Huh: is Bilal Wahib back on Instagram?

It has been a while since Bilal Wahib was in the spotlight, and that is of course quite logical. Almost everything nowadays takes place on Instagram, and he and Mocro Maffia colleague Oussama Ahamoud were thrown off there. Why? I guess all of the Netherlands knows that, unless you've been living under a figurative rock for a while. If that's the case, here's a quick refresher: during a live session on Instagram, Bilal asked a minor boy to show his genitals in exchange for 17K. The boy did it, Bilal was arrested, and Instagram gave him a lifetime ban (Facebook did too, by the way). That's the shortest summary I can give you.

A few days after this happened, Bilal was briefly back on the Gram. At least, that's how it seemed. But it soon came to light that it was a case of identity fraud and that Bilal himself was not behind the account. That account was immediately deleted. Not that it had much impact, though: it had hardly any followers and was a private account.

But then suddenly last night the account b.ilalwahib went online. At the time of writing, it has 129K followers and — also not unimportant — at this moment the account has not been taken offline yet.

And is there anything to see? Certainly. There is only one (black) photo on the account, with a long statement from Bilal in the caption. If he is indeed the one behind the account, of course. ‘First of all, I apologize to everyone. My apologies to the child and to the family of the child that I have harmed online, I made the biggest mistake of my life, I not only got myself into trouble because I deserve to be boycotted and insulted.’ That’s how the caption begins, which was posted twelve hours ago.

He goes on to say that no one else is to blame here except for himself. That the boycott against Oussama is also unjustified, as he has nothing to do with it. And that the rumors that Oussama would have broken off with him because of this incident are also not true.

Finally, he writes: ‘I cannot give too much information about the situation between me and the family of the child whom I respect, but I will financially support the family for life for what the child is lacking.’

The reactions under the post are also quite mixed. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of talk about Sidney Smeets, a former member of the House of Representatives who resigned after it came out that he sent sexually charged messages to underage boys — by the way, he also openly supported the pedophile party Martijn in 2014 — who is being less publicly shamed than Bilal after his actions. But many followers also support him and write that ‘everyone can make mistakes’ and that ‘everyone deserves a second chance’. And lastly, of course, there are many people who do not believe that this is really Bilal: ‘clearly a fake account.’.

We will probably find out later in the day whether this is really Bilal or not, as the account will likely be suspended in no time. I actually suspect it’s fake, especially since he also ends with the words that questions can be emailed to his manager Nathan Moszkowicz. I can't imagine there is a manager who would approve of this? But then again, it wouldn’t surprise me if he just created another account.

You can tell: no boring start to the new week. Keep you updated.

UPDATE: The account has since been deleted.