Boy George is complicit in whitewashing Israel’s ongoing genocide—all his commercial activities should be boycotted.
Boy George has a long history of anti-Palestinian racism and willful whitewashing of Israel’s crimes against Indigenous Palestinians. In 2014, he ignored Palestinians’ call to do no harm and chose to headline the pinkwashing Gay Pride Week in apartheid Israel. In 2017, he again crossed the BDS picket line and performed in Tel Aviv, openly mocking Palestinian appeals. Despite widespread boycotts of the Eurovision Song Contest due to apartheid Israel’s participation, he again chose to defy the boycott and performed in the 2026 contest. Weeks ago, he released a racist, partly AI-generated song with lyrics denying and justifying Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
Boy George’s egregious, genocidal propaganda comes at a time when the music industry has seen historic efforts to end its complicity. Last fall, over a thousand artists and labels removed their music from streaming in apartheid Israel. This year, when the Eurovision Song Contest failed to ban apartheid Israel from participation, the broadcast lost 35 million viewers and five participating European countries. To date, many tens of thousands of artists and a growing number of arts institutions worldwide have joined the cultural boycott of Israel.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), a founding member of the Palestinian-led BDS movement, calls for a boycott of all Boy George’s commercial activities and products—including performances, screenings, exhibitions, merchandise, streaming content and physical and downloadable media—until he takes meaningful steps to make amends and end his genocidal complicity.
Advocating for or artwashing atrocity crimes (such as war crimes, apartheid or genocide) must be met with serious accountability.