Roger Waters accused of using antisemitic language by Pink Floyd producer
Legendary Pink Floyd producer Bob Ezrin among those interviewed in documentary about Waters’ inflammatory behaviour
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Your support makes all the difference.Former Pink Floyd star Roger Waters made up a song in which he referred to his agent as a “f***ing Jew”, a new documentary has alleged.
The Dark Side of Roger Waters includes a number of extraordinary and disturbing claims by those who have worked with the controversial Floyd co-founder and bassist, including Bob Ezrin, the acclaimed co-producer behind the band’s 1979 album The Wall.
One musician, saxophonist Norbert Stachel, claimed that Waters once angrily pushed away a dish served to him in a Lebanese restaurant, referring to it as “Jew food”, and did a crude impersionation of his grandmother as “a Polish peasant woman”.
Emails purportedly sent by Waters ahead of his 2010 tour claimed to show him asking about having antisemitic slurs written on a giant inflatable pig that would be flown over the audience during his concerts.
The documentary, which was produced by London-based charity Campaign Against Antisemitism and presented by investigative journalist John Ware, was released on Wednesday evening (27 September) on the CAA’s social media platforms.
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Waters, 80, has come under fire on a number of occasions for making inflammatory remarks about Israel. He has vehemently denied he is an antisemite. The documentary’s producers said he did not respond to their requests for comment.
Ezrin, who is Jewish, alleged that he heard Waters use antisemitic slurs. The ditty he accused Waters of composing was about Pink Floyd’s agent, Bryan Morrison.
“Something like the last line of the couplet was ‘ ‘cause Morry is a f***ing Jew’. It was my first inclination that there may be some antisemitism under the surface,” Ezrin, 74, said in the documentary.
“Now Roger knew that I’m Jewish so I didn’t know whether this was another one of those sort of button-poking things that he was doing just to see if I would react or whether he just did not even get how offensive that might be to a Jewish person.”
Stachel recalled the moment that Waters discovered he was from a Jewish family from Poland and Minsk, and had a number of relatives who were murdered during the Holocaust.
Waters allegedly responded: “Oh, I can help you feel like you are meeting your long-lost relatives. I’ll introduce you to your dead grandmother. I can do a good Polish peasant imitation, an impression of a Polish peasant woman.”
“He tried to go into character as a babushka and he puts on this impression of an old hag. He tries to portray a Polish Jewish peasant woman’s voice,” Stachel claimed.
“What got me is after he does this he goes: ‘Now you’ve met your grandmother, how do you feel now?’ He knew that I wouldn’t challenge him on it because I wanted his money and I wanted his gig. A power thing, that’s all, and an arrogance thing. Maybe an evil thing.”
Ezrin, who has known Waters for decades, called Waters a “brilliant songwriter and poet”, whom he viewed as both a musical partner and a friend.
“There were times when he was really tender and very sweet, and I loved the man, I did,” he said. “Part of me still loves him; part of me is very upset with him for positions he’s taking in the public that affect me as a Jew, and affect my people, and my family, and my friends. And I feel that’s why I have to do this interview and speak about it publicly.”
In May this year, Waters caused uproar in Germany after dressing in an outfit resembling a Nazi SS office during his live shows, while also projecting the name of Anne Frank on a giant screen.
Unearthed emails shown in the documentary purport to detail how Waters dealt with disagreements over his use of the troubling imagery, some of which appeared during his 2010 world tour.
He apparently wanted to write antisemitic insults and symbols including swastikas on the pig, such as “dirty kike” and “follow the money”. “Kike” is an derogatory slur used against Jewish people. The word was apparently dropped by Waters after protests from his lighting director at the time, who was Jewish.
“Do I think he considers himself to be an antisemite?” Ezrin said in the documentary. “I’ll bet you dollars for doughnuts he does not and he will be the first person to say: ‘I’m not anti anything, I am in favour of everyone.’
“But as a person with a powerful public platform he has a responsibility to understand that what he does affects other people and so he may not be one but he walks like one, he quacks like one, he swims like one so from my point of view he’s functionally a duck.”
Others in the documentary suggested that Water’s comments were the result of either arrogance, ignorance, bullying behaviour or “nascent antisemitism”.
Gideon Falter, chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “Roger Waters is literally a rock star. He could do anything. He’s got this platform which allows him to influence tens of thousands of people at his concerts, millions of people via social media, and yet he keeps using it for this — to push the buttons of Jews, to bait Jews, to keep on coming back to Jews. What kind of a person does that with that kind of a voice?”
In June, Waters called out his former bandmate David Gilmour’s wife, author Polly Samson, during a performance at the O2 Arena in London. Samson, who has also written lyrics for Pink Floyd, has previously accused Waters of antisemitism in a post from her Twitter/X account.
“All I have to say about Polly Samson is: imagine waking up to that every morning,” Waters said, apparently referring to Gilmour.
He previously responded on his official Twitter/X account, saying he was “aware of the incendiary and wildly inaccurate comments made about him on Twitter by Polly Samson which he refutes entirely”
Waters has repeatedly claimed that allegations of antisemitism made against him are an attempt to undermine his stance on Israel.
The Independent has contacted Waters’ representative for comment.