Beastie Boys Forced To Cancel SXSW Appearance Over Coronavirus Concerns

Austin, TX – The surviving members the Beastie Boys — Mike “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horvitz — have been forced to pull Austin’s annual South By Southwest music festival due to the coronavirus.

The two Hip Hop pioneers were scheduled to participate in the film portion the event to discuss the forthcoming Spike Jonze-directed documentary Beastie Boys Story. 

Prince Darkness Ozzy Osbourne, Nine Inch Nails’ frontman Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are also bowing out this year in order to stay healthy. Reznor and Ross were originally scheduled to deliver the keynote speech on HBO’s Watchmen series.

Beastie Boys, Reznor and Ross are pulling out SXSW by default. WarnerMedia, the company that owns HBO withdrew from the festival, while Apple — which is releasing Beastie Boys Story — also dropped out, citing the coronavirus.

“As a precaution, WarnerMedia has decided it best not to move forward with activations at SXSW, a tweet from CNN Communications explained. “We look forward to seeing everyone in Austin next year.

According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering’s coronavirus tracker, there have been almost 97,000 cases coronavirus infection and 3,305 deaths worldwide, including 11 in the United States.