Former rock icon and current loony Eric Clapton doubled down on his COVID-19 trutherism in a conversation with noted anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on the latter’s podcast, The Defender.
As Clapton explained, holding anti-science beliefs has taken a toll on his mental health. “I thought I was going crazy,” he said, though he rationalized it with an acronym he found on the internet. “I think everybody I know has got, what do they call it? CAS [Covid Anxiety Syndrome], everybody I know is unsettled about it,” Clapton said. He added, “The lifesaving part of it was I’d found a group of people who were inviting me to talk about it because I couldn’t talk about it anywhere.”
In fact, Clapton feels more committed to this cause than ever before. “It’s funny, because they can say stuff about me, but I actually haven’t felt physical opposition,” Clapton said. “I’ve felt more support as a result of this than I ever did before about anything.”
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Granted, telling his fans that potentially life-saving vaccines are actually dangerous has had a profound effect on his relationships. “Over the last year, there’s been a lot of disappearing, a lot of dust around with people moving away quite quickly, and it does kind of refine the kind of friendships I have,” Clapton said. “It’s been difficult these last couple of years, especially with mainstream media turning. I had been inspired by Van [Morrison] because he came straight out and his reasoning was, ‘We have to make music for people.’”
Clapton continued, “He’s a crusader, he sees it as his calling. And I thought, ‘That’s right, people are not really acquainted with the idea that this is as important in their healing as any kind of medicine. The whole community thing of people with being together with music.’”
If you’ll recall, back in December 2020, Clapton and Morrison teamed up for the abominable anti-lockdown anthem “Stand and Deliver.” In the interview, Clapton recalled getting “flak” for the song, adding: “I couldn’t see what was so dangerous about it or risky, and especially since it was targeted at the UK government.”
Morrison, who was sued by Northern Ireland Health Minister over COVID-19 criticism, has been chafing at pandemic restrictions ever since they began, referring to socially-distanced concerts as “pseudo-science” and even releasing an anti-lockdown song series.
And it wouldn’t be a true anti-vax rant without some scoffs at mainstream media. Clapton then went on to dismiss Rolling Stone, who recently published an essay detailing the musician’s descent from vaccine skeptic to full-blown conspiracy theorist. “To come up to date with the new Rolling Stone kind of slur campaign, it becomes a compliment when it’s coming from certain areas of the media,” Clapton said. “It’s just an affirmation to me that I’ve been doing the right thing.”
Media aside, one of the people who has given Clapton flak about his anti-vax views is Brian May. “Anti-vax people, I’m sorry, I think they’re fruitcakes,” the Queen member said in a recent interview. “There’s plenty of evidence to show that vaccination helps. On the whole they’ve been very safe. There’s always going to be some side effect in any drug you take, but to go around saying vaccines are a plot to kill you, I’m sorry, that goes in the fruitcake jar for me.”
And Clapton’s already been eating his words: In September, he played a concert in a stadium that required proof of COVID vaccination, despite originally claiming he would boycott such venues.
