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Stan Walker interviewed Ziggy Marley for Seven Sharp ahead of the release of One Love, but days later all traces of it were deleted from Walker’s and the show’s social media. TVNZ reveals the reason why to the New Zealand Herald.
The camera starts rolling. Stan Walker walks into a dark room. He grins ear to ear, sits down and admits he is “really nervous” to interview controversial musician Ziggy Marley, son of Bob Marley. On screen behind them is a movie poster with the famous Rastafarian colours, promoting the new Bob Marley biopic One Love.
Kicking things off with a Māori welcome, Walker tells a smiling Ziggy, “It is an honour and a privilege to be here to interview you.” The pair then engage in a relatively wholesome interview discussing the inspiration behind One Love, a movie produced by Ziggy that tells the story of his late father and his journey to becoming the most famous reggae musician in the world.
It was an interview conducted for TVNZ’s 7pm current affairs show Seven Sharp, with the full conversation between the two musicians airing on TV earlier this month. Clips of their conversation were shared on both the show and Walker’s social media accounts.
Days later, all traces of it were scrubbed from the internet without explanation. Now, a TVNZ spokesperson tells the NZ Herald why.
Praising Walker, the spokesperson revealed that it wasn’t the interview that resulted in the surprise decision to remove all traces of it, but rather social commentary.
“Stan Walker conducted a fantastic interview with Ziggy Marley about the new film One Love for Seven Sharp, and the piece was a hit both on-air and online,” they said. However, once the piece was uploaded to social media, comments took away from the purpose of the interview, leaving TVNZ no choice but to remove it from the Seven Sharp social media accounts.
“Social media commentary moved away from what the interview was about and we decided to take the piece offline,” the spokesperson said.
Stan Walker and Ziggy Marley sat down to talk about the film, One Love for TVNZ’s Seven Sharp. Photo / YouTube
A link to the video is still accessible on Google. However, when you click on it, you are met with this screen.
Walker’s team have not responded to the Herald’s request for comment.
Though the content has since been deleted, “social media commentary” can be seen on other accounts, including @palestinian.youth.aotearoa, criticising Walker for interviewing Marley. There has also been a petition launched against Marley’s headlining the upcoming Womad NZ festival.
A collective of groups – Hala.aotearoa, Artists for Ceasefire and Aotearoa for Ceasefire – is petitioning Womad to drop Marley from its lineup after he helped to raise US$60 million for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in 2018.
The groups, with the help of peace scholar Sakhr Munassar, have set up an online petition in which they outline their concerns. The IDF is currently engaged in a war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
More than 2300 people have signed the petition. Womad organisers are yet to respond directly to the calls.
Ziggy Marley is set to perform as the headline act at Womad NZ next month.
Munassar told RNZ: “I think that as Womad, being a charitable organisation, bringing in an artist that has supported military – let alone a military that has violated human rights law on multiple occasions almost every year – I think New Zealand people should stand up and say no.”
When he was asked if it was known whether Marley still backed the IDF, Munassar said the singer signed a letter in October last year – along with Hollywood names and other artists – condemning the acts of Hamas, saying that the killing of 1200 people and the kidnappings of Israelis was a crime and that they stood with the Israeli people.
He added: “But he and all of these artists haven’t said a thing since then, with almost 28,000 Palestinians being killed, most of whom are children. Israeli forces are still killing people, torching houses, bombings.”
The signing of the letter came after Marley recorded a song, Shalom Salaam, in 2021 to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Womad chairman Dion Tuuta has said festival organisers “respect” fans’ rights to express “peaceful opposition to Mr Marley’s participation”.
He said the three-day festival in New Plymouth “stands with all citizens of the world calling for an end to violence and war in the Middle East and all corners of the world”.
No changes have been made to the lineup and Marley remains a headliner for the festival.
Lillie Rohan is an Auckland-based reporter covering lifestyle and entertainment stories who joined the Herald in 2020. She specialises in all things relationships and dating, Kiwi celebs we can’t help but love and TV shows you simply cannot miss out on.
