'I am living in a Kafka novel': A Welsh Town Councillor explains how online rumors he's Banksy made him resign

• A Town Councillor in Wales resigned after a rumor spread that he is the artist Banksy.
• William Gannon said he's received calls asking if he is Banksy, and someone in a van shouted at him.

A Town Councillor for a tiny town in Wales resigned last week after rumors circulated online that he is the internationally acclaimed street artist Banksy, whose real identity is unknown.

Until recently, William "Billy" Gannon was a Town Councillor in Pembroke Dock, a town in Southwest Wales with a population of around 9,000. The 58-year-old was one of 10 councillors for the town, specifically representing the Bufferland neighborhood. But he resigned on Friday, writing in an email to the Pembroke Dock Town Clerk that he didn't want the Banksy allegation to undermine his work as a councillor.

Gannon told Insider the rumor began to spread shortly after he was elected unopposed to be a councillor in early May. He claimed the rumor was spread by a former Pembroke Dock councillor who compiled extensive information about Gannon's history and linked it to Banksy's.

Gannon began to hear that some townspeople believed the Banksy allegation, which had been shared on local social media pages.

"I don't know if I'm in some mad, fantastic kind of delusion or some dreadful nightmare," Gannon told Insider. "I am living in a Kafka novel."

Gannon has long worked as a community artist painting children's playgrounds, hospital walls, and other edifices. As a UK street artist, Gannon said some comparisons may have emerged because he was "running around at the same time as Banksy, doing the same things as they were doing, in the same places."

In addition, Gannon has a website where he shares his art, which he called "Banksy-esque, not intentionally." The page includes a picture of him from the 1980s spray-painting a skateboard ramp. The photo has led some to believe that he's the famed street artist, he said, but he refuses to take the picture down "out of principle."

"I'm not Banksy," Gannon insisted. "I don't know if I have ever met Banksy. Banksy is an enigma."

The online allegations that he is the artist, whose works have sold for as much as $25 million, intensified earlier this month. A local park—its benches, garbage bins, and doorways—was tagged "very amateurishly" with graffiti, Gannon said. The graffiti coincided with the rumors about Gannon, leading to people accusing him of being behind the incident.

After the tagging in the park, Gannon said he spoke with his Town Council colleagues and decided to step down from his post.

"As the town's reputation had been dragged through the mud by controversial counselors before," Gannon said, "it was felt that it would be best if we did not have another controversial counselor in office."

Pembroke Dock's Town Clerk Sarah Scourfield confirmed Gannon's resignation to Insider and said it was due to the Banksy allegations.

"William Gannon was an active Councillor for Pembroke Dock and good at his role," Scourfield said. "It's a shame he had to resign over this issue."

But Gannon's resignation has unintentionally made the wave of Banksy allegations worse. Gannon said he's recently received multiple phone calls from strangers asking him "roundabout questions" about the park and the graffiti incident. His Facebook is blowing up to the point where new message windows can't fit on his screen. He was also walking his dog on Monday, he said, when someone he had never seen before drove past him in a van and shouted, "Ayy Up, Banksy!"

To combat the Banksy allegations, Gannon said he's organizing a local town movement he calls "I am not Banksy." Using a badge-making machine, he plans to manufacture as many wearable badges that say "I Am NOT Banksy" as possible and spread them around town. He said he doesn't want Pembroke Dock to become divided into "Banksy" and "not Banksy" factions.

"I've got some people on Facebook who are rallying to this now," he said. "I'm hoping that if we can all identify that I am not Banksy, then this sting loses its poison."