THE STROKES - STROKES DIRECTOR TOOK HIS NAME OFF VIDEO OVER CUTS

The director of THE STROKES' controversial video for new single JUICEBOX decided to take his name off the promo after MTV forced him to make cuts.

MICHAEL PALMIERI is amazed by how much emphasis was placed on comments made by JULIAN CASABLANCAS shortly before shooting began, when The Strokes singer joked of a "groundbreaking" video that would challenge TV censors.

Palmieri writes on his website: "What MTV eventually forced me to take out caused the video's narrative to fall apart. It got so bad in fact that I took my name off the video.

"The censorship on this video has so many levels it's staggering. It began before we even started filming it, fuelled by a statement made by Julian in all good humour about the possibility of 'full frontal nudity' being in their next video and that 'MTV will never air it'.

"That comment created a buzz storm on the internet and started the narrowing-down process of what the video was going to be allowed to be in everyone's heads."

The uncut version of the Juicebox video can be seen on MichaelPalmieri.com.