Roger Waters has slammed U2‘s Bono over his onstage tribute to the victims of the Hamas-led attack on the Supernova music festival in Israel on Oct. 7, calling the U2 frontman an “enormous s–t.”
During one of U2’s residency performances at the Las Vegas Sphere on Oct. 8, Bono acknowledged the attack to the crowd, saying, “In the light of what’s happened in Israel and Gaza, a song about non-violence seems somewhat ridiculous, even laughable, but our prayers have always been for peace and for non-violence. But our hearts and our anger, you know where that’s pointed. So sing with us, and those beautiful kids at that music festival.”
While playing the song “Pride (In the Name of Love),” the singer changed the lyrics from “Early morning, April four / Shot rings out in the Memphis sky / Free at last, they took your life / They could not take your pride” to “Early morning, Oct. 7 / The sun is rising in the desert sky / Stars of David, they took your life / But they could not take your pride.”
What Did Roger Waters Say About Bono’s Tribute to the Victims of the Attack?
Waters — who has been repeatedly accused of antisemitism over the years, and by some of his own colleagues in a new documentary — bashed Bono’s tribute to the victims of the Oct. 7 attack during a new video interview with news outlet Al Jazeera.
“Anybody who knows Bono should go and pick him up by his ankles and shake him until he stops being a… S-H-I-T,” Waters said. “We have to start speaking to these people and say, ‘Your opinion is so disgusting and so degrading when you stand up for the Zionist entity.'”
“What [Bono] did a couple of weeks ago in the Sphere in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago, singing about the Stars of David, was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Recent Accusations of Antisemitism Against Roger Waters
In February of 2023, Polly Samson, wife of Pink Floyd‘s David Gilmour, tweeted at Waters, “Sadly… you are antisemitic to your rotten core. Also a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac. Enough of your nonsense.”
Gilmour stepped in and quoted her tweet, writing, “Every word demonstrably true.”
Waters acknowledged Samson’s claims in a post of his own, which read, “Roger Waters is aware of the incendiary and wildly inaccurate comments made about him on Twitter by Polly Samson which he refutes entirely. He is currently taking advice as to his position.”
Several weeks later, two German cities, Frankfurt and Munich, attempted to cancel shows that Waters was scheduled to play later in the year. Frankfurt’s city council said of the decision [via Planet Radio], “The background to the cancelation is the persistent anti-Israel behavior of the former Pink Floyd frontman, who is considered one of the most widely spread antisemites in the world.”
Munich also noted Waters’ antisemitic history, and further added that he spreads “conspiracy ideologies that justify Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine.”
Waters responded to the attempted cancellations in a statement on X and revealed that he had taken legal action over them.
“I want to state for the record and once and for all that I am not and never have been antisemitic and nothing that anyone can say or publish will alter that,” part of his statement read. “My well publicized views relate entirely to the policies and actions of the Israeli government and not with the peoples of Israel. Antisemitism is odious and racist and I condemn it, along with all forms of racism unreservedly.”
In late April, Frankfurt’s administrative court granted Waters the right to perform in the city, though they called certain aspects of his live performance “tasteless” as some of the imagery and symbols were related to the Nazi regime, according to The Guardian.
The city of Berlin opened an investigation on Waters the following month after he played a show at the city’s Mercedes-Benz Arena because of Nazi-like references during the performance. While playing The Wall track “In the Flesh?,” Waters wore a uniform that resembled that of a Nazi officer — the same uniform that Bob Geldof wore in the band’s 1982 film The Wall.
Waters has worn the outfit countless times onstage during his performance of “In the Flesh?” as a tribute to that particular scene in the film, but it’s illegal to evoke Nazi imagery and gestures in Germany.
“The context of the clothing worn is deemed capable of approving, glorifying or justifying the violent and arbitrary rule of the Nazi regime in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims and thereby disrupts public peace. After the conclusion of the investigation, the case will be forwarded to the Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office for legal assessment,” Martin Halweg, police chief inspector, said in a statement [via Jewish News].
A Documentary Recounts More Instances of Roger Waters’ Antisemitism
A documentary titled The Dark Side of Roger Waters was published by Campaign Against Antisemitism this past September, and features more of Waters’ colleagues detailing instances of antisemitic behavior by the musician throughout his career.
One of Waters’ former saxophone players, Norbert Statchel, spoke of a time where the Pink Floyd co-founder mocked his relatives who died in the Holocaust. He also recalled a time where he, Waters and a few other musicians went to a restaurant that served Lebanese cuisine, and Waters threw a fit after none of the dishes that came out contained meat.
“Roger kind of pushes [the dish] with his arm and he goes, ‘That’s it! That’s it! Where’s the meat? Where’s the meat? What’s with this? This is Jew food! What’s with the Jew food? Take away the Jew food!,” Statchel recalled.
READ MORE: How Roger Waters Fired His Own Son
Jewish producer Bob Ezrin, who worked on Pink Floyd’s The Wall, stated in the documentary, “Jewish people, almost universally, will stand up and say that they see Roger Waters’ actions as antisemitic [and] then he has to understand that whether he intends them to be or not, the effect of them is that.”
Waters, in turn, called the documentary “a flimsy, unapologetic piece of propaganda that indiscriminately mixes things I’m alleged to have said or done . . . in an effort to portray me as an antisemite, without any foundation in fact.”
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