Ex-Pink Floyd rocker Roger Waters accused of 'antisemitism', Putin 'apologist'

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David Gilmour’s wife has accused his former Pink Floyd bandmate Roger Waters of being an anti-Semite.

Polly Samson claims that bassist Waters, 79, holds anti-Semitic views and is a “Vladimir Putin apologist,” and her guitarist husband Gilmour, 76, shared her message on Twitter along with the statement “every word demonstrably true.”

The author-and-lyricist – who worked with her husband on songs for Pink Floyd’s 1994 album The Division Bell – appeared to be responding to an interview Waters gave to a German newspaper, in which he defended some of Russia’s actions in the war with Ukraine.

Waters has previously referred to Putin as a gangster, and said in the new interview that the country had been provoked into invading Ukraine by the actions of NATO and the U.S.

Sharing a link to the article, he claimed over the weekend that it had been published “against the backdrop of the outrageous and despicable smear campaign by the ISRAELI LOBBY to denounce me as an ANTISEMITE, WHICH I AM NOT, NEVER HAVE BEEN and NEVER WILL BE (sic).”

Samson – whose father was a Jew who fled Nazi Germany – later alleged on Twitter: “Sadly @rogerwaters 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.”

In response, a statement on Waters’ Twitter page says he is “aware of the incendiary and wildly inaccurate comments made about him on Twitter by Polly Samson which he refutes entirely.”

The statement added: “He is currently taking advice as to his position.”

In 2022, Pink Floyd released their first new single in more than 25 years in support of the people of Ukraine.

The group recorded Hey Hey Rise Up on March 30 following the Russian invasion, with Gilmour – who has a Ukrainian daughter-in-law and grandchildren – Nick Mason, Guy Pratt and Nitin Sawhney teaming up with Andriy Khlyvnyuk, of the Ukrainian band Boombox, to record the track. The track features Andriy’s vocals from his performance of a protest song in Kyiv’s Sofiyskaya Square.

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Gilmour and Waters have been arguing for decades after the latter left the band in 1985 and tried to get the remaining members to officially dissolve the group.

Although they would later go onto appear on stage together a number of times in recent decades, they haven’t done so since 2011.

Back in 2014, Gilmour said: “We really don’t have that much in common anymore.”