Amid backlash, Hulu pulled a documentary about a Travis Scott music festival that resulted in ten deaths.
Last month, the Astroworld Festival in Houston turned fatal when crowds “suddenly surged toward the stage during a performance by rapper Travis Scott, squeezing fans so tightly together that they could not breathe or move their arms,” according to the Associated Press. The youngest victim was a nine-year-old boy who was kept on life support for several days after the incident.
On Wednesday, however, Hulu posted a 50-minute documentary entitled “Astroworld: Concert From Hell,” which detailed the events surrounding the concert. Also on Wednesday, a tweet assuming that Hulu had produced the documentary gained tens of thousands of likes.
“Hulu making a documentary about Astroworld is in poor taste all around,” it said. “People are still burying their loved ones. The legal cases haven’t even started. Great documentaries are done when all the facts are laid out. Not enough time has passed to fully discuss this.”
As a result, Hulu clarified that it did not produce the film — and stated that it had nevertheless been pulled from the platform.
“This was an investigative local news special from ABC13/KTRK-TV in Houston that originally aired on November 20th,” a Hulu spokesperson told Variety. “This was not a Hulu documentary and has since been removed to avoid confusion.”
An earlier report from CNN detailed the chaos felt by concertgoers.
“The crowd became tighter and tighter, and at that point it was hard to breathe. When Travis came out performing his first song, I witnessed people passing out next to me,” said 20-year-old TK Tellez. “We were all screaming for help, and no one helped or heard us. It was horrifying. People were screaming for their lives, and they couldn’t get out. Nobody could move a muscle.”
“Everybody was crying; it was the scariest sound I’ve ever heard. … Imagine listening to Travis Scott and people screaming for their lives at the same time,” he said. “There was just not enough people to help everyone … Travis Scott would have a short time in between songs, and we would scream our vocal chords out so someone could hear us but nobody did. This year’s festival will be stuck with me forever. I’ve never seen someone die in front of my eyes. It was horrific.”
“I picked some kid up and his eyes rolled to the back of his head, so I checked his pulse. I knew he was dead,” explained Billy Nasser, who said he works as a disc jockey. “I checked the people around me. And I just had to leave him there, there was nothing I could do. I had to keep going. … Kids were dropping left and right. … There wasn’t enough security guards and there wasn’t enough EMTs and people helping out the crowd. The paramedics couldn’t even reach the crowd.”
After the tragedy, Nike postponed the release of its planned Travis Scott sneaker line. Scott is also facing a deluge of lawsuits, which also name rapper Drake, whose real name is Aubrey Drake Graham, as well as Live Nation and NRG Stadium.