11/09/2026
Happy Birthday Elephant Man (OβNeil Bryan) β September 11th, 1975ππβ₯οΈππππBryan has been criticised for his lyrics calling for violence against gay people. In 2003, British LGBT group OutRage! called for the arrest and prosecution of several dancehall stars including Elephant Man, Bounty Killer and Beenie Man for violation of hate crimes statutes. In 2004, he was dropped from the MOBO Awards. Since then pressure from his record company and agreement with gay rights groups to avoid songs with lyrics deemed to incite homophobic violence have allowed him to perform in the UK. In 2009, his scheduled appearance at Toronto's Caribana festival was cancelled for similar reasons. A concert in Munich was cancelled in February 2015 after LGBT rights groups had asked the police to make sure he would not perform songs which call upon people to murder g**s.
In January 2012, Bryan was arrested and charged with the r**e and grievous sexual assault of a 31-year-old woman who accused him of assaulting her in his home in St. Andrew. In February 2016, the case was dropped due to the death of the complainant.
In March 2020, Jamaican authorities charged Elephant Man after it was alleged that he intentionally failed to declare his travel to Germany in order to avoid being quarantined in efforts to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic from countries that were on a restricted travel list. Elephant Man later apologised for the incident.
