Australia: Opera singer blames husband for rant calling gay people ‘faecal masses’
An opera singer has claimed her husband was responsible for a homophobic rant on her Facebook page which labelled gay people “faecal masses”.
Tamar Iveri, who is Georgia-born but currently a member of Opera Australia, is due to star in the the company’s upcoming production of Othello.
However, yesterday it emerged that the singer posted a violent homophobic rant on Facebook, welcoming attacks at a Pride parade in Georgia.
The rant, addressed to the Georgian president, read in part: “I was quite proud of the fact how Georgian society spat at the parade, organized by your team.
“Often, in certain cases, it is necessary to break jaws in order to be appreciated as a nation in the future, and to be taken into account seriously.
“Please, stop vigorous attempts to bring West’s ‘faecal masses’ in the mentality of the people by means of propaganda.”
Iveri said in a statement today: “I am shocked and saddened by the reports in the internet and in the Australian media calling me a homophobic (sic).
“Please let me explain what lead to the recent articles that you might have read.
“My husband was using my Facebook account at that time and he is a very religious man with a tough attitude towards gay people. He copied my text, changed it considerably and posted it under my name.
“You might imagine that I was not happy with that at all and I immediately deleted it when I saw the text about half an hour later. This text does not express my own opinion.
“I’m afraid it was too late and the text was already spreading in the internet.
“For my entire career I have been working with gay people and some of them are very dear friends. All of them can confirm that I never lost a word that might associate me with homophobic ideas. I respect every single human being and I am against all kind of descrimination (sic) and violence.”
Opera Australia said in a statement: “Opera Australia has become aware in the past 24 hours, of the media and social media coverage of comments reported to have been made by soprano Tamar Iveri.
“Rehearsals and performances at Opera Australia are continuing as planned.”
