Roger Waters tells Tucker Carlson pro-Israel lobby groups got him banned from South American hotels
Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters has claimed that pro-Israel lobby groups stopped him from being able to stay in South American hotels on his last tour.
In late 2023, Waters performed a series of dates in Brazil, as well as shows in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Ecuador.
Waters’ tour was marred with accusations of antisemitism, which the musician has always vehemently denied. His concert in Frankfurt was cancelled before he won a legal ruling for the show to go ahead, as well as two performances that he had lined up in Poland, which were axed following comments he made about Ukraine.
During his ‘This Is Not A Drill’ tour, Waters was investigated by Berlin police for briefly wearing what looked to be an SS uniform and pretending to fire a rifle during part of his set during his concert.
He also seemingly compared the deaths of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and Anne Frank by putting both of their names on a screen behind him during the performance.
In light of criticism, Waters maintained that his performance was to express “opposition to fascism”.
Now, speaking to former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, Waters was asked about reports that he’d had issues with hotels, to which he replied, “That didn’t start happening until 2023, which was the last big tour I did, both in Europe and in South America.”
He added, “South America, particularly, I couldn’t find a hotel to stay anywhere in Buenos Aires, or in Colombia, or in Ecuador.”
Carlson then asked, “You couldn’t stay in a hotel in Ecuador, Colombia or Argentina because you criticised Israel?” to which Waters said, “Yes,” before saying that he also couldn’t find a hotel in Montevideo, Uruguay.
The former Pink Floyd musician added, “We did actually stay in a hotel in Quito in Ecuador for one night but they had to pretend I wasn’t there, you couldn’t make it up, could you?”
Waters then claimed, “There is an Israeli lobby that is very organised in all of those places, and they may well be in other cities in the world as well, certainly in many other cities.”
After bringing up the incidents in Poland and Germany, Waters then said this was due to him “being against genocide, and they’re not, they are in favour of it.”
Previously, in 2023, Waters did make this same claim while on tour in South America, telling Argentinian publication Pagina 12 (via The Times of Israel), “Somehow these idiots of the Israeli lobby managed to co-opt all the hotels in Buenos Aires and Montevideo and organised this extraordinary boycott based on the malicious lies… about me.”
Waters was also accused of being antisemitic by his former Pink Floyd bandmate David Gilmour in 2023, whose wife, Polly Samson, wrote on social media, “Sadly Roger Waters 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.”
Gilmour endorsed Samson’s message, writing in response to her post, “Every word demonstrably true.”
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