Billy Joel Slams Donald Trump’s 2017 Charlottesville Speech in Documentary: ‘Nazis Are Not Good People’
The Piano Man shared his dismay over the president's comment about "very fine people on both sides."
Billy Joel may sing “my silence is my self-defense” on his Billboard Hot 100 No. 37 hit “And So It Goes,” but he’s not interested in remaining quiet about what he considers to be very wrong. The musician is once again condemning Donald Trump’s 2017 speech about the white nationalist’s Unite the Right rally that took place in Charlottesville, Va., in which the president said there were “some very fine people on both sides.”
In part two of his Billy Joel: And So It Goes documentary on HBO Max, the five-time Grammy winner says that while he “never liked getting political on stage,” there are situations about which he feels the need to speak out, and this is one of them.
“Sometimes, there are things that happen and you can’t just look away,” he said of wearing a Star of David on his suit during his Madison Square Garden concert’s encore a week after the rally in silent protest. “I had to do something. I was angry. Here they are marching through an American city saying, ‘Jews will not replace us.’ We fought a war to defeat these people! And then when Trump comes out and says, ‘There were very fine people on both sides,’ he should’ve come out and said, ‘Those are bad people,'” says the musician.
“There is no qualifying it. The Nazis are not good people. Period!” he adds in the two-part project. “And I was very angry, and I had to do something, but I didn’t want to get up on a soapbox on stage and say, ‘This is wrong,’ so I wore the star. But basically to say, no matter what, I will always be a Jew.”
The Aug. 11, 2017, Unite the Right rally saw right-wing groups and white nationalists clashing with counterprotestors, with Gov. Terry McAuliffe declaring a state of emergency and local officials calling it an “unlawful gathering.” James Alex Fields Jr., who CNN reported was a white supremacist from Ohio, purposefully drove his car through a group of counterprotestors, killing one woman and injuring dozens of others.
A federal appeals court ruled in July 2024 that white supremacist groups would have to pay $2 million in damages to people who suffered physical and emotional damages due to the rally.
In 2018, Joel explained during an interview with CBS Sunday Morning why wearing the Star of David at his MSG show was also personal. “My old man, his family got wiped out. They were slaughtered in Auschwitz. Him and his parents were able to get out,” he shared. “But then he was in the U.S. Army during the war and fought with Patton and was shot at by Nazis.”
He added at the time: “My family suffered. And I think I actually have a right to do that.”
Billy Joel: And So It Goes is available to stream on HBO Max. Part two arrives at 8 p.m. July 25.
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