Musician Wiley launched an attack on the county of Cumbria after being booed off stage at music festival CockRock on Saturday (20 July) night.
Cockermouth Rock Festival organisers in Cumbria have confirmed that they will take legal action against Wiley after he walked off stage during his set.
The London-based rapper/grime artist left the stage 15 minutes into his 45 minute set after the crowd reportedly shouted and threw liquid-filled containers at him.
The audience had been antagonised by the rapper’s surprising Twitter attack on the not-for-profit festival prior to his arrival – and his threat not to turn up.
The artist, originally from east London, had posted resentful tweets about the northern county before he was due to perform at the festival.
You can get to holland and Cyprus quicker than north Wales and Cumbria now u see what I’m saying …there not places I wanna drive too
— Wiley (@WileyUpdates) July 20, 2013
A war of words was exchanged on Twitter and Wiley tweeted: “Don’t throw stuff on stage and cry wolf when I leave the stage get paid and leave…F*** off you got ur show u sang every word now f*** off.”
You bunch of invalids ….bunch of cretins..
— Wiley (@WileyUpdates) July 22, 2013
Another tweet said: “Get the f*** out of here you county of witches’ children”
Wiley did little to calm the ill-feeling when, shortly after walking off, he tweeted to say he’d just earned £15,000 – £1,000 a minute – and it was his “best job ever.” He later pledged to **** the money up the wall, rejecting suggestions he donate his fee to charity.
Wiley said that CockRock is a “small capacity festival” and added “I done my job and they want money back…they are lucky I am not suing them for stuff thrown.”
Earlier in the week Marie Whitehead, festival organiser, said: “It’s fairly clear that there was a breach of contract and we had Wiley criticising the festival.
“There’s an awful lot of things that can go wrong at festival and this was one of them but we have to do what we have to do.”
Earlier this year Wiley dropped out of playing Glastonbury the day before he was supposed to perform.