Ethel Cain responds to right-wing backlash over #KillMoreCEOs post

Earlier this month, Ethel Cain expressed sympathy for the alleged UnitedHealthcare shooter Luigi Mangione, posting the hashtag #KillMoreCEOs to her Instagram stories. The post prompted a panel of Fox News hosts to call for a boycott of her music.

In a Tumblr post on Friday, 17 January, the Preachers Daughter singer clarified her original comments and responded to the backlash.

“I find it funny that conservatives try to paint me calling for the death and destruction of multi-billionaire CEOs as some radical ‘woke liberal’ standpoint,” she wrote. “It’s no secret I’m from a deeply conservative family in the sticks of Florida and I still grew up hearing ‘I fought the law and the law won’. The healthcare system has fucked each and every member of my family in a different way at one point or another, as is the case with pretty much every family in this scorched earth nation.”

She added that the “men in charge better hope they can keep their digital smokescreens running as long as they can" because "all hell is gonna break loose" if people of left-wing and right-wing leanings "realise they have the same enemy".

Cain’s original post on Instagram stories shared a quote from former US Secretary of Labour Robert Reich, which discussed the influence of high-powered organisations like health insurance companies and the National Rifle Association on Congress, and how “money in politics is the root of our dysfunction”.

Known for her provocative takes, Cain followed that with a post stating that she wasn’t trying to be “edgy”, but that “I genuinely mean what I say".

"Corporations giggle at protesting," Cain wrote. "Why would anyone ever willingly come down off their throne that they've spent years building off the suffering of their fellow man?"

She further claimed that it was necessary to "make them fear for their lives and hit them in the only place they hurt".

The comments came to fore as Cain released her fourth album Perverts on 8th January.

In a discussion on Fox News’ The Big Weekend Show on 16th January, conservative panelists Jason Chaffetz, Jackie DeAngelis, Anita Vogel and Guy Benson denounced her comments, calling them “sick” and “depraved”.

“The message there is violence is the answer,” said Benson. “You know who used that exact same mentality, that type of language? Terrorists.” DeAngelis added: “People need to boycott her.”