Pink Floyd's David Gilmour Calls Roger Waters Antisemitic to His 'Rotten Core'

The ongoing feud between Pink Floyd guitarist, co-lead vocalist David Gilmour and former frontman Roger Waters became intensely personal this week when the former called the latter antisemitic to his “rotten core” along with other unsavory descriptors.

Pink Floyd fans have been aware of the rift between Gilmour and Waters going back to the early-1980s, which culminated in Waters leaving the band he helped build and losing a lawsuit to prevent them from using the Pink Floyd name without him. Though Gilmour and Waters have joined together for a few performances over the decades, they have never been able to bury the hatchet between them. On Monday, the chasm between the two rock legends arguably widened beyond repair when Gilmour personally attacked Waters’ character.

The drama began when Gilmour’s wife, Polly Samson, who helped write several songs for Pink Floyd after Waters left the band, publicly accused the former frontman of being an antisemitic Putin apologist. Gilmour not only liked her tweet but publicly endorsed it.

“Sadly @rogerwaters you are antisemitic to your rotten core,” wrote Samson. “Also a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac. Enough of your nonsense.”

Gilmour retweeted the post and said, “Every word demonstrably true.”

Waters has boasted hard-left anti-Israel views for years, accusing the Jewish state of pushing Nazi politics while downplaying crimes committed by Palestinians and advising other musicians to join him in boycotting the country. Last year, he not only voiced pro-Russia sentiments following the invasion of Ukraine but also claimed that China had every right to encircle and threaten Taiwan’s sovereignty.

“Taiwan is part of China. That has been absolutely accepted by the whole of [sic] international community since 1948. If you don’t know that you aren’t reading enough…. You are believing your side’s propaganda. You can’t have a conversation about human rights and Taiwan without actually doing the reading,” he said.

Waters, an atheist, also denied that China commits human rights abuses. He called such claims “Bullocks!”

The official Roger Waters Twitter account later responded to the claims made by both Sampson and Gilmour, calling them “wildly inaccurate.”

“Roger Waters is aware of the incendiary and wildly inaccurate comments made about him on Twitter by Polly Samson which he refutes entirely,” the post said. “He is currently taking advice as to his position.”