2024 Paris Olympics
Olympic opening ceremony DJ filing legal complaints for online abuse over ‘Last Supper' tableau
Her lawyer says she has been threatened with "death, torture and rape"
By John Leicester and Jocelyn Noveck | The Associated Press • Published July 30, 2024 • Updated on July 30, 2024 at 1:04 pm
NBC Universal, Inc.
Paris Olympics organizers apologized Sunday to anyone who was offended by a tableau that evoked Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” during the glamorous opening ceremony.
A storm of outrage about the
Paris Olympics' Opening Ceremony — including angry comments from Donald Trump — took a legal turn Tuesday, with a DJ who performed at the show saying her lawyer is filing complaints over a torrent of threats and other abuse that the LGBTQ+ icon has suffered online in the ceremony's wake.
Barbara Butch's lawyer told The Associated Press that she had filed a formal legal complaint alleging cyber-harassment, death threats, and insults. The complaint doesn’t name any specific perpetrator or perpetrators of the alleged crimes.
The lawyer, Audrey Msellati, said in a letter posted to the
DJ's Instagram that Butch “has been threatened with death, torture and rape, and has also been the target of numerous anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist and grossophobic insults.”
Msellati said the complaint was filed with the Paris prosecutor’s office, which must then decide whether it warrants a formal police investigation. Although the ceremony's artistic director Thomas Jolly has repeatedly said that he wasn't inspired by “The Last Supper,” critics interpreted part of the show that featured Butch as a mockery of Leonardo Da Vinci's painting showing Jesus Christ and his apostles. Even Trump, in the United States, said Monday he thought it was “a disgrace.”
“I'm very open-minded,” the former president and current Republican nominee told Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who specifically asked about comparisons to “The Last Supper,” “but I thought what they did was a disgrace.”
Butch, who calls herself a “love activist,” wore a silver headdress that looked like a halo as she got a party going during her segment of the show. Drag artists, dancers and others flanked Butch on both sides.
