Newly fired Thy Art Is Murder vocalist CJ McMahon has issued a new statement and video in light of him being ousted from the group and replaced by an as-yet unannounced mystery vocalist on the band’s newly released album “Godlike“.
That situation follows commentary from McMahon last month which was widely seen to be transphobic. McMahon shared a video by right-wing political commentator Matt Walsh, in which a woman is seen asking her young child if they are a boy or a girl, to which the child replies “both.” The mother then replies “okay, you’re both.” McMahon captioned the video with a comment that the mother “should be burned to death.”
An intense wave of controversy ensued, with the deathcore musician eventually issuing a video apology. However, in a new series of posts shared to his social media, McMahon has now said he was forced to make that apology video.
He also revealed that he found out he had been replaced on the digital release of “Godlike” on social media (his performances still appear on the physical formats, it is unclear if they will eventually be replaced as well.)
The band themselves announced that news earlier today, September 22nd, while also alleging that the aforementioned commentary which prompted the apology from McMahon was the latest in a series of incidents from McMahon which created friction between the two parties. A number of individuals noted that McMahon had posted controversial takes on social media prior.
The group outlined that aspect of McMahon‘s firing, in this statement, offering:
“What transpired over the past month was not the cause of this action, but just another symptom of the drawn out breakdown in his character and judgement. The straw that broke the camels back if you will long story short the fallout has been immense.
We were lobbed with threats to destroy Thy Art Is Murder from the inside if we did not capitulate to various ideologies that he holds. Everyone has their own right to free speech and to seek their truth; they are also free to receive the consequences that come with it.”
Now McMahon has responded on social media, offering:
“I just woke up and saw the news. Yes this is how I found out. And yes it’s not the whole
story. I’ll be going live tomorrow at 5pm Sydney Australia time.Burn everyone to death 😉”
He continued in a separate video, which he captioned:
“This is the 2nd video I made weeks ago the band never posted, the apology video you all saw I was forced to make. I actually told the band to fire me as I didn’t want to apologise as I didn’t have anything to apologise for, the band said that if I left the band would be done so for the band I made the apology video you saw but this is the video I meant. I was shut down about posting this”
In that video, he stated [transcribed by theprp.com]:
“CJ here. I wanted to talk about what’s going on and about what I posted, but also apologize to everybody that’s been upset and offended by this because I can now see how that has come across that I’ve offended the trans community. But I wanted to let you know that I apologize for this. None of this was my thought of doing at all. I wasn’t trying to target the trans community. My issue with the video is you have a child that six months to one year old that can verbalize a word that is ‘Yeah.’ And that is it.
This woman could have said anything to this child, she could have said, ‘Do you want to be an Islamic terrorist and blow up cities around the world?’ The baby would have said ‘Yeah.’ ‘Do you want to identify as a dinosaur and live as a dinosaur for the rest of your life?’ And the baby would have said, ‘Yeah. ‘
I think the world is fucked up enough as it is, with everything going on. Nothing to do with LGBTQ family, anything like this. at whatsoever. Snd I’ll always stand with everybody with whatever their belief or whatever they want to be announced as or spoken to as or identify as. But the people that I will always stick up for first and foremost before anybody, is the people that can’t stand up for themselves, and that’s children. I feel that there’s a lot of different walks of life other than the LGBTQ+ family that indoctrinate children and force feed children information and ideals many years before the these children should be spoken to him about these things.
I think around the world the sex ed conversation between school and children and parents and children range from about 10 or 11 or 12. And I think that’s a that’s a decent age to have these discussions about sex and gender and how the birds and the bees and all these sorts of things work. And I think for me, my opinion is that children should be protected from all of these things until these ages.
And I’m sure of course there is a very, very small percentages of children that have these feelings of, of being gay or being trans before the ages of 10, 11 and 12. And I think that these kids should be protected, nurtured, loved, respected, and looked after. If they do have these views. I’ve fully back all of this 100%.
The thing I don’t back is these kids that the only information is the closest people around them. And then people force feeding these things that I feel are highly inappropriate for children to begin with at these young ages. I feel it’s inappropriate, that is my opinion. And I stick by my opinion. I’m sure some of you if not all of you have seen videos of the LGBTQ+ family doing burlesque slash stripping shows in front of children.
Whether it’s at a daycare center or a center that’s been hired out for mothers to bring their infant and extremely young children to these events. I also feel that this is highly inappropriate. Whether the woman identifies as a woman and is straight in gender and sex and that is still highly inappropriate.
In Australia you can’t go to a burlesque show, or a strip show until you’re the age of consent, and the age of being able to drink alcohol, which is 18. I feel that this is the age in America would be 21 and I feel sure you’re allowed to make that conscious decision for yourself. That me being a parent of two kids, I find that this behavior is completely inappropriate.
Again, none… my posts wasn’t targeted at the trans community. It was there to protect children. That’s all I want to stand for. I’m probably fucking up everything I’m saying right now, but I’m really trying to defend myself and also apologize at the same time for how it’s come across. I shouldn’t have said ‘burn her to death.’ But I was infuriated. I’m sure if I wrote that about a police officer or politician or priest or something like that they wouldn’t be wouldn’t have had gained any traction, everyone would have backed me.
Again, I apologize for the wording I used.
I don’t know how I’ve been called a rapist. I don’t know how I’ve been called somebody that wants to kill children. I don’t know how the fuck we’ve gotten to that point.
But all I wanted to do is protect children at all costs from all things, including trans children. I would protect every child, black, white, trans, straight, gay, poor, rich, uneducated, educated, whatever it is. I don’t care. I stand with fucking kids. And I stand to protect them at all costs. Whether they have anything to do with my life will be on the other side of the planet and I have information about it.
The two most things I can’t stand in this world are rapists and fucking pedophiles and I believe they all deserve to burn in fucking hell. I’m not calling anybody from the trans pedophiles or rapist or any of these sorts of things. I apologize to all the people that have been offended the LGBTQ+ family, the trans people. All my intentions were was to protect children and this is all gone way too far and it’s affected my life, my career, my friends, my family, my business, my staff, everybody.
I’m sure my trans friends that know me well would understand where I’m coming from and if they don’t, I apologize. For that I’ve probably lost friends in this process.
But yeah, I don’t know much what else to say. But all my intentions were, were to protect all kids trans straight, poor, rich black, white, yellow, pink, whatever they identify us protect our kids at all costs.”
McMahon has already earned support from Falling In Reverse vocalist Ronnie Radke and former Bad Wolves vocalist Tommy Vext, with the later replying directly to McMahon‘s latest video, offering:
“PROTECT ALL CHILDREN
How can anyone argue with this message ? Let us know if you start a crowd fund we support you bro”
Sumerian Records founder Ash Avildsen also commented on this latest video statement, offering:
“as a father of a small child, I’d like you to know @sumerianrecords welcomes your bravery.”
Update: September 22nd, 2023 11:13pm:
An additional new video shared by McMahon on the situation reads as follows:
“Hey guys I just want to make a short little video. I don’t really want to go on anything else. It’s more of a thank you for everyone for your support and your kind words. It means a lot. And also, the people that have come out of the woodwork that I don’t know, and they don’t really know me. The guys, Tommy Vext, Alex Terrible and Ronnie Radke for reaching out, it means a lot that you guys have reached out and give me a little advice moving forward.
Thank you for everything. As you can see, I’ve got my my two little ones here that have no idea what a rockstar is, they just know what their dad is, so I’m trying to look after my kids. Thank you so much for everyone, and the three guys I mentioned, thank you.”
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