Inside Roger Waters’s Politics — Why His Views Spark So Much Controversy

As one of the founding members of Pink Floyd, Roger Waters quickly became a respected name in the music industry alongside his bandmates. But over the years, his political leanings have cast a dark cloud for some, pushing fans away from listening to or supporting him.

He’s become so consumed by his views that his former bandmate David Gilmour admitted in an interview with The Guardian that he’d never perform with him again. So, what exactly are Roger’s political views that have some people standing firmly behind him, and others wanting nothing to do with him?

Roger Waters, who hails from the United Kingdom, is widely seen as a socialist who advocates for causes that are tied to human rights. But, and this is a big but, he’s also faced plenty of criticism for both his political views and the way he incorporates them into his music.

In 2024, Roger shared a clip from a performance on his Facebook page with the caption: “Do not vote for Harris or Trump. They both support murdering children. They are both evil beyond all imagination. There is no lesser evil.” From that, we can assume how Roger feels about American politics right now.

When it comes to global politics, though, it’s Roger’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict that has really landed him in hot water. He’s reportedly a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, an international campaign that promotes nonviolent pressure on Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territories. In an October 2024 interview with TRT World, he even referred to the men and women in Palestine as his “brothers and sisters.”

But it’s precisely those views on Israel and Palestine that have sparked the harshest backlash, including from his former Pink Floyd bandmate David Gilmour.

Roger has been accused of antisemitism over his views on Israel and has written open letters to world leaders. In 2022, he penned one to Olena Zelenska, followed by another to Russian president Vladimir Putin, urging a ceasefire and “a diplomatic settlement that addressed the security needs of both Ukraine and the Russian Federation,” per The Independent.

In an interview with The Guardian, when asked if he would ever perform with Roger again, David replied, “absolutely not,” explaining, “I tend to steer clear of people who actively support genocidal and autocratic dictators like Putin and Maduro [president of Venezuela]. Nothing would make me share a stage with someone who thinks such treatment of women and the LGBT community is OK.”

During his 2024 interview with TRT World, Roger also made it clear that, politically, his ultimate goal “is trying to achieve the application of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),” which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in Paris on Dec. 10, 1948. He believes that applying it would end war “forever, everywhere.”

The UN document recognizes that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” So that’s Roger’s politics in a nutshell, and while many condemn him for his views, he still has plenty of supporters.