 at 3:01 pmpsssh - u r dum.
June 25, 2008 at 3:17 pmmichael, you write for a ultra-white middle class hipster blog. sooo…
June 25, 2008 at 3:44 pmwhatever. What I meant was (and I was hoping someone who can put two and two together (and would even settle for one and one)) that psssh’s comment about Patrick’s breaking a story was ridiculous since Patrick himself, in his very first sentence, acknowledged that people had probably already read about it elsewhere. Kind of hard to be breaking a story if you’re admitting that it’s widely available elsewhere, and earlier.
Also I write for myself. No one tells me what to write, or review, or where to go. If I do something and I want to write about it, then I do so. If they want to publish it, then they do so, but I’m not on assignment for BYT (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
Ultra-white? How so? Have you seen the photos of BYT events? Have you met the photographers? There’s an Asian guy! There’s an African guy! Svetlana is from some weird country, that’s a different race, right?
Shut up.
June 25, 2008 at 3:55 pmMy point that doesn’t seem to come across above is that no one here is paid for writing about anything, or reviewing anything. People do it for whatever reasons they do it for.
I do it because I get dozens of e-mails a day from women who want to sleep with me because my words make them swoon and moisten their panties at work.
June 25, 2008 at 4:12 pmPSsssssh
The reason why I decided to write up this story is to correct other news sources who claimed that they knew the “exact reason” why Boy George was denied a work visa. The truth is, they don’t. We can certainly speculate, but we don’t know for certain. Hence why I inserted the “clever” comment about Karma Chameleon.
June 26, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Bummer, I was really looking forward to the DC show..
June 24, 2008 at 4:06 pm