From eugenics to Scooter Braun: how Sydney Sweeney became one of the most controversial stars in Hollywood
The Standard
“It’s absolutely a tactic,” says celebrity PR expert Mark Borkowski, “because as soon as you disclose that in the age of culture wars, you are cannon fodder.”
Borkowski and Gamble both compare this apolitical side of Sweeney to Taylor Swift, who famously took a long time to disclose her political stance around the 2016 election, despite incessant pleas from her fans to denounce Donald Trump. At the time, PRs and critics claimed it was due to Swift wanting to capitalise on her fandom being split between both camps, and not wanting to lose half her audience.
No one else can brand it like Beckham
The Times
“Fame is quite toxic, particularly when you’re living your entire life in the glare of publicity. Your kids don’t have the same normal life as the person next door. And it’s very, very difficult,” says Mark Borkowski, a veteran publicist and strategist. “So you see clearly the pain of that in a family. But that isn’t the business.”
His status as a gay icon, who had posed on the cover of Attitude magazine, was severely undermined when it was revealed he had signed a long-term deal to promote the World Cup in Qatar. But in retrospect, Borkowski says, the negative publicity “just supercharged him. In his case the old adage ‘all publicity is good publicity’ is true.”
Prince Harry And Meghan In Talks With Netflix For Princess Diana Documentary In Renewed Deal
MSN
PR expert Mark Borkowski told the Daily Mail that the couple’s once-lucrative arrangement appears to have shifted.
“They have shot the golden goose of 2020 – more of a ‘we’ll call you’ than ‘here’s the chequebook,” he said.
Borkowski explained that the new agreement is a “first-look deal, which means Netflix gets first dibs but no obligation to bankroll every semi-royal whim.”
He continued: “I reckon Netflix is trimming fat industry-wide, so this is less carte blanche, more curated cameo. They’re still in business together – Meghan’s. As Ever brand and seasonal specials keep them in the Netflix shop window, but make no mistake, this is a slimmed-down sequel to the blockbuster original.
“So Harry and Meghan’s new Netflix chapter [is] less champagne budget, more Prosecco by the glass,” he added.
Sarah Ferguson’s reduced life from charity axe to exile and ‘financial destitution’
The Mirror
A PR expert, Mark Borkowski, branded the emails “reputational napalm” to Sarah.
“When a children’s hospice decides the reputational risk of association outweighs the patronage of a Duchess, the verdict is clear: she is toxic. Charities are bellwethers for public trust. If they won’t touch her, then publishers, sponsors, and producers won’t either. This isn’t a PR headache – it’s financial destitution dressed up as disgrace,” Borkowski explained.
Sarah Ferguson’s reduced life from charity axe to exile and ‘financial destitution’ – The Mirror
‘Toxic’ Sarah Ferguson ‘faces financial destitution’ as Epstein email leaked
Birmingham Mail
A PR expert has claimed the leaked emails between the Duchess of York and Jeffrey Epstein are “reputational napalm”
The Duchess of York’s correspondence with sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, was made public recently, revealing a string of emails where she called Epstein a “supreme friend.”
Due to this matter, multiple charities she has been involved with for a long time have decided to cut her out of the picture – including The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, British Heart Foundation, The Children’s Literacy Charity and Prevent Breast Cancer.
Now, a PR expert has claimed this scandal could render Sarah as “toxic” with the leaked emails viewed as “reputational napalm,” according to Mark Borkowski.
He told The Mirror: “The Duchess’s reputation and ability to earn a living off the back of that reputation directly affects Andrew’s finances.”
He added: “The leaked emails are reputational napalm… Julia’s House severing ties is not a side note; it’s a siren.
“When a children’s hospice decides the reputational risk of association outweighs the patronage of a Duchess, the verdict is clear: she is toxic.
“Charities are bellwethers for public trust. If they won’t touch her, then publishers, sponsors, and producers won’t either. This isn’t a PR headache – it’s financial destitution dressed up as disgrace.”
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/showbiz-tv/toxic-sarah-ferguson-faces-financial-32529756
Sarah Ferguson branded ‘toxic’ by PR expert as she’s sacked from charities over Epstein
Express
A close confidant of Fergie revealed she penned the email during a period when she faced threats of legal proceedings from Epstein, who was discovered dead in his prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial. Fergie apologised to Epstein after connecting him to paedophilia during an interview, stating: “I did not use the P word about you”.
PR guru Mark Borkowski warned that Fergie was in danger of becoming “toxic” and described the leaked emails as “reputational napalm”.
He stated: “The Duchess’s reputation and ability to earn a living off the back of that reputation directly affects Andrew’s finances. The leaked emails are reputational napalm… Julia’s House severing ties is not a side note; it’s a siren.
“When a children’s hospice decides the reputational risk of association outweighs the patronage of a Duchess, the verdict is clear: she is toxic. Charities are bellwethers for public trust. If they won’t touch her, then publishers, sponsors, and producers won’t either. This isn’t a PR headache – it’s financial destitution dressed up as disgrace.”
‘Toxic’ Sarah Ferguson ‘faces financial destitution’ as she’s axed over Epstein scandal
The Mirror
Experts say the scandal could leave Fergie a “toxic” brand and have a devastating effect on her ability to financially support herself and disgraced ex-husband Andrew, 65. A close pal of Fergie said she wrote the email at a time when she had been threatened with legal action by Epstein, 66, who was found dead in his cell in 2019 as he awaited trial.
Fergie said sorry to Epstein after linking him to paedophilia in an interview, telling him: “I did not use the P word about you”.
PR expert Mark Borkowski said Fergie risked becoming “toxic” and said the leaked emails were “reputational napalm”. He said: “The Duchess’s reputation and ability to earn a living off the back of that reputation directly affects Andrew’s finances.” He added: “The leaked emails are reputational napalm… Julia’s House severing ties is not a side note; it’s a siren.
“When a children’s hospice decides the reputational risk of association outweighs the patronage of a Duchess, the verdict is clear: she is toxic. Charities are bellwethers for public trust. If they won’t touch her, then publishers, sponsors, and producers won’t either. This isn’t a PR headache – it’s financial destitution dressed up as disgrace.”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/toxic-sarah-ferguson-faces-financial-35946232.amp
Why Meghan has suddenly been silenced: Once a loud and proud social justice warrior, she’s now (whisper it) quite boring. Experts say it’s all part of a master plan
Daily Mail Online
Mark Borkowski, a crisis PR consultant, said: ‘Meghan has learned, the hard way, that volume isn’t the same as influence. The early phase of “finding her voice” became a cacophony – every speech, every podcast clip, every political nudge was amplified and often weaponized against her. The result? Fatigue. The media got bored of the sermon, the public got tired of the tone, and her commercial partners got nervous.’
Borkowski said she was likely being warned to steer clear of controversy, in a bid to maintain a broad appeal.
‘Netflix and her other backers don’t want noise – they want focus,’ he said. ‘A glossy docuseries or lifestyle brand can’t thrive if the headlines are dominated by political spats or stray comments about the royals. Silence, in this case, is a strategy: it keeps the attention on the product, not the controversy.’
Strictly’s Thomas Skinner: Casting nightmare or ratings gold?
The Telegraph
“The problem with Strictly is that it has replaced EastEnders as our national soap opera,” says Mark Borkowski, a PR expert. “The show is stuck in this loop of continually trying to weather the storm.”
With these nastier controversies continuing to dog the show, it’s getting tougher for them to attract genuine A-list talent, says Borkowski. “Why the hell would they want to get involved with it? It’s far too much drama – and Strictly doesn’t make careers the way it used to.”
Borkowski wonders if it’s time to rest Strictly, “like they did with Top Gear and Doctor Who”, and let the programme reset.
Strictly’s Thomas Skinner: Casting nightmare or ratings gold?
Print has become more powerful than ever’: Edward Enninful launches new magazine
The Guardian
The publication has recently been criticised by fashion fans for becoming too mainstream. Its latest issue, which landed on shelves on Monday, co-stars the models Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner. Malle described her recent digital cover story on Lauren Sanchez Bezos as a “calculated risk”.
The PR consultant and author Mark Borkowski says Enninful’s rebrand would have been carefully considered. In June 2023 when he announced he was leaving British Vogue after six years as editor-in-chief in addition to four years as European editorial director of Vogue, there were rumours Enninful had been forced out after a power struggle with Wintour. “There were obituary-type pieces written about Enninful,” Borkowski says. “Some felt he had risen to a pedestal he wasn’t worthy of.”
Now it appears we are entering the era of rivalry 2.0. For anyone who thought Enninful had fallen off his path to rise to the top of the fashion chain, this phoenix-like comeback hints that he believes his journey is not over.
“The launch shows he is a very powerful person and influencer,” Borkowski says. “But being an entrepreneur brings added baggage. You are not the product of an empire. Now it’s about the quality of the team he builds. Every move he makes will be pored over. He cannot fail.”
Has Sydney Sweeney already been cancelled? Romance with Taylor Swift’s arch-nemesis Scooter Braun comes after backlash against Hollywood darling from…
Bundle
It has also been revealed that the blonde beauty is a registered member of the Republican Party, which sparked a hugely divisive response online
PR guru Mark Borkowski said: ‘Behind [Sydney] is a professional machine that knows how to keep her image afloat. No flailing on Twitter. She lets the visuals do the talking’
The lingerie line is being backed by Ben Schwerin, a partner at private equity firm Coatue according to Puck. The company recently had a $1 billion investment from Bezos and fellow tech giant Michael Dell via their Coatue Innovation Fund.
Back in March, Sweeney signed on to star in the video game adaptation of the recent hit Split Fiction, which has been backed by Amazon MGM Studios.
From Suffragette arsonists to soup on sunflowers – why the stunt still matters.
BBC Sounds
Legendary publicist Mark Borkowski takes a no-prisoners look at the history of the protest stunt – the noisy, theatrical interventions that have rattled the establishment for over a century.
With fascinating examples from the BBC archive and interviews with Led By Donkeys, The Centre for Political Beauty, Joey Skaggs, The Yes Men, veteran activist Jamie Kelsey Fry and Clare Farrell from XR.
Written and presented by Mark Borkowski
Produced by Alison Vernon-Smith
Researcher: Ellie Dobing
Executive Producer: Julian Mayers.
A Yada-Yada Audio production for BBC Radio 4
SYD THE SEXIEST Inside Sydney Sweeney’s shock romance with Taylor Swift’s nemesis Scooter Braun that is rocking Hollywood
The Sun
They had been together since 2018 and got engaged in 2022 with plans for a wedding in May.
They split up as her star power soared.
But PR guru Mark Borkowski reckons her growing string of controversies have helped propel her forward.
He told The Sun: “Sydney hasn’t dodged the storms, she’s ridden straight through them and somehow come out shinier.
“Most actors caught in the crossfire of partisan politics, fan wars, or brand ‘wokeness’ wobble, apologise, retreat. Sweeney doesn’t.
“She keeps working, keeps fronting campaigns, keeps landing movies.
“That relentless forward motion has become its own PR strategy: The next premiere, the next photoshoot, the next glossy cover pulls the audience’s attention forward.
“Momentum itself is her shield. Crucially, she isn’t doing this alone.
“Behind her is a professional machine that knows how to keep her image afloat. No flailing on Twitter. She lets the visuals do the talking.
“Add Scooter Braun into the picture and the message is clear: She has heavyweight operators around her who understand the alchemy of fame.
“Braun is a fixer, someone who knows how to turn enemies into fuel. So the storms aren’t really avoided; they’re converted. Outrage becomes visibility, visibility becomes currency. That’s why she’s been signed up by Jimmy Choo, and why she will keep landing glossy campaigns tomorrow.
“For now, Sydney Sweeney is un-cancellable.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/36561946/sydney-sweeneys-romance-taylor-swifts-scooter-braun-hollywood/
The power of social media has changed the art of the political protest and this is why
Metro
Mark Borkowski, a crisis PR consultant, told Metro that the art of protest is different today because it lacks the power of social media.
Speaking after he voiced his opinions on Radio Four’s Outrage doc – the publicist gave ano-prisoners look at the history of the protest stunt.
He told Metro: ‘Suffragettes would be locked up, and women who got into the base where nuclear weapons were and smothered them with porridge, that wouldn’t be tolerated now,’ he explained.
‘Why? There’s a greater fear because of social media and the power it has in telegraphing that message. People are now being imprisoned just for talking about a protest.’
The power of social media has changed the art of the political protest and this is why
Meghan reveals her children’s VERY trendy breakfast as she shares touching insights into their home life – and why Archie is the most tender, sweet child of all time
Daily Mail
The ‘first-look’ arrangement means Netflix can say yes or no to new film or television projects before anyone else – allowing them to pick and choose what they invest in.
PR expert Mark Borkowski described the new deal as a ‘downgrade’, claiming it falls a long way from the jackpot figure of Harry and Meghan’s original contract in 2020.
He told the Daily Mail: ‘I think Netflix has done a very neat job of pivoting away from two very expensive people who didn’t deliver, and they’ve taken that deal off the table, and they’ve given them a modest one.
‘It’s not like they’re gradually uncoupling – it’s a downgrade. Netflix are not going to expose themselves to those budgets again. It’s Netflix saying, ‘Let’s have a look at your content, but we’ll pick and choose, mate’.’
He believes the pair will be paid for each production selected by Netflix rather than receiving an overall fee, such as the reported $100million of their first deal.
‘I would be surprised if it’s not pay-as-you-go and it’s well, well below that first mark,’ he added.
The couple’s new output will include a second season of the Duchess’s ‘With Love, Meghan’ lifestyle show later this month, as well as a Christmas special in December. The Sussexes are also working on ‘Masaka Kids, A Rhythm Within’ – a documentary about orphaned children in Uganda, where the ‘shadows of the HIV/Aids crisis linger’.
There is also ‘active development’ on other projects with Netflix which ‘span a variety of content genres’, including an adaptation of romantic novel Meet Me At The Lake.
But Mr Borkowski said the couple will not be granted the same budget as they were under their previous contract with the streaming service. He said: ‘They have shot the golden goose of 2020 – more of a “we’ll call you” than “here’s the chequebook”.
‘It’s a first-look deal, which means Netflix gets first dibs but no obligation to bankroll every semi-royal whim. I reckon Netflix is trimming fat industry-wide, so this is less carte blanche, more curated cameo.
‘They’re still in business together – Meghan’s. As ever brand and seasonal specials keep them in the Netflix shop window but make no mistake, this is a slimmed-down sequel to the blockbuster original. So Harry and Meghan’s new Netflix chapter [is] less champagne budget, more Prosecco by the glass.’
Netflix has already released the first series of With Love, Meghan as well as Polo, Heart of Invictus, Live to Lead and the couple’s bombshell documentary Harry & Meghan as well as being a business partner on Meghan’s lifestyle brand, As Ever.
Meghan counts down ahead of premiere of second series of Netflix cooking show after first series savaged by critics
LBC
PR and crisis expert Mark Borkowski described it as a “downgrade”, and suggested Netflix was “pivoting away” from Harry and Meghan.
Among the celebrity guests joining the former Suits star during the eight episodes will be US model and TV personality Chrissy Teigen and Queer Eye star Tan France, as well as podcaster Jay Shetty and his cookbook author wife Radhi Devlukia.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/meghan-premiere-second-series-netflix-5HjdBRp_2/
Protest is meant to be noisy – today even the Suffragettes would be prescribed as extreme
The Express
By Mark Borkowski – Guest Columnist
History is noisy. The tranquil scratch of the monarchic pen on a law or treaty might be the act that alters its course, but these moments are generally prefaced by a much less genteel phenomenon; the theatre of protest – the political PR stunt. And what can appear as little more than disruptive chaos invariably seeds change that outlives the headlines.
That was the starting point for my new Archive on 4 documentary for BBC Radio 4, Outrage Inc – a journey back through the archives to rediscover the creative genius and conviction behind the protest stunt. Because we forget who took the risks, what it cost them and how much we owe them.
Take the Suffragettes. Today, we package them as harmless biddies in sashes and rosettes, politely marching for the vote. The reality was far more combustible. They smashed shop windows, set fire to post boxes and staged arson attacks on empty buildings.
They chained themselves to railings, endured hunger strikes and were force-fed in prison. If those tactics were deployed today, they would be denounced as extremists. Yet without their disruption, women’s suffrage would not have been achieved when it was.
Fast-forward half a century and, in 1968, the Miss America pageant was disrupted by feminists, furious at its “cattle market” treatment of women. Two years later, Miss World at the Royal Albert Hall descended into chaos when flour bombs, whistles, and slogans bombarded host Bob Hope in a feminist protest that made their point more clearly than any manifesto.
Humour, when it lands, is the sharpest weapon of all. Sometimes, the best stunts are playful on the surface but deadly serious at heart. In 1993, the Barbie Liberation Organization swapped the voice boxes of hundreds of Barbie dolls and GI Joes. Little girls unwrapped dolls that growled “Vengeance is mine!” while boys got action figures chirping “The beach is the place for summer!”
It was funny and razor sharp. Overnight, parents, children and the media had to confront the absurdity of building gender stereotypes into toys, launching a national conversation.
That is the art of the stunt at its best: humour sharpened into a question that lingers far longer than the laugh. You see it nowadays in Germany’s Centre for Political Beauty, who erected a replica Holocaust memorial outside the home of an AfD politician; an unavoidable reminder that some wounds must never close.
Here in Britain, we have Led By Donkeys. They hold a mirror up by projecting politicians’ broken promises onto the walls of Parliament. Their Covid Memorial Wall of thousands of painted hearts along the Thames was a devastating reminder of lives lost to the pandemic. Protest does not always shout. Sometimes a whisper can be deafening.
But not every stunt is comic.
Archive footage of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics still stuns: two black athletes, heads bowed, fists raised in the Black Power salute during the medal ceremony. They were expelled from the games and ostracised. Yet their gesture lives on, echoed in NFL players and others who subsequently took the knee.
Closer to home, the Greenham Common women of the 1980s pitched tents outside a Berkshire airbase to protest the arrival of American cruise missiles. They were mocked, vilified, and arrested. Yet their persistence forced nuclear weapons onto the front pages and into the corridors of power. That was cultural impact of the highest order. What connects all these moments is creativity. Every great stunt is the chemical reaction of two essential elements: creativity and risk. Without creativity, it is just noise. Without risk, mere novelty. But when the two combine, the result can lodge in the public memory forever.
The Suffragettes knew they would go to prison. The Greenham women knew they would be arrested. Tommie Smith and John Carlos knew they were sacrificing their careers. Young activists today risk criminal records that will shadow them for life.
Protest has never been safe. That is why it matters. The question for 2025 is how much of this history we have forgotten. Disruption is tightly policed. Social media amplifies outrage while making it easier to monitor dissent. Are we in danger of losing sight of the creativity and conviction that made these moments so potent?
https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/2098562/borkowski-protest-radio-4
When it comes to headline-grabbing protests, the rules just changed again
The Independent
The publicity stunt that fuses a sense of sacrifice and injustice with creative mischief is one that deserves to live in infamy – on the right side of history, says crisis PR consultant Mark Borkowski
When Greenpeace protesters poured 1,000l of (organic) blood-red liquid down a vast canvas off the Shell Skiff platform in the North Sea last week, it was billed as an artwork – entitled Butchered, and created in collaboration with Anish Kapoor. It was also the latest in decades of high-profile stunts that activists have used to grab the public imagination and plant a thought that can grow into a global movement.
The likes of Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion (XR), and the Occupy movement don’t just block roads or pitch tents in churchyards, but seed ideas. Gen Z and millennials – marinated in a drip-feed of bad news, climate collapse, economic precarity and political implosion – suddenly connected to history and saw protest not as eccentric behaviour, but as the only real theatre left.
XR taught them the grammar of disruption: the pink boat in Oxford Circus, the “die-in”, the glued hand. Occupy showed that simply holding space could shift the centre of gravity of debate. Both movements proved something Greenpeace had already turbo-charged with its anti-whaling campaigns in the 1970s: the stunt isn’t just about action but planting an image so potent, it germinates in the public imagination. A dinghy blocking a whaling ship was an allegory, David versus Goliath, conscience versus commerce. A seed planted in millions of minds grew into a global movement.
This is the DNA of the stunt, and it is no accident. It’s the same DNA that runs through the soul of every activist: a strange genus of publicity that fuses creative mischief with deep sacrifice. PT Barnum understood the power of spectacle. Edward Bernays understood the potency of symbolism. The suffragettes absorbed it instinctively: windows smashed, fires lit, hunger strikes staged with theatrical ferocity. The Greenham women cut fences and danced on silos, knowing full well the cameras would find them. Protest, properly understood, has always been half conviction and half choreography.
The medium has changed, but the principle endures. The suffragette had the front page. Greenham had the Six O’Clock News. Greenpeace had the photograph. Today’s activist has TikTok, where a roadside stunt can become global theatre in minutes. A smartphone is a megaphone, camera, editing suite and stage, all in one. A single clip, well-timed, can seed an idea across millions before the state has even called a press officer.
And here’s the paradox that rattles governments: every attempt to crush a movement only fertilises the soil.
Arrests by the hundred in Parliament Square, proscription of groups, criminal records for teenagers talking about an act on Zoom… it looks like law and order, but it smells like panic. If you jail one activist, you can radicalise 10 more. If you ban a movement, you risk immortalising it.
Perversely, it’s the naysayer that gives a stunt its enduring power, and whether it’s politicians demanding clampdowns, columnists frothing with outrage, or talk-show callers huffing about “traffic chaos”, every denunciation is free publicity. Without their critics, many stunts would wither. With them, they bloom.
That was the journey I traced in my new BBC Radio 4 Archive on 4 documentary, Outrage Inc., a history of outrage stunts as theatre.
The evidence is clear: the stunt survives because it plants images that can’t be erased. I went back through the archives and across continents to unearth the mischief-makers: The Yes Men who hijacked the BBC to impersonate corporate spokesmen and announce billions in fake compensation for the victims of Bhopal, the world’s deadliest industrial disaster, wiped value off the company before the hoax was exposed; Germany’s Centre for Political Beauty, an “assault troop” known for its provocative operations in the name of human rights, who built a replica Holocaust memorial outside an AfD politician’s house, a piece of living architecture as a political menace; Led by Donkeys, the group who project the words of politicians onto buildings and billboards, forcing them to choke on their own rhetoric.
And – perhaps the greatest of them all – Greenpeace, masters of the David-and-Goliath confrontation which produced images powerful enough to define an entire environmental movement.
What unites all these figures across the decades is the instinct to stage a performance so sharp it cannot be unseen. Look at Mexico City, 1968: the Black Power salute wasn’t just a raised fist; it was a choreographed media event designed to seed a symbol. Fifty years later, it re-emerged as the anti-racism symbol of “taking the knee”. A podium pose evolved into a ritual on football pitches. That’s the afterlife of a well-planted stunt: it mutates, resurfaces, and terrifies authority precisely because it cannot be killed.
Every hunger strike, every glued hand, every night in a police cell carries the knowledge that history, not the government, will be the judge. And history, often, rewards the disrupter and condemns those who tried to extinguish the idea.
That is why governments fear stunts. Not because they block roads, but because their actions – equal parts theatre, art, and publicity genius – embed themselves in the imagination. The stunt is indestructible because the idea it seeds cannot be uprooted.
Mark Borkowski’s Archive on 4, ‘Outrage Inc’, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday, 23 August, and is available on BBC Sounds
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/activist-stunts-greenpeace-just-stop-oil-xr-shell-b2810901.html
We criminalise the political stunt at our peril. It is a crucial art form that is impossible to ignore
The Guardian
We must ask ourselves: how would the heroic suffragettes or the remarkable Greenham Common women be regarded if active today? The answer is simple: they would be locked up. Just as they were locked up then. A century ago, women chained themselves to railings, set fires, endured prison and changed the world, and we celebrate their victories without thinking too hard about their methods. Yet today’s laws would criminalise them on sight.
Last month, the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, wore a commemorative sash celebrating the suffragette struggle. Yet this is the same Yvette Cooper presiding over an age of repressive laws and mass arrests. It’s a paradox: we laud the rebels of the past while shackling the rebels of the present.
I have been retracing these acts of protest for a new BBC Radio 4 documentary, Outrage Inc. I wanted to understand not just the anger, but the creative genius and conviction behind the stunt. Because at its best, a stunt isn’t chaos. It’s an art form – theatre with consequences. It’s designed to provoke, timed to perfection and impossible to ignore. Those who stage them aren’t amateurs: they storyboard, construct narrative, marshal resources. They are producers of disruption.
Take the suffragettes. With their matchsticks, they weren’t vandals – they were master tacticians who understood the media economy of Edwardian Britain. By the early 1900s, papers such as the Daily Mail and Daily Express were locked in a circulation war, selling millions of copies at a penny each. Their lifeblood was advertising and their oxygen was spectacle. Respectful reports of speeches and petitions did not move papers off newsstands. Outrage did.
Emmeline Pankhurst and the Women’s Social and Political Union knew this. They didn’t smash Bond Street windows or torch postboxes for fun. They did it because they knew the placards outside kiosks would scream “SUFFRAGETTE OUTRAGE”, forcing the issue into every parlour in Britain. Editors vilified them, yes, but they printed the stories, because sensation sold. That was the economy, and the suffragettes exploited it ruthlessly. In today’s parlance, they hacked the algorithm.
The Greenham women weren’t eccentrics, either. They were moral Boudiccas who turned protest into performance art on a national scale. Tents, banners, singing at the wire, cutting fences, dancing on missile silos looked anarchic, but it was a rolling installation, a piece of theatre that lasted nearly a decade. Some of it was planned, some improvised, but its genius lay in persistence. They kept the story alive, constantly reframing it so the cameras always had something to see and the public always had something to talk about.
And then there’s Peter Tatchell. He didn’t simply “make a scene”, he made himself the scene. He has spent decades putting his own body on the line: attempting a citizen’s arrest of Robert Mugabe, confronting police indifference to homophobic violence, interrupting Easter sermons. He has been beaten unconscious, arrested countless times, vilified and celebrated. Tatchell embodies conviction, turning his own suffering into testimony, forcing Britain to confront prejudice it preferred to ignore.
Fast-forward to 2004 and the Yes Men’s audacious Bhopal stunt. They posed as Dow Chemical executives on BBC World, announcing a $12bn compensation package for victims of the disaster. For a brief moment, the world believed justice had arrived. Dow’s share price plummeted before the hoax was exposed. This wasn’t chaos, it was conviction armed with wit, a mind bomb detonated live on air.
Or take Germany’s Centre for Political Beauty, which built a replica Holocaust memorial outside the home of the Alternative für Deutschland leader, Björn Höcke. The far right had claimed the “wounds of the Holocaust should heal”. Its answer was unignorable concrete, a daily reminder that history isn’t a wound to be closed for convenience. It was satire sharpened into steel, cutting deeper than any speech.
And then there’s Led By Donkeys, the post-Brexit guerrillas. They don’t rant. They don’t editorialise. They hold up a mirror, reminding politicians of words they have said, written or tweeted, and probably wished they hadn’t. Their giant projection on parliament, Boris Johnson’s lies replayed on the cliffs of Dover, their Covid memorial wall of thousands of painted hearts; these weren’t stunts for novelty’s sake. They weaponised the words of the powerful, replaying them until they choked their authors. Clarity, timing, simplicity.
We voted for and against the ban on Palestine Action. Now we have a plan to end this mess
Stella Creasy and Peter Hain
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This is the lesson we keep forgetting. Protest isn’t just confrontation, it’s an imagination weaponised. A stunt is a mind bomb that plants itself in the national conversation. These acts of theatre marry humour and symbolism to conviction, creating ripples that travel long after the news cameras have moved on.
Yet the cycle is always the same. At the time, protests are demonised, particularly by the right, who instinctively oppose change. Later, the very same acts are reappraised, rehabilitated or even lauded. The suffragettes, once branded terrorists, are now national heroines. The Greenham women, once derided as cranks in cardigans, are now honoured for their foresight. Time transforms outrage into heritage.
Today, with Palestine Action banned and Extinction Rebellion dismissed as a nuisance, we’re told that only “lawful protest” is legitimate. But the suffragettes would fail that test, and so would Greenham. Their legacies endure because they didn’t seek permission, they sought change. Their power lay in creativity, conviction and the audacity to place truth before power and performance before permission.
Having examined the BBC archives for Outrage Inc, I believe we are at a crossroads. We can allow protest to be neutered into stage-managed civility, or we can acknowledge that it has always been outrageous, risky and profoundly creative. This is not a rallying cry for lawlessness. But we should reflect on the red-hot battles that forged our society. We call them stunts, but the word feels too trivial for acts that pushed the envelope and forced us to confront inequality and injustice.
Because history shows this: the stunt is never a sideshow. It is the main act of change.
The rise and fall of BrewDog ‘captain’ James Watt
The Telegraph
Watt had quit his job as a trainee solicitor after just two weeks and become a fisherman like his father, before turning to beer – and to splashy publicity stunts. With the birth of BrewDog, he quickly became “the darling of branding”, says PR expert Mark Borkowski. “He turbo-charged the company’s success. The speed of its rise was incredible.”
As the company grew, it also proved difficult for BrewDog to maintain its image as a rebellious upstart. In 2017, private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners invested £213 million in the firm in exchange for a 23 per cent stake, valuing the company at almost £1 billion, after which it embarked on a rapid global expansion. It’s a problem that “challenger brands” face, observes Borkowski, as they try to “re-create the energy of disruption”.
Despite stepping down as CEO last year, Watt has very much remained in the public eye ever since. And he has continued to court controversy. In January, he sparked widespread anger after citing academic research which suggested Britain is a workshy nation and posting on Instagram “I don’t believe in work-life balance”. Indeed, Borkowski warns he may have lost touch with how he is perceived by much of the public. “He’s proud of being a ‘pull yourself up by the bootstraps’ guy, but that can tip over into arrogance.”
Borkowski thinks Watt is now “dangerously overexposed”. In a supposedly jokey video published by the couple this July, Watt said Toffolo had leapt into a higher tax bracket by saying “I do”. Toffolo, meanwhile, said he was “someone I’ve rebranded”, and both accused the other of constantly Googling themselves. The clip quickly became an object of ridicule. One commenter said: “I fear nobody likes you both as much as you do.”