{"id":563650,"date":"2026-03-25T16:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T16:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/563650\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T16:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T16:02:08","slug":"louis-theroux-faces-questions-over-antisemitic-bob-vylan-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/563650\/","title":{"rendered":"Louis Theroux Faces Questions Over Antisemitic Bob Vylan Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Louis Theroux<\/a> story I wanted to write was about what he learned while making his new Netflix<\/a> documentary, \u201cInside the Manosphere,\u201d which came out on March 11. In it, the filmmaker follows four so-called \u201cmasculinity\u201d influencers who have grown sizeable online followings by loudly proclaiming themselves to be the apex of manhood. They espouse misogynistic, homophobic, scammy and violent views, predominantly for attention, which they then monetize.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut my encounter with Theroux, in a recent 30-minute Google Meet interview to promote the documentary, unexpectedly went in a different direction, one that suggested the U.K.\u2019s most proficient public interrogator has a peculiar blind-spot when it comes to probing his own dogmas.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn October 2025, Theroux invited Pascal Robinson Foster, one half of the rap act Bob Vylan, onto his eponymous podcast to discuss his Glastonbury performance, in which Robinson Foster had led the thousands-strong crowd in a chant of \u201cDeath to the IDF,\u201d<\/a> and said things like, \u201cSometimes you got to get your message across with violence because that is the only language that some people speak.\u201d (The police are reportedly investigating Robinson Foster again after he allegedly led the chant again during a pro-IRGC protest<\/a> in London earlier this month).<\/p>\n

\n\tSome of the criticism Theroux received for that episode \u2014 which resulted in British Airways pulling its sponsorship \u2014 included that he\u2019d been too \u201csoft\u201d on Robinson Foster, although Theroux did challenge him about the impact of his words on the Jewish community. Theroux, whose 2025 West Bank documentary \u201cThe Settlers\u201d has been criticized for its one-sidedness, also admitted during the conversation that he is uncomfortable with chanting \u201cdeath to\u201d pretty much anyone.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the most contentious exchange came near the end of the episode, when Robinson Foster made a lengthy assertion that the IDF train U.S. police forces to use unspecified \u201ctactics\u201d as an example of Israel propagating \u201cwhite supremacy\u201d throughout the world. It\u2019s a claim that has been repeatedly debunked, with even U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer dismissing it as an \u201cantisemitic conspiracy theory.\u201d<\/a> Rather than point that out, Theroux responded that \u201cJewish identity in the Jewish community as expressed in Israel\u201d has become a \u201cprototype\u201d for \u201can aggressive, militarised form of ethno-nationalism\u201d inspiring tyrannical leaders across the West.<\/p>\n

\n\tGiven Louis Theroux has made a career out of asking people awkward questions, I didn\u2019t shy away from the controversy when I interviewed him about \u201cInside the Manosphere.\u201d Nor should it have been a surprise to him, as the Bob Vylan podcast episode has come up in a few of the interviews he\u2019s done to promote the \u201cInside the Manosphere\u201d documentary over the past month. So halfway through our chat, I read him back his comment verbatim and asked if he had any thoughts about it.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut rather than grapple in any meaningful way with what he had said or why it was controversial, Theroux claimed \u2014 wrongly \u2014 he\u2019d made the comments in the context of a larger conversation about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor about six minutes Theroux and I went back and forth as he refused to acknowledge the actual context of his statement let alone why it might have caused concern for the Jewish community. Eventually, with Netflix\u2019s publicist getting increasingly antsy about the direction of the conversation, I abandoned hope of the documentarian indulging in any self-reflection and returned to asking him about \u201cInside the Manosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs it happens, \u201cInside the Manosphere\u201d is great and terrifying. I\u2019ve been a fan of Theroux\u2019s since I was a kid, when I would watch his BBC documentaries with my parents, marvelling together as he effortlessly conversed with some of the most unlikeable and sinister people on the planet.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his multi-decade career as an interviewer and documentarian, one of his most striking skills is the way he acts as a cipher in whatever crazy subculture he drops into. He gets to know his subjects, seemingly without judgment, while his almost caricature-ish Englishman persona \u2014 gently inquisitive, awkward, charming in that bumbling Hugh Grant way \u2014 enables him to ask questions with increasing potency until his victim is effectively garrotted with their own words, often without their even realizing until it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a tactic Theroux repeatedly and deliciously employs in \u201cInside the Manosphere,\u201d quietly, almost passively, probing each delusional man \u2014 often in front of his credulous partner \u2014 until he is rendered literally speechless. The moment where Justin Waller\u2019s girlfriend, pregnant with his third child, realizes how precarious her position is while Theroux softly asks Waller about marriage is both chilling and heartbreaking.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn another scene, we watch influencer Myron Gaines fervently asserting on his podcast that feminism and homosexuality are being \u201cpushed\u201d by \u201cthe Jews.\u201d Later, alone in his home gym, Theroux gently asks Gaines if it\u2019s become fashionable to \u201cblame Jews for things in the redpill community.\u201d The outspoken podcaster flounders. \u201cWell\u2026\u201d he gasps, dropping the dumbbells he\u2019s holding, before trailing off. \u201cCan I get a drink of water then answer this one?\u201d He returns to explain that it\u2019s become a popular topic because it was \u201ccensored\u201d for decades. The scene then cuts to another influencer that Theroux has been following, HSTikkyTokky (real name Harrison Sullivan), who is laughingly chanting \u201cFuck the Jews! Fuck the Jews!\u201d on the streets of Spain.<\/p>\n

\n\tThroughout the documentary, the audience is exposed to the influencers\u2019 repulsive and often contradictory views, from fat-shaming to \u201cone-way monogamy,\u201d but it\u2019s not until the last act that their antisemitism, some of it directed at Theroux himself, is unveiled as a sort of grand finale (Theroux is not Jewish, although some of the influencers think he is). It\u2019s a poignant climax to a documentary meant to warn viewers about the dangers these men and their broadcasts pose to society, especially vulnerable young boys who idolize them.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut given Theroux\u2019s own conflation of the Jewish community and the Israeli government, it also brought to mind a line in the documentary when he says to HSTikkyTokky, in an effort to point out his hypocrisy: \u201cDo you think there\u2019s a contradiction there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is what Theroux said on his own podcast, in response to Foster Robinson\u2019s claims:<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think I\u2019d add to that, there\u2019s an even more macro lens which you can put on it, which is that Jewish identity in the Jewish community as expressed in Israel has become almost like an acceptable quote-unquote way of understanding ethno-nationalism, so it\u2019s like they\u2019re prototyping an aggressive, militarised form of ethno-nationalism which is then rolled out, whether it\u2019s by people like Viktor Orban or Trump in the U.S. It\u2019s become a certain sense of post-holocaust Jewish exceptionalism[\u2026]\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s a big statement. In fact, it\u2019s one that sounds worryingly like a pseudo-intellectual version of what the manosphere influencers are saying. Toward the end of \u201cInside the Manosphere,\u201d images and clips of antisemitic content flashes on screen while Theroux says in a voiceover: \u201cIt was a pattern across the world of influencers to push false narratives about a shadowy cabal who is plotting the social downfall of the West.\u201d Now here was Theroux claiming that the Jewish community was the \u201cprototype\u201d for how governments in Hungary and the U.S. are contributing to their countries\u2019 downfall.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I read it back to Theroux and asked him what his thoughts were, he replied: \u201cYeah, I mean, all I\u2019d say on that is that, really, it was an attempt \u2014 it was sort of drawing on what Netanyahu is doing? And, you know, I made a film called \u2018The Settlers,\u2019 and it was based on what I see as this creeping anti-democratic, ethno-nationalist ideology that I see in parts of the Israeli government. So that\u2019s what that was reflecting on. And I feel as though maybe it\u2019s been taken, umm \u2014 misunderstood a bit?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I pointed out that the statement didn\u2019t mention either Netanyahu or the Israeli government \u2014 just \u201cthe Jewish community\u201d \u2014 he replied: \u201cI\u2019d encourage you to look at it in context, because the conversation was very much in the context of Israeli ultra-nationalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt this point I decided to channel Theroux himself and replied gently but firmly: \u201cIt wasn\u2019t. That was in response to [Robinson Foster\u2019s] comment about IDF training American police.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTheroux doubled down. \u201cI\u2019m confident that my comments were very much in the context of the way in which [the] Israeli ultra-nationalist cabinet has been taken by far-right elements internationally to sort of \u2013 they\u2019re sort of esteemed as a model for what they\u2019d like to do in their countries. Does that make sense?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe more I thought about it the more it didn\u2019t make sense. I had the podcast transcript in front of me, which showed Theroux\u2019s comments had been made in response to a debunked claim that Robinson Foster was tenuously linking to a global white supremacist plot. In fact, neither the words \u201cNetanyahu\u201d or \u201ccabinet\u201d appear in the episode at all, according to the transcript available on Apple Podcasts. \u201cGovernment\u201d appears twice, but only in relation to the Glastonbury gig, while the word \u201cJew\u201d or \u201cJewish\u201d appears 12 times.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe story I wanted to write about Louis Theroux was not this one. \u201cInside the Manosphere\u201d is a compelling documentary that lifts a rock on a small but pernicious subculture and I was curious about what he\u2019d learned while making it. Did he think the influencers actually believed what they were spouting to their followers? (Theroux: \u201cWhether or not it\u2019s performative, it ends up at a certain point being real, and it is dragging the culture in a way that is real.\u201d) Did he feel any sympathy for them, given many of them had had difficult childhood? (\u201cIt was hard to resist the idea that these were traumatized young men.\u201d) What did it feel like to be clip-farmed? (\u201cI suppose it felt exciting a bit.\u201d) And, given Theroux\u2019s formidable reputation, why did they agree to take part in the doc in the first place? (\u201cI think Netflix means quite a lot to them.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s what I\u2019d planned to lead this story with. But when I sat down to write it, I thought \u201cWhat would Louis Theroux do?\u201d He doesn\u2019t bury his subjects\u2019 words, even \u2014 or especially \u2014 the controversial ones. He presents them, largely without judgment, and lets them stand on their own merit.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo that\u2019s what I decided to do too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Louis Theroux story I wanted to write was about what he learned while making his new Netflix…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,55664,272542,344,435],"class_list":["post-563650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-louis-theroux","tag-louis-theroux-inside-the-manosphere","tag-movies","tag-netflix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}