Court Finds That Pink Floyd Bassist Roger Waters Defamed Filmmaker

I'm usually on the side of separating art from the artist. 

Sure, someone can do horrible things but you should still be able to listen to their song or watch their movies.

But I've got to say, Roger Waters — the legendary bass player for Pink Floyd and almost as legendary bad dude — is really pushing this compartmentalization habit of mine.

At this point in his life, the 81-year-old Waters seems hell-bent on taking that legacy he forged with his bandmates by turning into a crazy person who can't help but spew some of the most antisemitic, anti-Israel nonsense you'll find anywhere.

Well, it appears that this habit of his has caught up to him.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, a London high court has ruled that Waters made defamatory comments towards a documentary filmmaker during an interview with Al-Jazeera.

Rogers claimed during the interview that John Ware — the director behind the documentary The Dark Side Of Roger Waters — was  "cheerleading the genocide of Palestinians" and that the filmmaker was a "Zionist mouthpiece."

The documentary features interviews with people who have known Waters throughout his career, and if you've kept tabs on Waters' insanity over the years, then you know it wasn't flattering.

This must have gotten Roger fired up because he ripped the documentary on his website saying that it "indiscriminately mixes things I’m alleged to have said or done at different times and in different contexts, in an effort to portray me as an antisemite, without any foundation in fact." 

Dressing up like a Nazi? Defending Hamas and claiming that they haven't committed any war crimes?

I'm going to disagree and say that there's a foundation. Even the US State Department has condemned Waters' antics.

A judge has ruled that statements made by Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters made towards a documentary filmmaker were defamatory. (Getty Images)

But it was Waters' comments in that Al-Jazeera interview that led to the defamation suit against him. 

However, Waters tried to weasel his way out of this one by saying that he was voicing opinions, but the court wasn't buying it and decided that instead, these were statements of fact.

"The statements are defamatory of the claimant at common law," Justice Jennifer Eady wrote this week. "Although I would accept that the first defendant’s reference to a ‘genocide’ expressed his opinion as to what was happening as a result of the actions of Israeli forces in Gaza (to which he had already referred), in stating that the claimant positively supported that ‘genocide,’ I find he was making a statement of fact," Eady wrote.

This now means that the case will move to trial.