There are still signs and wonders taking place. Xavier Naidoo is sitting on a sofa in a denim shirt and says: “The world seems to have been turned upside down and I was wondering how it could have come to this.” He condemns the war in Ukraine and in the next breath apologizes for his own mistakes. He “ultimately got lost”. A monologue of about three minutes, captured on an Insta video.
For the first time, the Mannheim soul singer is showing a kind of inner turning away from pretty much all the conspiracy theories that he has fueled digitally and analogously for a good 15 years. Rough corona denier, Reich citizen mouthpiece, Great Reset swagger. Friends and companions stuck with him for a long time. But like in a mania one crazy thing joined the other.
At the end of 2015 he was the top German candidate for the European Sound Contest (ESC) in Stockholm. The NDR had brought him into play at the time and rowed back after protests. According to the Federal Constitutional Court, he may be called an “anti-Semite” since 2021.
Xavier Naidoo talks about his wife
And now. Everything different? He talks about his wife Julia, who comes from Ukraine, where he himself has lived part of the last few years, in “this beautiful country”. Now the family had to flee from Putin’s guns. Back home he had to “face critical questions about statements I made in the past. That was a reason for me to question myself.” He made mistakes with “disturbing statements” for which he now apologizes.
search for “truth”
So far so good. But as soon as the 50-year-old goes beyond the narration of the private tragedy, it becomes cloudy again: “A central point of my character is the search for truth. If you are looking for this, you will set off and if you follow this path, you will encounter many opinions”. That sounds like a biblical mission. But these “opinions” were fake news squared, with which he rattled his entire musical environment as if driven. From the break with the accompanying band Söhne Mannheims to the canceled solo concerts of the summer.
Only in the final statement does he become fundamental: “I distance myself from all extremes, right-wing and conspiratorial groups. Nationalism, racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism are incompatible with my values.”
Is Xavier Naidoo still taken seriously?
It will be interesting to see whether this statement will be followed by – halfway credible – actions in the next few weeks. At the beginning of the war, he had distributed pro-Russian promo videos on his Telegram channel in typical corona denier style. If it was a “world view” that Naidoo diligently cultivated for years, then this can hardly be put aside with a video pen stroke.
This is not only evident in the Telegram follower fan group “Nothing new under the sun – we heart for Xavier Naidoo”. This is where rough conspiracy-things meet esoteric optics. First reactions indicate a new phantasm. Xavier was TURNED UP. “I thank him for his trust and I am sure that his heart is still on our side,” writes @ukvali. “At this point, however, I would like to thank Xavier again for fighting very bravely for all of us in recent years and for giving people like me a platform.”