Pink Floyd Feud Spreads Through Audience As Roger Waters And David Gilmour Go At It

The already sour relationship between former Pink Floyd bandmates Roger Waters and David Gilmour seemed to take an irreparable turn on Monday.

Gilmour’s wife, novelist and lyricist Polly Samson, tweeted accusing Waters of being “antisemitic to your rotten coreand called him a “Putin apologist and liar, thief, hypocrite, tax evader, lip-synch, misogynist, envy-sick, megalomaniac.”

It’s unclear what prompted the post, but it may be an interview Waters gave to German newspaper Berliner Zeitung in which he said he stood by comments comparing the Modern Israel to Nazi Germany for its treatment of the Palestinians, accused the Israelis of genocide and defended its boycott of the nation.

Waters, who left Pink Floyd nearly 40 years ago, also wrote on his website that the ‘Israel lobby’ is trying to silence him via a ‘despicable smear campaign’ as he insists that he is not an anti-Semite.

He also has posted another message in reply to Samsoncalling his comments “inflammatory and wildly inaccurate”, and hinted that he was considering legal action.

Gilmour, who posts only very occasionally on social media, fired back later that day with a tweet saying his wife was only delivering the basic facts:

Waters is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement which targets Israel for the treatment of Palestinians. Some argue that his words and actions crossed the line into anti-Semitism, which Waters angrily denied.

Waters also defended Russian President Vladimir Putin, criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and called US President Joe Biden a war criminal for the war in Ukraine.

His former bandmates, on the other hand, reunited last year to release a single under the name Pink Floyd in support of Ukraine. “Hey, hey, get up!” features the vocals of Andriy Khlyvnyuk from Ukrainian band BoomBox as well as a Ukrainian choir.

In his new interview, Waters called the band “really, really sad” and “lacking in humanity” because of the move.

Waters had a famously controversial relationship with the other members of Pink Floyd even when he was in the band. He eventually left the band after “The Final Cut” was released in 1983, then went to court to stop other members from using the band’s name.

This was eventually settled out of court and the band continued without him.

There’s been little romance between them since, but Waters and Gilmour have shared the stage a few times, including a one-off Pink Floyd reunion in 2005 for Live 8, a global event to help alleviate poverty.

Waters and Gilmour are joined there by Nick Mason on drums and Richard Wright on keyboards, both founding members of Floyd.

Wright died three years later.

Waters has just completed a solo tour in the United States and is coming to Europe in the spring. Gilmour has done a few live streams from home during the pandemic, but hasn’t toured since 2016, when he traveled solo. Mason has toured with his own band, Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets, which focuses on early Pink Floyd songs.