Most people don’t cause international incidents by visiting graves.
But Wiz Khalifa isn’t most people. The hip hop artist provoked an outcry when he shared photos of himself in Medellin, Colombia, at the grave of notorious cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar who was gunned down by authorities in 1993.
Khalifa is pictured near Escobar’s grave (the subject of the Netflix series Narcos) in several Instagram posts. He’s also smoking what is presumably something other than a cigarette.
Another photo shows Escobar’s headstone. A hefty marijuana spliff appears to be tucked into some flowers.
This has not gone down well with many Colombians, who don’t view Escobar as a sympathetic outlaw but as a bloodthirsty murderer responsible for countless deaths.
“It shows that this guy has never had to suffer from the violence inflicted by these drug traffickers,” said Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez, reports Colombia’s Il Tiempo newspaper.
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Gutierrez called Khalifa “a scoundrel” who should not return to the country until he apologizes. He suggested that, instead of bringing flowers to Escobar’s grave, he should have placed flowers on the graves of the thousands of victims of Escobar’s reign of violence during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Comments on Khalifa’s post vary, with some defending him and others condemning him.
“I do not want this character in my city,” Instagrammer @isagonzalez82 wrote.
Khalifa has yet to comment on the controversy.