Opera Singer Calls Gays "Fecal Masses," Then Blames Husband

An opera singer who posted an anti-gay rant in which she referred to gays as "fecal masses" and encouraged violent attacks against them at a Pride parade now blames her "very religious" husband for the move.

Gay Star News reports that Georgia-born Tamar Iveri now denies responsibility for a vicious anti-gay letter which made headlines in Australia on Friday, June 20. The letter was reportedly published on her Facebook page last May, and praised the anti-gay violence in her Central Asia home country of Georgia. Iveri criticized Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's condemnation of attacks on a gay rights parade in Georgia's capital of Tiblisi.

"I was quite proud of the fact how Georgian society spat at the parade... Often, in certain cases, it is necessary to break jaws in order to be appreciated as a nation in the future, and to be taken into account seriously," wrote Iveri on Facebook. "Please, stop vigorous attempts to bring West's 'fecal masses' in the mentality of the people by means of propaganda."

But now that the singer is in Sydney rehearsing for the opening of Opera Australia's production of "Otello," she is changing her tune. The soprano, who is slated to play Desdemona, is now saying that her husband, "a very religious man who a tough attitude towards gay people," changed her original letter and posted it under name. There was no indication as to why it was still there in its allegedly "altered" form more than a year later.

When the letter was initially published last year, Georgian LGBT group Identoba wrote the National Opera of Paris requesting an upcoming concert featuring Iveri be cancelled.

"We would like to bring your attention to homophobic and hate inspiring activity by one of your opera singers, Ms. Tamar Iveri, resulting in death threats and physical injuries to many Georgians," Identoba wrote in a letter last May.

Although Australian opera fans expressed anger online over her comments and called on Opera Australia to fire Iveri from Otello and a Melbourne season of Tosca scheduled for later in the year, they have responded in a statement that shows will go on as planned. But La Monnaie Opera in Brussels has already dropped Iveri from their production of Verdi's "Un Ballo" in Maschera next year.