The red mist descended over Professor Green last Friday as he launched an expletive-ridden Twitter rant against dangerous dogs and their owners.
Professor Green. Photo: Clive Rowland
Responding to an attack which left his Staffordshire bull terrier needing a trip to the vet, the Hackney-born rapper – best known for his INXS-sampling hit ‘I Need You Tonight’ – tweeted: ‘Serious. If your dog bites, f**king muzzle it. I’d have ripped that c**ting dog’s legs apart and killed the f**king dog.’
‘F**king s**t c**t dog owners and s**t c**t dogs, s**t c**ts.’
However, responding to a tweeting backlash, Green – real name Stephen Manderson – later clarified his comments.
“I said something in anger. [I] love dogs, and dog owners who take proper care of their animals, i.e. muzzling a dog who bites in a public area.”
Raised on the Northwold estate in Clapton, the 27-year-old has courted controversy in the past, admitting his ‘Green’ nickname was derived from teenage years spent selling marijuana.
Hackney has been blighted in recent years by owners keeping so-called ‘weapon dogs’, and in 2010 the Metropolitan Police’s Status Dogs Unit named the borough among the city’s top three areas for dog removal.
