Roger Waters Considering Legal Action After David Gilmour’s Wife Calls Him ‘Misogynistic Putin Apologist’

New from the “tell us how you really feel” department, Pink Floyd vocalist/guitarist David Gilmour‘s wife Polly Samson has lashed out on Twitter at former member Roger Waters, calling him a “misogynistic Putin puppet” and an antisemite. Gilmour poured gasoline on the flames by separately tweeting that “every word” of Samson’s message was “demonstrably true.” In response, Waters, 79, says he is considering potential legal action.

Although the Gilmour and Waters camps have been feuding one and off for more than 40 years, the latest trouble apparently started Sunday (Feb. 5) after Waters posted an English translation on his web site of an interview with the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung. Asked for his opinion of Pink Floyd’s 2022 protest song about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “Hey Hey Rise Up!!,” which features Ukrainian musician Andriy Khlyvnyuk and was its first new track since 1994, he said the following:

More from Spin:

• Pink Floyd Dips Into the Archives for 50th Anniversary Dark Side of the Moon Set

• Roger Waters Unveils Studio Version of Revamped ‘Comfortably Numb’

• Roger Waters Defends Russia and China: ‘Who Have the Chinese Invaded and Slaughtered?’

“I have seen the video, and I am not surprised, but I find it really, really sad. It’s so alien to me. This action is so lacking in humanity. It encourages the continuation of the war. Pink Floyd is a name I used to be associated with. That was a huge time in my life, a very big deal. To associate that name now with something like this … proxy war makes me sad. I mean, they haven’t made the point of demanding, ‘Stop the war, stop the slaughter, bring our leaders together to talk!’ It’s just this content-less waving of the blue and yellow flag. I wrote in one of my letters to the Ukrainian teenager Alina: I will not raise a flag in this conflict, not a Ukrainian flag, not a Russian flag, not a U.S. flag.”

Waters has always been vocal about his political opinions, but many feel he has crossed the line by including President Joe Biden in a montage of war criminals during the This Is Not a Drill tour and comparing the Israeli government to that of Nazi Germany for its handling of the border crisis with Palestine. Vis-a-vis the Russia/Ukraine conflict, he has blamed NATO for stoking the deadly violence and criticized Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky for not pursuing a diplomatic solution.

It was all apparently too much for Samson, a writer who has contributed lyrics to some post-Waters Pink Floyd songs in the 1990s and beyond. “Sadly @rogerwaters you are antisemitic to your rotten core,” she wrote. “Also a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac. Enough of your nonsense.”

“Roger Waters is aware of the incendiary and wildly inaccurate comments made about him on Twitter by Polly Samson which he refutes entirely,” reads a Twitter reply from Waters’ account. “He is currently taking advice as to his position.”

Chronicling the bad blood between Waters and Gilmour would fill a lengthy book, but in brief: Waters was pushed out of Pink Floyd in a battle for creative control after 1979’s The Wall and subsequently only performed once with Gilmour and other founding members Rick Wright and Nick Mason, at 2005’s Live 8. The musicians reportedly now communicate through third parties when required to for Pink Floyd-related business.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.

The post Roger Waters Defends Russia and China: ‘Who Have the Chinese Invaded and Slaughtered?’ appeared first on SPIN.