PARIS (Reuters) – French authorities have opened an investigation into death threats and cyber harassment targeting the artistic director of the 2024 Olympics opening ceremony Thomas Jolly, the Paris Prosecutor’s office said on Friday.
Jolly filed a complaint after receiving threats and online attacks over a kitsch tableau in the unprecedented ceremony on the Seine River that appeared to parody Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece “The Last Supper”.
The scene, which sparked fury among the Catholic Church, far right politicians in France and the religious right in the United States, featured drag queens, a transgender model and a naked singer made up as the Greek god of wine Dionysus.
Paris 2024 organisers apologised afterward saying there had been no intention to show disrespect towards any religious group. Jolly also said that religious subversion had not been his intention and that the scene was supposed to depict a pagan feast linked to the gods of Olympus.
French DJ and producer Barbara Butch, who performed in the scene, said on Monday she had filed complaints against people who have harassed and threatened her because of it.
(Reporting by Juliette Jabkhiro; wirting by Leigh Thomas, editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
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