Rocker Bryan Adams under fire for tweet about ‘bat eating, wet market animal selling, virus making greedy bastards’

Lyndsey Parker
·Editor in Chief, Yahoo Music
Updated ·4 min read

UPDATE: This story was updated Tuesday morning to include Bryan Adams’s apology.

Eighties rock star Bryan Adams was under fire Monday night after he posted a bizarre social media rant about the coronavirus that many perceived to be racist.

“Tonight was supposed to be the beginning of a tenancy of gigs at the @royalalberthall, but thanks to some f***ing bat eating, wet market animal selling, virus making greedy bastards, the whole world is now on hold, not to mention the thousands that have suffered or died from this virus. My message to them other than ‘thanks a f***ing lot’ is go vegan,” Adams captioned an Instagram video of him acoustically performing his 1983 hit “Cuts Like a Knife.”

The comments on Adams’s Instagram were largely sympathetic, at least at first — but the singer also shared the tirade on Twitter, where it stirred up more outrage. Seemingly blaming the pandemic on China (where the coronavirus is believed to have originated) for selling live animals and consuming meat, Adams quickly became a top trending Twitter topic.

Presumably reacting to the backlash, Adams later deleted his tweet. However, as of this writing, his post is still up on Instagram with the angry caption intact (although commenting has been disabled). On Tuesday, Adams posted a new acoustic performance, of “Into the Fire,” to Instagram, with an apology in the caption.

“Apologies to any and all that took offence to my posting yesterday,” Adams wrote. “No excuse, I just wanted to have a rant about the horrible animal cruelty in these wet-markets being the possible source of the virus, and promote veganism. I have love for all people and my thoughts are with everyone dealing with this pandemic around the world. Here’s the appropriately titled song that would have been performed tonight at the @royalalberthall.”

Countless people on Twitter have called out Adam for his nastiness, self-centeredness, or even blatant xenophobia, although some fans have defended him as well.

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