Legendary rock stars David Gilmour and Roger Waters, formerly of Pink Floyd, escalated their decades-long feud with a dispute about the Ukraine war.
Gilmour’s wife, lyricist Polly Samson, accused Waters of being “anti-semitic” to his “rotten core” in a tweet Monday. “Also a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac,” Samson said.
Every word demonstrably true https://t.co/KWk4I3bMTN
— David Gilmour (@davidgilmour) February 6, 2023
Gilmour agreed with her and tweeted “[e]very word demonstrably true” about Waters, a longtime progressive activist. Waters tweeted an official statement saying “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.”
Waters recently conducted an interview with a German news outlet about his political stances, where he questioned U.S. assistance to Ukraine in its war against Russia. (RELATED: Putin Promised He Won’t Kill Zelensky, Former Israeli PM Naftali Bennett Claims)
“The most important reason for supplying arms to Ukraine is surely profit for the arms industry. And I wonder: is Putin a bigger gangster than Joe Biden and all those in charge of American politics since World War II,” Waters said.
He believes Russian President Putin’s “special military operation” against Ukraine was launched to stop a genocide of Russian-speaking populations in Ukraine’s Donbas region and to root Nazis out of Ukraine. Putin has repeatedly invoked Nazism to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a country whose president is Jewish.
Waters believes western populations are “brainwashed” and Putin’s invasion is the “most provoked invasion ever.” Later in the interview, Waters said Israel is “committing genocide” against Palestinians and defended comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.
He also criticized Pink Floyd’s April 2022 single with Ukrainian musician Andriy Khlyvnyuk. The single has raised $450,000 to assist the Ukrainian people as of December 2022, the band said. Gilmour has a Ukrainian flag in his Twitter profile picture and his daughter-in-law is Ukrainian, according to Politico.
Waters and Gilmour have been feuding for decades, ever since Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 over creative differences. Waters launched a legal campaign to dissolve Pink Floyd after he left, which Gilmour opposed because the band was still making new music.
Pink Floyd ended up reunited for a blockbuster concert in 2005. Waters and Gilmour later came together for a charity benefit in 2010. Another Pink Floyd reunion is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
