{"id":24563,"date":"2025-07-26T07:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T07:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/24563\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T07:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T07:07:09","slug":"billy-joel-reveals-moment-he-couldnt-stay-silent-on-trump-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/24563\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Joel Reveals Moment He Couldn\u2019t Stay Silent on Trump Anymore"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billy Joel decided to finally break his silence on Donald Trump when he heard the president call neo-Nazis \u201cfine people,\u201d he revealed in the new HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Joel says in the doc\u2019s second installment, airing Friday night on HBO, that he was \u201cangry\u201d to hear the president\u2019s response<\/a> to 2017\u2019s white supremacist Unite the Right rally<\/a>, where one person died and several were injured. <\/p>\n

\"NeoCHARLOTTESVILLE, USA – AUGUST 11: Peter Cvjetanovic (R) along with Neo Nazis, Alt-Right, and White Supremacists encircle and chant at counter protestors at the base of a statue of Thomas Jefferson after marching through the University of Virginia campus with torches in Charlottesville, Va., USA on August 11, 2017. (Photo by Samuel Corum\/Anadolu Agency\/Getty Images) Anadolu\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cHere they are marching through an American city saying, \u2018Jews will not replace us.\u2019 We fought a war to defeat these people!\u201d adds Joel, who is Jewish. \u201cAnd when Trump comes out and says, \u2018There were very fine people on both sides\u2026He should\u2019ve come out and said, \u2018Those are bad people.\u2019 There is no qualifying it. The Nazis are not good people. Period.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Grammy-winning musician was so angered by the comments that he took his first ever political stance onstage\u2014by simply wearing a Star of David on his coat as he performed at his Madison Square Garden concert weeks later. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had to do something, but I didn\u2019t want to get up on a soap box on stage and say, \u2018This is wrong,\u2019\u201d he explains of the choice in the film. \u201cSo I wore the star. But basically to say, no matter what, I will always be a Jew.\u201d Trump attempted to walk back<\/a> his 2017 comments the following year, but it did little to soften Joel\u2019s opinion on him.<\/p>\n

\"BillyNEW YORK, NY – AUGUST 21: EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE: Billy Joel wears a jacket with the Star of David during the encore of his 43rd sold out show at Madison Square Garden on August 21, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Myrna M. Suarez\/Getty Images) Myrna M. Suarez\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

The five-time Grammy winner told Rolling Stone<\/a> in 2019 that Trump\u2019s \u201cfine people\u201d comments were \u201cbulls–t,\u201d as he recalled being \u201cp—ed off\u201d at the time. \u201cThere\u2019s no fine Nazis. My father\u2019s generation fought a war to put an end to Nazism,\u201d he said, \u201cso this president missed the boat. He had a great chance to say something meaningful and he blew it.\u201d He also explained at the time why he\u2019s \u201cnot a big fan\u201d of Trump\u2019s. <\/p>\n

\u201cHis father was rich and gave him a lot of money. I don\u2019t know how much empathy he actually has for people who don\u2019t live that kind of life.\u201d That said, he insisted that getting \u201cpolitically involved\u201d was not his lane. \u201cI find a lot of people resent celebrities touting their candidate. That can actually turn more people off than it can bring more people in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joel expresses similar thoughts in And So It Goes. \u201cI\u2019ve never liked getting political onstage,\u201d he says, \u201cPeople want to get away from a lot of that stuff, I realized that.\u201d But the Nazi comments were more than he could take, he explains, since \u201csometimes there are things that happen and you can\u2019t just look away.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Billy Joel decided to finally break his silence on Donald Trump when he heard the president call neo-Nazis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[9494,6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-24563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-billy-joel","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}