In autumn 2020, during the quarantine due to the covid pandemic, the successful music composer and singer publicly criticized the blanket measures. He then earned the label of the biggest disinformation among celebrities. The court is handling the case.
“I sued the European Value Organization, which called me the biggest disinformer among celebrities, and I’m still in court with them. They simply took my statement out of context and twisted it to make it sound better,” said Janek Ledecký in an interview that is part of the List of Personalities Gallery project.
In September 2020, Ledecky recorded a video on social networks, which was seen by approximately two million people. Among other things, he said to the government: “Stop scaring us. Stop testing asymptomatic people. Those numbers have no other than statistical value. Instead, direct your energy and resources to those who are truly at risk from this bastard disease and let the rest of us live.”
Analysts of European Values criticized him for calling the pandemic a marketing strategy of pharmaceutical companies and that according to him, we can live without a vaccine. But Ledecky did not say this part in the video. This was finally confirmed by European Values analyst Veronika Váchová in an interview for DVTV: “It is possible that we made a mistake in those last few words. I’m sorry we misspelled the end of that sentence. I am happy to apologize for that.”
I’m really afraid of disinformation
Janko Ledecky’s video was widely shared at the time, and he became one of the most quoted people at the time. “In my lawsuit, I argue that the frequency of citations on disinformation websites makes up about five percent of the total number of citations of my contribution that were in official networks and media,” Ledecky says now in an interview.
But at the same time, he blames himself for getting into the debates about covid at all. “I wouldn’t change a single syllable of what I recorded in the video back then. But whether it helped me is another matter. No, it didn’t help. It was completely unnecessary, I harmed myself. However, I am with them (European values, editor’s note) I’m judging because I want to get rid of the disinformation label, because unfortunately it has completely different contexts these days – they’re people I’m really afraid of.”
Janek Ledecký does not dare to guess when and with what decision the court case will end.
European Values analyst Veronika Víchová already said on DVTV in the spring of 2021 that they are not afraid of lawsuits: “We are happy to deal with it.”
Statement by Jakub Janda, Director of European Values
“As an expert organization dedicated to security policy, including the agenda of disinformation and information manipulation, we considered it socially necessary during the pandemic to publicly drew attention to socially risky expressions publicly known persons, which, according to our assessment, could have caused an underestimation of the necessity of anti-epidemic measures among the Czech population and, as a result, a greater public threat to the Czech public. That is why our team issued a public analysis in 2021, which drew attention to the risky actions of publicly known persons, including Mr. Ledecky,” said the Director of European Values, Jakub Janda, in response to the information about the lawsuit from Janko Ledecky.
Jakub Janda states that European values have turned to “top experts of the community who share the same assessment” and will propose to the court to be subpoenaed in the position of external witnesses.
A brat who reached for the sacred cow of drama
In the case of Janko Ledecky, it is an interesting circumstance that he graduated from the law faculty of Charles University in the 1980s and is a doctor of law. But he never practiced.
“I have to say that in the context of what I’m going through and how I live my life, I would consider it a loss. There are so many lawyers who make a good living from their practice that the Vltava River could be dammed with them, but there are very few people who can do whatever they want in music and make a living doing it. And I really appreciate being among them,” he says in his open confession.
In it, for example, he talks about what he experienced in the 90s, when he left the group Žentour and started a solo career that brought him great success. “I’m not saying I don’t act like a jerk sometimes, but I try to control it. Back then it was much more pronounced,” he comments on his coming to terms with fame.
He also believes that – although he is the holder of several Anděl music awards – he was de facto fighting with the disfavor of music critics all the time and felt great distrust from theatergoers in 1999, when he presented his musical Hamlet.
Photo: Michal Šula, Seznam Zpravy
“It didn’t help me. It was completely unnecessary, I harmed myself with it,” says Janek Ledecký in an interview with Jiří Kubík about the covid video.
“There were really terrible critics of that music back then. I was terribly sorry. But that’s how it’s arranged here. As time went by, I understood that the theater community was bothered by the arrival of a dude who sings We’re short on birds, and he reached out to them for the most sacred cow of dramatic art, which is, without a doubt, Shakespeare’s Hamlet. And he appropriated her and somehow milked her. This cannot be forgiven. It dawned on me when the first critics came out in Seoul and Tokyo, where they are not burdened by my history at all.”
A concert with symphonies, that’s the ceiling
The musical Hamlet has been seen by 1.3 million people to date, also thanks to its release in America and Asia. Janek Ledecký staged his latest musical, Forget Shakespeare, in Prague’s Hybernia Theater – and under his own direction – last fall.
Now he is preparing for a symphonic concert with the Hradec Philharmonic on April 26. And as he says: “Of all the genres or concert disciplines we do, the train doesn’t go any further.” You can play a song with a guitar, with two guitars, with a band, but the moment it’s written – and well – for the symphony, you can’t play anything else. That’s the ceiling.”
You can listen to the interview with Janek Ledecký in the audio version at the beginning of the article – we will publish the transcript and video recording of the entire interview on Saturday.
