The Blood Orange man has said that he will never work with The Guardian again following an 'insensitive' article
Cheryl Cole has offered her support to Dev Hynes after his apartment burned down earlier this week.The Blood Orange singer and producer lost all his property in the fire, which also killed his pet dog. Subsequently The Guardian posted a blog in their Comment Is Free section, deemed 'insensitive' by many, including Cole, who tweeted: "What an appalling article! How insensitive and heartless !!". Cole and Hynes have previously worked together.
The piece, originally titled 'Dev Hynes's puppy sob story has left me burnt out' has now been re-named 'Why celebrity crowdfunding has little appeal'. Hynes tweeted a link to the article, writing: "if... this is journalism then i'm done with the world". He also wrote on Facebook that he would never speak to The Guardian again, writing: "This is disgusting. I'm so hurt. I want to go on the record and say i will never talk to the guardian ever again, i want nothing i ever make to be on their website, or in their magazine. Please pull the interview i did recently. I don't want it to come out."
The Guardian blog post discussed the nature of crowdfunding, after Hynes' girlfriend's mother set up a crowdfunding site to raise money to replace his belongings, which raised over $24,000 in a few days. Hynes has now closed the fundraising appeal.
In a post on his Tumblr page, Hynes wrote of the appeal: "If I am honest, the fundraiser makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. This isn’t me saying I don’t need the money, to reiterate, I have lost everything."
He then goes on to thank fans for all their support, adding: "This isn’t me being unappreciative…It’s overwhelming in the most extremely nicest way that people would care about this but as I stated before, so many people have nothing they can do to rebuild their life from scratch."
The money, he says, will be split between different charities. But he hasn't yet decided if he will give all the money away and has asked fans to contact him to tell him what they want him to do. "I want to give all the money to charity, 3 charities to be precise which I will explain further at a future point, that’s how I feel. I'm being spoken to by people who are close and understand my situation and are trying to advise me. As I probably am still in shock, and may not have a choice but to accept some of the money, and then think about charities, I don’t know… I don’t know where my head is at right now…"
Hynes released his second album as Blood Orange, 'Cupid Deluxe', in November. The album includes a number of guest appearances including David Longstreth (Dirty Projectors), Samantha Urbani (Friends), Clams Casino, Despot, Kindness and Skepta. Caroline Polachek from Chairlift appears on the single 'Chamakay'.
Hynes has produced music for Solange, Sky Ferreira and MKS, as well as being a former member of Test Icicles and creating music under the Lightspeed Champion name.
