During his appearance at Crouchfest, Wayne Lineker remarked that being referred to as a “paedo” by an audience of 12,000 people was “completely and utterly devastating”.
‘That Peter Crouch Audio’ invited the owner of Ocean Beach, who happens to be the brother of the legendary Gary from England, to join them on a live audio taping. Peter Crouch tried to ignore the chanting coming from the audience when he had a number of guests on his show.
He started by asking Lineker about his best moments spent with football players at the club in Ibiza, highlighting Jack Grealish of Manchester City as his favourite guest. However, Lineker soon stood up, turned to face the audience, and abruptly stopped taking questions.
Wayne Lineker releases statement over ‘disgusting’ chants
It has now been the 61-year-old’s first time speaking on social media following the tragedy. He acknowledged that people would either “love me or hate me,” but he denounced the cries that would harm those who weren’t as resilient as he was.
He wrote on social media, saying, “I know I’m normally kind of a joker, but today doesn’t feel that fun! My dear friends Peter Crouch and Chris Stark extended an invitation to me to attend their legendary event, Crouchfest, at Wembley Arena last night. I was ecstatic to be a part of it and was, as you can imagine, blown away by the request to join them onstage!
Thousands of people collectively called me a “paedo,” to be specific, in what can only be described as a scenario of mob mentality against me. What could have been a little fun turned into that! Can you picture yourself going through it on stage as you, your father, your sibling, your partner, or anyone else you love and care about?
“Love me or hate me, living in the party world at my age, but calling me something so repulsive is the lowest kind of humour, criticism, and trolling. It’s just awful. While travelling to the event, I struck up conversations with a number of groups of boys who seemed sincere when they asked for pictures.