Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters has reportedly been dropped by music rights company Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) over his inflammatory remarks about Israel, Ukraine and the United States.
The news was reported by Variety, which notes that Waters’ antisemitic statements “infuriated his former bandmates, as they have driven off several suitors interested in acquiring the wizening band’s recorded-music catalog, which was said to be on the market for half a billion dollars.”
The Berlin-based company signed a deal with Waters, 80, back in 2016 and planned to release a newly re-recorded version of Pink Floyd’s seminal 1973 album ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ in 2023, but the new CEO Thomas Coesfeld dropped the contract. The album was eventually released by the UK label Cooking Vinyl.
Since the start of the Israel Hamas war, Rogers has made multiple remarks that have been deemed antisemitic, and has been the subject of multiple controversies in recent years.
Waters, a longtime supporter of Palestine and a critic of Israel, has vehemently denied these accusations, but caused uproar last year after wearing a “Nazi-style” uniform onstage in Berlin.
Hellbound and Down 