’The Voice’ Contestant Removed Over Past Racist and Homophobic Tweets

A performance of "Ouf", four chairs turning around, "The Vivi" can’t believe his eyes. The coaches were at a loss for words to congratulate the candidate who interpreted, last Saturday, "Suicide social" by Orelsan, to perfection. And as he had to choose a coach to evolve with for the rest of the adventure, the rapper chose Vianney. But the day after this breathtaking performance, Internet users took the opportunity to thoroughly search his Twitter profile and found "nauseating and racist" tweets.

The candidate deleted his account and spoke out on Instagram. Too late. Many fans of the show called for the production to fire the candidate, as was the case a few years ago for Mennel Ibtissem, a Franco-Syrian candidate, whose remarks on the Paris attacks marked the end of her adventure with The Voice France.

As for The Vivi, he posted quite serious tweets about Arabs and homosexuals, to the point of arousing the anger of Internet users who demanded his outright removal from the competition. Faced with the controversy, The Vivi closed his Twitter account and spoke directly on Instagram, making his mea culpa. "Since this morning, I see old tweets resurfacing that I had written when I was 17 years old. Rereading these messages, I feel a sense of shame. These are schoolyard remarks from an irresponsible teenager that make me shudder. I didn’t mean a word of what I wrote. I apologize to all the people I may have offended with these shameful messages."

Apologies that will have served no purpose, since through a press release, ITV Studios France announced that the production company had become aware of the many messages posted by The Vivi several years ago on his Twitter account. "We were extremely shocked by these tweets which are the opposite of the values of inclusion and tolerance advocated by The Voice, as evidenced by the diversity of the talents," said the production. It adds that these messages remain incompatible with their values and with the candidate’s participation in the program.