German rock band Rammstein has tightened safety and canceled afterparty occasions for a sequence of upcoming concert events in Munich after a number of ladies got here ahead alleging they have been drugged and abused on the band’s current concert events.
The allegations, which the band has denied, have triggered a media firestorm across the widespread industrial metallic group and its controversial lead singer Until Lindemann amid Rammstein’s present pan-European tour.
Final Thursday, Shelby Lynn, a Rammstein fan from Northern Eire, posted on Instagram that she had been drugged at a live performance in Vilnius, Lithuania, and brought backstage, the place Lindemann had requested her for intercourse. She refused and he left, she mentioned, however she was disoriented and later found a number of bruises on her physique that had not been there earlier than the live performance.
Over the weekend, German newspapers Die Welt am Sonntag and Süddeutsche Zeitung printed impartial investigations primarily based on a number of comparable accounts of younger ladies who reported being drugged or abused at Rammstein concert events. A number of of the ladies mentioned they have been picked to face collectively in “Row Zero,” the primary row straight in entrance of the stage, the place they might be filmed and photographed, and, the ladies allege, chosen to hitch Lindemann backstage for afterparty occasions.
Rammstein posted an official assertion on Monday saying the group takes the allegations “extraordinarily significantly” and condemn all types of abuse, including that the band’s followers ought to really feel protected “in entrance and behind the stage” at exhibits. However the bandmembers additionally say they’ve a proper to “not be pre-judged.”
Nonetheless, the allegations have already had an influence. Lindemann took down his personal Instagram account over the weekend and company sponsors have distanced themselves from the singer. Cologne-based writer Kiepenheuer & Witsch, who printed two collections of Lindemann’s poetry, mentioned they’d instantly ended their collaboration with the 60-year-old frontman. German drug retailer chain Rossmann pulled Rammstein-branded fragrance — which matches underneath the names “Intercourse”, “Pussy” and “Cocaine” — from its bodily and on-line shops following publication of the allegations.
For the German arm of the band’s European tour, which kicks off with 4 concert events in Munich’s Olympic Park stadium this week — on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Monday — there will likely be no afterparties and no “row zero”, in keeping with organizers Propeller Music & Occasion GmbH.