Last year, Sky News Australia canceled a show after it gave Ryan Williams a live microphone. Bruce Blakeman has since sat for an interview with him.
Williams, a British influencer who posts as @thescottishkorean and @baconkorean, interviewed Blakeman for his Instagram account and filmed a video in person endorsing the Republican nominee for governor. The interview’s caption promised Blakeman would “stop the Islamic New York Mayor!” a reference to Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor.
Williams has dismissed the Quran as a “terrorist bedtime story” and stated online that his intention is “to inflict maximum damage on Islam.”
Blakeman’s campaign did not respond to Courier New York’s requests for comment.
Who is Ryan Williams?
Williams, a cellist from Edinburgh, appeared on the 2024 debut season of Netflix’s “Love Is Blind: UK,” billed as a techno DJ and cellist.
He has since recast himself as an anti-Muslim provocateur with a transatlantic audience. He has appeared on Turning Point USA’s “Turning Point Tonight.” In May, he played cello while draped in bacon at Unite the Kingdom, a London march widely described as far-right and organized by anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson.
Williams drew international condemnation in September 2025, when he appeared on Sky News Australia’s “Freya Fires Up” with raw bacon draped across his shirt, claiming it protected him from terrorists. He then launched into a string of anti-Muslim remarks.
The network cut him off mid-broadcast and said it “apologises unreservedly for the deeply offensive comments,” per Mediaweek. Sky later canceled the program and fired its producer after an internal review.
Robinson shared a clip of the segment on X and hailed Williams as a “hero.” Williams reposted the segment to Instagram, where it drew more than 90,000 likes.
Williams on Black people, Muslims, and refugees
In one video, Williams said most Black people are “degenerate idiots looking up to a s— culture.” In another, he called a woman “the CEO of Black Lives Matter” and said he would “take that fried chicken and stick it so far up every single BLM member’s arses.”
He joked that a burqa is “nine-foot long and wrapped around a c–t” and called the Quran a “terrorist bedtime story.”
In a post about refugees, Williams called liberal women “suicidal r—–s” who treat “dangerous refugees” as a pet project. “They find them cute and it triggers their maternal instincts,” he wrote.
In a video captioned “Stop giving money To Red Cross!” Williams compared refugees to zoo animals. “You know in zoos they say, please do not feed the animals,” he said. “I want to tell the NGOs and charities, please do not feed the animals.”
How are Democrats responding?
New York Democrats seized on the association Thursday.
“Any hope that Bruce Blakeman was capable of rising above the ugliest Trump-style politics is gone,” New York State Democratic Party spokesperson Addison Dick said in a statement. “Instead, ‘100% MAGA’ Blakeman is standing with someone who called Black New Yorkers ‘degenerate idiots,’ women ‘suicidal r—–s,’ and called refugees ‘animals.’ That kind of hate is beneath the governor’s office and beneath every New York family.”
Where does the governor’s race stand?
The Nassau County executive secured both the Republican and Conservative party lines this year.
He trails Gov. Kathy Hochul by 12 points, 52% to 40%, in an Emerson College Polling/PIX11 survey of likely voters released Thursday, with 8% undecided. Independents broke for Blakeman, 55% to 34%. Polls released last month by Quinnipiac and Siena put Hochul’s lead at 19 and 9 points, respectively.
The Williams videos add to a record of racially charged episodes in Blakeman’s campaign and county tenure. Blakeman previously drew fire from Nassau County workers for his refusal to recognize Juneteenth.
In July, his campaign released an AI-generated attack ad that put fabricated words in Hochul’s mouth and leaned on racial stereotypes, including a scene in which an AI-rendered Latino man offers her crack outside a police precinct. Blakeman defended the video as satire.
Hochul and Blakeman will meet Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. for their only televised debate, according to the New York Post.
New Yorkers head to the polls Nov. 3.
