My thoughts on Ian Watkins: From Idolised Rock Star to Petrifying Paedophile

My Thoughts...

Ian Watkins:

 From Idolised Rock Star to Petrifying Paedophile

I was truly in shock when I heard the things about this case and for this reason I felt the need to blog about it to get out some anger and share my opinion. I haven't done a post like this before but I felt the need to because it's been making me feel uneasy for the past couple of days that I've known about and has really upset and sickened me. 

Above shows the face of Ian Watkins who was once an idolised man by many but now he carries nothing but the face of a repulsive criminal. On Tuesday the world witnessed the revealing of some absolutely tragic and plain sick news when Ian Watkins former lead man of Lostprophets admitted and pleaded guilty to thirteen sex offences, with two involving plans to rape babies. It goes without saying that this news has created a huge social network outburst with opinions appearing everywhere and it was of course trending on Twitter. Fans of Lostprophets all over the world are more than just sickened by this information. Tweets were highlighting two prominent attitudes towards the band as a whole. Fans were quick to disconnect themselves with the former Welsh rock band when others stood up for their love of their music. I was horrified to even see some tweets, only hours after the news broke out, creating jokes or puns of the events. 

It is not new knowledge that Lostprophets were a very popular band in the rock scene and that the men stood as idols in teenagers’ lives and especially that of Watkins with his role as lead singer. He stood as an inspiration to so many fans that aspired to follow in his footsteps in the music industry. For this reason, amongst many, he has let them down and shattered their admiration of him. They have come to understand that instead he is not a man to be glorified, separating him from the link with their music; he is nothing but a revolting human being. He betrayed all of his fans, the ones that helped him and his band make it to the place that every musician aims to be and he violated this fame for his own sickening sexual desires of child pornography. I pity the other band members for the affects he has caused on their lives and jobs and the association that has now been firmly attached to the band they were once a huge part of. Today it has been reported that HMV have removed all traces of the band from their shop as a result of the case, as well as I have just noticed I cannot find them on Spotify.

The articles I have read on this case are actually heart-wrenching and extremely unnerving, especially the NME one (http://www.nme.com/news/lostprophets/74073) accounts of him masturbating on Skype convincing a woman to sexually abuse her OWN child, him performing acts with both willing and unwilling underage children/teenagers, as well as speaking about his ideas to teach babies how to take drugs. I just felt my heart fall to pieces as it dawned on me the corruption he already caused to those children’s lives, some even too young to ever remember it happening. Behind the limelight of Watkins, the horrors of the actions of the mothers seem to be getting let of a little lighter by the media. I just don’t get it, I don’t get why someone would do that to a child, let alone their very own child? There are some immensely unstable people in the world. A child is a gift of life, a miracle and beautiful creation of you and someone else. A child is someone who needs love and care and who needs to grow up with as little exposure to negativity as possible, and within seconds of a vile action these children have been corrupted.  It honestly makes my insides flip.

It has been brought to attention that Watkins was addicted to drugs, especially those that fall into the category of A class. By no means do I see this as an excuse, a person has to have these thoughts somewhere inside their head for them to become emphasised through drug intake. I think this is a reason why I find drugs such a scary thing. I have never touched any drugs for the pure fact that they are so mind fucking. I have heard countless examples of stories of people who have been on drugs and imagined things that they thought were so real that it lead them to extreme paranoia or doing things without thinking of the real consequences until it was too late. Drugs can mess someone up and for someone that already has issues, it can increase those issues to a state that is almost unrecoverable. Maybe this is the way that it has affected Watkins but no blame is to be put on drugs for his was the one to decide on taking them and due to this, becoming addicted. It is nothing but his own fault. Drugs seem to be a reoccurring theme through the music industry and with relation to fame in general. I think we all see fame as idealistic at some points in our life but it really seems to destroy people in more ways that are bad than good.

Again this has probably gone off at a tangent, but the real thing for me is by hearing this stuff about Watkins who of course I never knew personally, but it still came as a huge shock. From watching interviews with him and seeing him perform I would never have expected such a back story to his life but then how could you? It really makes you think that it's hard to really appreciate a celebrity and truly admire them when in reality no one really knows that much about them. It’s awfully hard to create an opinion of someone when all you know of them is from the media because as we are all aware; the media is not exactly a mirror representation of a person. Although I am more than glad that he has now been exposed to the world for his real identity of a paedophile and that people no longer wish to worship the ground he walks on, but instead should want to rip it from below his feet, and make sure he goes deep, down under. I genuinely believe there should be a tougher way to deal with such people and I hope that one day there will. He for sure won't be on the last train home. 

Laura Whitehead