Being harassed online is no joking matter, especially when the harasser is someone with a large and dedicated following. Recently the Daily Beast ran a story highlighting one of the more head scratching cases of public harassment we’ve seen in a minute, involving none other than the harmonica-playing frontman John Popper of the popular ’90s group Blues Traveller.
Apparently, Popper has, on multiple occasions, publicly shared the personal information of someone named Forrest Rutherford, even going so far as to crop images of his home from Google Maps and post them to his Twitter account. “The Rutherford home in Versailles KY,” Popper wrote in one Tweet with the image of a house. “I can only assume his parents are tied up in the basement2afford him rent.”
“One of [Blues Traveler’s] fans was threatening to call the Zetas on me, to send them to my house,” Rutherford told the Daily Beast. “What gang member is like, ‘I better head to Kentucky because this guy is giving Blues Traveler sh*t?’”
Apparently this all goes back to an online war of words between the two men that kicked off sometime in 2014, but had dampened in the years since. “It’s never, ever been this way from my end, where I posted his personal info or said anything threatening,” Rutherford said. “You can call him a washed-up rock star or a f*cking idiot, but it’s nothing along the lines of what has happened to me.”
Though nothing has happened to Rutherford or his family yet as a result of Popper’s doxing efforts, the dangers are real. “Truth is stranger than fiction,” Rutherford said. “It’s a good story, as long as I don’t get hurt or anything.”
