Bloodhound Gang barred from Russian festival over flag stunt

The Bloodhound Gang was ordered not to perform at a Russian music festival over the weekend after a recent incident in Ukraine that involved the Russian flag.

According to CNN, Jared Hasselhoff, a member of the Pennsylvania-based rock band best known for its goofy 1999 hit “The Bad Touch,” stuffed the Russian flag down his pants during a concert Wednesday in the Ukrainian city of Odessa.

“Don’t tell Putin,” the bassist reportedly said.

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Video footage that appears to show the stunt -- and contains plenty of explicit language -- has turned up on YouTube, which may be why Russian officials canceled the Bloodhound Gang’s appearance at the Kubana music festival, held over the weekend in Krasnodar Krai.

“These idiots are not going to perform,” wrote Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s minister of culture, on Twitter, according to the New York Times.

The paper’s report added that Hasselhoff and his bandmates were later assaulted in an airport lounge by a group of Russian men, some of whom “tried to smother a band member with an American flag before the police broke up the scuffle.”

The group apparently left the region Sunday, though the Independent reported early Monday that the band was now facing “hooliganism” charges in Ukraine as the result of an earlier episode at a show in Kiev in which the bassist allegedly urinated on the Ukrainian flag.

According to the British paper, Kiev police are investigating the incident.

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Twitter: @mikaelwood