Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters’ scheduled performances in Poland were canceled Sunday, shortly after the politically vocal rocker sent a contentious open letter to Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska.
Waters implored Olena to ask her husband, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to take “a different route” in the war to “stop the slaughter” in Ukraine, and also rebuked the West for steadily providing weaponry to the Eastern European country, according to Reuters. Waters suggested that the United States government was interested in elongating the conflict in the letter as well.
TO QUOTE THE GREAT JOHN LENNON, “GIVE PEACE A CHANCE”
14th September 2022.
Roger Waters responds to Mrs. Olena Zelenska’s @ZelenskaUA Tweet of 6th of September.Read more: https://t.co/7gg7FEVXOC https://t.co/SF1offuOeE pic.twitter.com/G410Rbg4Fa
— Roger Waters (@rogerwaters) September 16, 2022
Rogers was booked to perform at Tauron Arena in the southern Polish city of Kraków.
City officials had previously penned a draft resolution dubbing the rocker a “persona non grata,” which Kraków city councilors were scheduled to vote on next week, according to The Associated Press. (RELATED: Pelosi Reads Poem From Rockstar Comparing Zelenskyy To St. Patrick)
An arena representative initially said that Waters’ management had canceled the show without offering a reason. Yet, the Polish arm of Live Nation and the Tauron Arena website stated that the venue itself had done so, according to the state-run Polish Press Agency.
Waters took to social media to claim that his camp were not the ones who canceled the gig:
HEY! ŁUKASZ WANTUCH, “LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE!”
Correction Roger Waters didn’t cancel Krakow Gigs.
To Nadeem Badshah at @guardiannews
And Anna Piatkowska at @gaz_krakowskaRead more: https://t.co/905kN3I53x pic.twitter.com/TvGgOaAp5Q
— Roger Waters (@rogerwaters) September 25, 2022
Waters recently raised eyebrows after telling a CNN reporter during an interview that “Taiwan is part of China.”