Bob Vylan responds to claims he “celebrated” Charlie Kirk’s death at gig: “I did call him ‘a piece of shit’, that much is true”

Bob Vylan have responded to claims that frontman Bobby “celebrated” the assassination of American conservative political activist last week.

• READ MORE: Bob Vylan: “We’ve been screaming about these topics at the top of our lungs for years. Why has it taken this long?”

Kirk, an ally of President Donald Trump and a highly controversial political activist, was fatally shot while attending a Utah Valley University event on September 10. Following the shooting – which authorities have described as a targetted assassination – punk-rap duo Bob Vylan performed at the Paradiso Grote Zaal in Amsterdam, where they dedicated the song ‘CSGB’ to the late Kirk.

In a clip making its rounds on social media, frontman Bobby said: “I wanna dedicate this next one to an absolute piece of shit of a human being. The pronouns was/were. ‘Cos if you chat shit, you will get banged. Rest in peace, Charlie Kirk, you piece of shit.”

Following the performance, news outlet the LBC reported that Bob Vylan had “celebrated” Kirk’s death onstage. The clip has since drawn the duo criticism, resulting in frontman Bobby sharing a video addressing the matter on Sunday (September 14).

In the clip, Bobby explained: “At no point during yesterday’s show, was Charlie Kirk’s death celebrated. At no point whatsover. Did we celebrate Charlie Kirk’s death? I did call him a piece of shit, that much is true but at no point was his death celebrated.”

He continued: “If it was, go find me a quote. Go find me something that proves that we were celebrating his death. You’re not going to find it because it didn’t happen. What did happen, is, one reporter that bought their ticket online, came with the sole purpose of finding something to report and after I called [Kirk] a piece of shit and we played a song, they have written that up as a celebration. Not a celebration, isn’t a celebration, wasn’t a celebration. Calm down.”

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Elsewhere during their performance in Amsterdam, Bobby made repeated calls against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), encouraged fans to stand up to Zionists and led chants of “death to the IDF” at the show. “Fuck the fascists, fuck the Zionists, go find them and meet them in the streets. Find them and let them know you don’t fucking stand by them. Death, death to the IDF,” he said.

Voor iedereen die nog twijfelde aan de woorden van Bob Vylan, luister en huiver. “Fuck the zionists, go find them and meet them in the streets. Find them and let them know you don’t fucking stand by them. Death, death to the IDF”. Het publiek brult uiteraard mee. pic.twitter.com/ii7wYgnbKj

— CIDI (@CIDI_nieuws) September 14, 2025

Charlie Kirk – an advocate for conservative ideologies and Trump’s MAGA movement – was often seen as a controversial figure in politics. He publicly opposed gun control laws, once saying: “It’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”

Kirk also opposed abortion laws, admitting that he would force his teenage daughter to give birth if she were hypothetically raped and impregnated. Elsewhere over the last two years, Kirk has been vocal about his stance on Black people in America, Islam, immigrants, gender and feminism.

In January last year, Kirk said on his podcast: “If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?”

On the topic of Taylor Swift’s engagement to Travis Kelce, Kirk said last month: “It’s a great chance for Taylor Swift now to get married and have a ton of children. You can certainly afford it, Taylor… All kidding and sarcasm aside, this is something that I hope will make Taylor Swift more conservative. Engage in reality more and get outside of the abstract clouds. Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.”

He also said last month on the matter of immigrations in the US: “America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.”

Kirk, a vocal and evangelical Christian also argued that the country should be weary of the spread of Islam: “America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.” He also championed Israel in the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict, arguing that “Palestine does not exist.”

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Additionally, he founded TPUSA Faith in 2021, which “exists to unite the church around primary doctrine and to eliminate wokeism from the American pulpit,” according to its website.

Charlie Kirk also often rejected the idea that climate change posed an existential threat to humanity, describing it as “complete gibberish, nonsense and balderdash” in December 2024.

As for Bob Vylan, the duo have long been vocal about their support for Palestine, and went viral for their Glastonbury 2025 performance, where they called for a free Palestine numerous times, called out the UK government for its “complicity” in the “massacre” of innocent Palestinians, and led chants of “death, death to the IDF” and anti-Zionism.

That performance led to the duo dropped by their agency, having their US visas revoked and are currently under criminal investigation over the performance. Bob Vylan have spoken out to defend their Glastonbury 2025 performance numerous times now. They’ve claimed it was vital to “teach our children to speak up for the change they want”, and reiterated that they were wanting the “dismantling of a violent military machine” – not calling for “the death of Jews or Arabs or any other race or group”.

They most recently announced some UK headline dates for 2025 – check out the full list of dates here, and get tickets here.

The post Bob Vylan responds to claims he “celebrated” Charlie Kirk’s death at gig: “I did call him ‘a piece of shit’, that much is true” appeared first on NME.