In reply to:

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I think it's difficult to separate an artist's work from their celebrity

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I think it goes to the nature of your fandom, personally. People are fans for different reasons - because they feel they identify with the artist, because he's attractive to them physically, because they like his persona. If you fall into one of those categories and something happens to make you doubt the basis of your fandom, then yes, I could see why you wouldn't be a fan any more.

But I don't particularly identify with Bowie. That was never the basis of my fandom. I don't "support" him like I support my favourite sports team. If it was announced that Arsenal was openly fascist (as, for example, SS Lazio are), then I'd quickly drop them. Because in supporting a sports team, identification is important.

But I look for different things in an artist. First, his art has to be good. If Bowie made the same music but was dull as ditchwater as a person, I wouldn't come here to discuss him, but I wouldn't like his music any less. To sum up: to keep me buying and listening to his music, he just has to keep making good music. To keep my interest in discussing him with other people, he just has to remain interesting. If he was exposed as a pedophile fascist, that would be very interesting, and I'd sure as Hell want to discuss it. I wouldn't feel any need to deny my liking for his music, or disown him publicly. I have no problem with the concept that my favourite artists might be assholes. James Joyce was, and it doesn't make Ulysses any worse (in fact, if he weren't such a fucked up asshole I doubt the book would be so good).

The thing is, I have no problem with people saying bad things about my favourites. So long as they're true. It's untruth I object to, not negativity. If it were proven conclusively that Bowie was a pedophile fascist, and I came across someone who denied that, I wouldn't hold back arguing the case for the prosecution.

Slan libh,

Dara

"I love gossip; it's the way we gauge our moral place within society, it's integral to the way that we measure each other; it doesn't matter if it's based on fact or fiction." David Bowie