Anthony Cumia Fans Tweet #ISTANDWITHANTHONY After Shock Jock Is Fired For Racist Rant
Some SiriusXM listeners have said they will cancel their subscription to the premium satellite radio service after it fired shock jock Anthony Cumia of the popular show Opie & Anthony for a slew of racist remarks he made on Twitter.
Fans of Cumia’s have been using the #ISTANDWITHANTHONY and #BoycottSirius on social media to criticize SiriusXM and show their support for the radio host.
Late Tuesday night, Cumia went on a tirade after he says a black woman assaulted him because of a photo he took with her in the frame. Cumia wrote at least 19 tweets regarding the alleged assault. He called the woman a number of explicit names and a “savage.”
“Savage violent animal [expletive] prey on white people. Easy targets,” one of the tweets read. “They aren’t people,” reads another.
A fan account of Cumia's cat, run by an anonymous user has also tweeted support:
A petition with nearly 2,000 signatures was started on Change.org to get Cumia back on SiriusXM, with a letter to SiriusXM to boycott the service until Cumia is reinstated.
Cumia, 53, with 20 years broadcast experience as part of Opie & Anthony, has refused to apologize and kept the tweets public until Saturday when he deleted all of his tweets from the last six months.
SiriusXM issued a brief statement on the decision to fire Cumia:
“SiriusXM has terminated its relationship with Anthony Cumia of the Opie & Anthony channel. The decision was made, and Cumia informed, late Thursday, July 3 after careful consideration of his racially charged and hate-filled remarks on social media. Those remarks and postings are abhorrent to SiriusXM, and his behavior is wholly inconsistent with what SiriusXM represents.”
Cumia says he will discuss the incident with “TOTAL FREEDOM” next week on his Compound podcast.
CORRECTION: It was originally stated that the Twitter account 'Lil Beavis' was run by Cumia. It is run by an anonymous fan.
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