Watching the violence unfold, and hearing then-President Donald Trump say there were “very fine people on both sides”, was the last straw for the musician.
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Music legend Billy Joel has opened up about a powerful moment when he felt compelled to take a stand against Donald Trump, quietly but clearly, against something he couldn’t ignore.
In the second part of his HBO docuseries ‘Billy Joel: And So It Goes,’ the singer shared that while he usually avoids politics on stage, one particular event pushed him to speak up in his own way.
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Joel admitted, “I’ve never liked getting political onstage,” but things changed after the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The “Unite the Right” event, which saw demonstrators marching through the streets chanting slogans like “Jews will not replace us,” left him shocked and furious.
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Watching the violence unfold, and hearing then-President Donald Trump say there were “very fine people on both sides”, was the last straw for the musician.
“We fought a war to defeat these people,” Joel said, referring to the Nazis. “There is no qualifying it. Nazis are not good people. Period.”
Instead of giving a speech or writing a statement, Joel chose a different route. At his next concert at Madison Square Garden, he wore a Star of David on his jacket.
“I had to do something,” he explained. “But I didn’t want to get up on a soapbox on stage. So I wore the star. To basically say, no matter what, I will always be a Jew.”
This wasn’t the first time Joel spoke out about that period. In a 2018 interview with CBS News, he shared how deeply personal the issue was for him. His father’s family had been killed in Auschwitz during the Holocaust, while his father himself escaped and later fought against the Nazis in World War II.
“My family suffered,” he said. “And I think I actually have a right to do that.”
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