I was just recently made aware of an unsubstantiated rumor that began over on the forums here. On March 18th, a member had posted news that Andy Connell could not play live because he had acute alcoholism. Besides the fact that alcoholism cant’ be acute, this member had claimed that he received this information from Paul O’Duffy, Swing Out Sister’s long time collaborator and producer. This forum member also claimed to have worked with Paul as well.

After a few responses from members who challenged this information, Paul himself contacted me about this post. He was upset that someone would use him as a source of information that was completely false, especially since this directly involves to his long time friend, Andy.

This is what Paul had to say:

“Firstly, I do not know or have ever worked with or employed anyone called (removed). Secondly, his comments are completely untrue, Corinne and Andy are among my oldest and dearest friends and I have nothing bad to say about either of them to anyone! As you can probably tell I am very annoyed about this and am puzzled as to why someone would go to the effort to offend both myself and Andy.”

My guess on why this person had decided to do this is beyond me, however with the internet full of trolls, this is just to get some people excited and to cite some kind of ill reaction. What’s also telling is that this person used an anonymous email account to create the post. The likeliness for us to find out who this person is much tougher though not impossible. You can’t hide forever on the internet… Here’s the funny thing, the poster didn’t even know that Andy posts here and even had the nerve to post that he had just emailed him. Andy, in response, said:

“Not sure this really needs a response. Bit of a shame, really. Thanks, (removed), though for making me aware of it..” – Andy

I’ve since removed the post (though still have it in case it’s needed in the future) and banned the user. If there’s any posts in the future that you, as fans and commenters on this forum, please let me know if there are any fishy, offensive or unsubstantiated posts by clicking on the “!” icon on each post. That will alert me to the post and I’ll take appropriate action on it if it’s required. There’s no way to go through each post here but this will help tremendously help prevent any misinformation from spreading.

For now, Paul and I are still dumbfounded on why anyone would speak badly of Andy. As someone who’s had a chance met and speak with Andy, I can’t say why anyone one ever stoop that low.

If it was meant to be a joke, it was as horrible joke and unfunny on many levels. I’m sure Andy would agree.

Tags: Andy, defamation, Paul O'Duffy, rumor

This entry was posted on Monday, March 29th, 2010 at 11:18 am and is filed under Messages from SOS, Off-topic, Website info/announcements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.