The label owner who signed Lostprophets has spoken out about the aftermath of Ian Watkins’ child sex crimes, and discussed how it signalled the end of her career.
Julie Weir signed the Welsh rock band to Visible Noise after working with the members for over a decade before Watkins’ crimes came to light.
The disgraced former singer is currently serving a 29-year sentence, with a further six years on licence, in HMP Wakefield.
Watkins was jailed in December 2013 after pleading guilty to 13 sex offences at Cardiff Crown Court, including the attempted rape of a baby, conspiring to rape a child, three counts of sexual assault involving children, seven involving taking, making or possessing indecent images of children and one of possessing an extreme pornographic image involving a sex act on an animal.
So far, the former singer has served over a decade behind bars and is eligible for parole in 2031. Back in 2019, he was discovered to be hiding a phone, which led to an extension of his sentence.
Now, Weir has appeared on the UPRAWR podcast, and recalled how she discovered Watkins’ crimes.
“I got a call from my manager and I could tell it wasn’t good. We were just about to start a big project with the band and then things spiralled from that. It was a long process really,” Weir explained (via The Star).
“Speaking to the lads, you would imagine people would know and that it was in plain sight. But a lot of things were happening without anyone knowing. Everyone is a really straight down-the-line person in that band and that’s the thing. Out of all the things that could have happened, I never thought it would have been that to happen. It’s a real shame because it was one of the biggest bands of that era.”
She continued: “But he affected a lot of people’s lives. There are people walking around with tattoos on their bodies and it’s insane now. There is still stuff that pops up daily on Reddit and YouTube, I can’t get it off my feed, so it’s a daily reminder of all that happened.
“For the label, it was absolutely catastrophic. I spent nearly half my life on the label and working with them and it was just really hard to have everything taken away. Those people had wives and kids and it was a good living for them but it was taken away in one go. You have to reevaluate your life and wonder why you spent so much time doing it. They were a great bunch of creative people and we had some amount of fun through all them years. Mad things happened. It was insane and brilliant but the world has changed. That world is gone.”
She also went on to recall the financial impact she faced, saying: “I don’t do the label anymore. It was my identity, I spent a long time doing it. It’s still really part of me but the whole impact was we just couldn’t afford to sign another artist. It just wasn’t able to happen anymore so that was really sad, to be honest.
“The label stopped in 2016 and that left a scar on me. I had a bit of a wobble because I thought people were looking at me. I had a crisis of consciousness because I was attacked for all of it as well. I was getting a lot of flack off the internet, messages to the office and photos of the office door – that was the scary one.”
Since his imprisonment, Watkins was reported to have been grooming a mother from his prison cell in 2017. The 21 year-old’s child was subsequently taken into care after social services were alerted of her contact with the disgraced singer.
‘We’re sickened,” said a spokesman from the NSPCC at the time. “It’s utterly bewildering that he could carry on grooming. It shows contempt for children he abused, and raises serious questions about supervision.”
Back in August 2023, The Mirror reported that Watkins was attacked and taken hostage by three other inmates on August 5. After he was found and freed by officers, he was taken to hospital.
Last month, it was reported that the attack was carried out by other inmates using a “sharpened toilet brush”, and was as a result of drug debt.