Blindboy Boatclub of The Rubberbandits has cracked the podcasting game, and the Blindboy Podcast has sat unmoved at the top of the Irish podcast charts since launching last year. Among the legions of listeners is one Conor McGregor, as Blindoby revealed in the telling of a remarkable story on the show this week.
For a few hours last week, Conor McGregor was one of the most wanted men in New York: sought by the NYPD following the brouhaha at the Barclays Centre. As the fallout, rumour and intrigue erupted on social media, Blindboy sent a tweet of his impression of the incident. It's since been deleted, so Blindoby paraphrased the tweet as "Conor McGregor reminds me of Tupac near the end. Tupac was hanging around, living up to his gangster image, even though he made his millions".
This was prefaced on the podcast with Blindboy stating his admiration for McGregor:
I admire Conor McGregor. I separate the person from the behaviour. There are many aspects of Conor McGregor's behaviour that I very much admire and am proud of. There are other aspects of his behaviour that I'm not enamoured with, like the bus thing and when he's not very careful around language that is perceived as racist.
Returning to Twitter having sent the Tweet, Blindboy found a DM from McGregor that read:
Be very careful speaking on my name without full facts. Are you assuming I’m to be shot soon with your Tupac reference? By your response it seems that way. I respect you and your opinions regarding the treatment of Irish people by our own Government. I have listened to many of your talks.
But do not ever speak my name in this disrespectful vein again.
You are a man with a bag on his head, don’t get left in it.
I then felt bad because I started thinking about, holy fuck if the entire internet is talking about McGregor and he decides to respond to me then that means something I said genuinely probably hurt him and that’s what he needed to respond to.
I never even thought of that, that wasn’t in my head at all.
McGregor just reminded me of how Tupac was behaving. I certainly wasn’t suggesting that he was going to be shot.
And for McGregor to get pissed off about that he’s completely in his rights because you can’t go on Twitter pontificating or fucking wondering about another human being’s life ending. That’s not my style. I would never do that.
So I just responded back to him, I was embarrassed. I didn’t know what to say, I just responded back ‘Sorry Conor. When I tweet shit like that I forget that there’s a real person behind it all that might be reading it. I’m going to delete it and no I never meant nothing about you getting shot just reminded me of Tupac scrapping in Las Vegas. I’m just spouting internet shite. Look after yourself'.
Blindboy did not perceive the message as a threat.
I know a lot of journalists listen to this podcast. I know it's your job, but do me a favour. Please don't go writing a big, stupid clickbait article about Conor McGregor Threatening Blindboy.
He didn't threaten me. He took exception to something I said. And even though the end says 'you're a man with a bag on his head, don't get left in it', that's not a threat. He is not theatening me. He still follows me on Twitter.
The podcast in full can be found on iTunes or wherever you get your pods, by searching 'The Blindboy Podcast'.
