Hugh Laurie faces vodka boycott backlash

Actor Hugh Laurie may have strengthened calls from the LGBT community to boycott Russian vodka after remarking on the country’s anti-gay legislation on Twitter.

Hugh Laurie may have inadvertently added fuel to calls from the LGBT community to boycott Stolichnaya Vodka

According to The Daily Mail, the House star, who has 300,000 twitter followers, reacted to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comment that gay people are welcome to attend the Winter Olympics as long as they “leave children alone”.

Laurie wrote on the social media site: “Id boycott Russian goods if I could think of a single thing they made other than the rest of the world depressed.

“Yes, alright, Russian vodka is okay of you need to clean the oven. For drinking, it must henceforth be Polish.”

One day after making his Twitter comments, which have received a wealth of backlash on Russian blogs, Laurie said: “I retract. Instead, I urge good, kind Russians to stand up to the slab-faced goons who deal in this kind of poison.”

In June last year, Putin’s government passed a law which bans “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” among minors in Russia”, prompting LGBT activists across the world to boycott Russian goods.

In particular, US writer Dan Savage, called for the LGBT community and its supporters to boycott Stolichnaya Vodka and Russian Standard, coining the hashtag #dumpstoli.

Val Mendeleev, CEO of SPI Group, parent company of Stolichnaya, was prompted to pen an open letter to the gay community, stressing its opposition to the legislation, branding the government’s actions as “dreadful”.

He also emphasised that the vodka brand’s Russian ties were not as close as campaigners believed, since its headquarters are in Luxembourg and its liquid is bottled in Latvia.