Right Said Fred say they are not ‘Covid deniers’ after appearing at anti-lockdown protest

Pair claim to have been ‘grossly misunderstood’

Right Said Fred have clarified their position on the coronavirus pandemic, stating that they have been “grossly misunderstood”.

The musical pair behind Nineties hits “I’m Too Sexy” and “Deeply Dippy” had attended a controversial anti-lockdown protest in London earlier this year.

Richard and Fred Fairbrass, the brothers who make up Right Said Fred, spoke to Sky News about their frustration with lockdown.

“We either live like hermits and we kill the country we love,” they said, “or we face up to the fact that some of us are going to die.”

Though they refuted the suggestion that they are so-called “Covid deniers”, the Fairbrass brothers have been accused of taking anti-mask and anti-vaccination positions.

But the pair claim that their attendance at the September Trafalgar Square rally was to campaign for “free speech”, adding that the nation is becoming a place where “only certain kinds of speech are acceptable”.

They also expressed concern for the impact of the pandemic on the UK economy, the entertainment and music industry, and the country’s vulnerable and elderly population.

“My position is I'm not a Covid denier and I'm not anti-vax, but I defend those people's right to express their opinion,” said Fred Fairbrass. “That's all it is. So there's another march at the end of this month and we'll be going to that as well for exactly the same reason, which is free speech."

“I'm not trying to belittle or downgrade how Covid has affected many people,” he added. “That's not what this is about. But you can't ignore swathes of other conditions and millions of people who also need help and healthcare.”

Fairbrass also expressed a desire to see the whole economy “opened up”, and said that the government should stop “infantilising the whole nation”.