I have to admit that when I saw the title of this thread my reaction was also "who?" I read his Wikipedia entry and thought "silly boy" or words to that effect.

If you like him as a musician I suppose that you might put up with what seems to be just immature attention-seeking nonsense. Personally, having read about him first, I wouldn't bother to find out what his musicianship was like, so yes, for me the image of the person does influence me when I come across someone for the first time.

However, if he was musically brilliant, I could live with his stupidity; it's not as if he's a child-molester is it?