Image: Sadi Guran
Musician Mabel Matiz announced that he had received an offer weeks ago to present an award at GQ Turkey’s “Men of the Year Award Ceremony” on December 1st, but learned firsthand that the organization team gave up on the award presentation on the last day due to the censorship news about the Karakol clip in the summer.
“I learned firsthand that the GQ Turkey staff discussed this all day long and gave up on me on the last day due to my (censored) music video. Unfortunately, I wasn’t even given the courtesy to be notified about the change,” Matiz said in a statement he shared on Twitter.
“This is not the first time (something like this happening). Whether or not to present an award is not an issue. However, I still wanted to share this rudeness and discrimination against me, and present it to the public, on a night full of sponsors, where its main theme is ‘Co-exist’,” he added.
“I find both the censorship (of GQ) itself and the huge miscommunication extremely wrong and unkind. In our conversations with (some other) GQ Turkey staff, they said that of course there would be no such censorship, and that it was just an ‘organizational mistake’,” Matiz further said.
In response, GQ Turkey said it was just an “organizational mistake.”
“We would like to apologize for upsetting Dear Mabel Matiz, who revealed our organizational mistake, although it was not our intention as stated. We understand Mabel who always inspires us, we share the dream of a beautiful and bright future together,” the statement said.