Roger Waters email reveals he wanted to write ‘Dirty kyke’ on inflatable pig
The musician also planned for his audience to be “bombed” with swastika and Star of David-shaped confetti, a new documentary produced by Campaign Against Antisemitism reveals.
Richard Ferrer has been editor of Jewish News since 2009. As one of Britain's leading Jewish voices he writes for The Times, Independent, New Statesman and many other titles. Richard previously worked at the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, edited the Boston Jewish Advocate and created the Channel 4 TV series Jewish Mum Of The Year.
Musician Roger Waters wanted to write the obscene antisemitic slur “Dirty kyke” on an inflatable pig at his concerts and spray audiences with confetti in the shape of swastikas and Stars of David.
The former Pink Floyd star’s sick plans – openly expressed in his own words in an email to colleagues ahead of a 2010 concert tour – are exposed today in a devastating 30-minute online documentary entitled The Dark Side Of Roger Waters.
Waters’ email, dated 25 March 2010, reads: “Hey Guys. Who’s going to make pig?… I imagine it black with crossed hammers logo as 1980, but covered with symbols from Goodbye Blue Sky, crosses, Stars of David (that’s King David not David Gilmour) crescent and star, dollar signs, Shell Oil shell, etc and epithets, ‘my pig right or wrong’ ‘f*** you’ ‘no, f*** you’, ‘dirty kyke’ ‘follow the money’ ‘Scum?’ etc. Roger.”
The documentary, produced by Campaign Against Antisemitism and presented by BBC Panorama journalist John Ware, also features interviews with Norbert Statchel, Waters’ former saxophonist, and legendary music producer Bob Ezrin, who produced Pink Floyd’s celebrated album The Wall, as well as hits for U2 and Taylor Swift.
Among various incidents, Statchel claims Waters lost his temper over vegetarian food at a restaurant and demanded that waiters “Take away the Jew food”, that Waters mocked his grandmother who was murdered in the Holocaust and that a colleague warned him not to react if he wanted to keep his job.
Ezrin, meanwhile, recounts an incident in which Waters sung him an impromptu ditty about then agent Bryan Morrison, the last couplet of which ended with words to the effect of “Cos Morri is a f***ing Jew”.
Gideon Falter, chief executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “Roger Waters has repeatedly used his enormous platform to bait Jews, but he always claims that he is not antisemitic. We believed that there was further evidence out there to the contrary, and the release of The Dark Side of Roger Waters now puts the evidence we obtained in the hands of the public.
“It is hard to imagine a rockstar emblazoning the N-word above their concerts, but Mr Waters demanded that his crew do exactly that with the K-word. Not only that, but he seems to have spent time humiliating and harassing his Jewish staff. One cannot help but watch this film and wonder what kind of person uses their power to this effect. Is Roger Waters an antisemite? Now people can make up their own minds.”
Waters, who is due to perform at the London Palladium on 8 and 9 October, has long denied he is antisemitic, despite his habit of offending Jews around the world, often appearing to stray beyond his support for Palestinian rights.
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VOICE OF THE JEWISH NEWS: Roger Waters’ dark side revealed
In July, the world’s biggest Jewish organisations signed an open letter calling on Bertelsmann Music Group to end its relationship with Waters. In it, the signatories took issue with Waters’ performance in Germany in May, when he donned a Nazi-like uniform and compared Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian journalist killed covering the conflict, to Anne Frank.
The US State Department said that Waters’ recent concerts “contained imagery deeply offensive to Jewish people and minimized the Holocaust” and that he has “a long track record of using antisemitic tropes to denigrate Jewish people”.
Waters defended his appearance as a fascist demagogue at his concerts, adding that Anne Frank “became a permanent reminder of what happens when fascism is left unchecked”.
In a statement earlier this year, he said he had been the subject of “bad faith attacks from those who want to smear and silence me because they disagree with my political views and moral principles”.
Watch the documentary The Dark Side Of Roger Waters HERE
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