German-based music publishing giant BMG is preparing to part ways with one of its more controversial clients, Roger Waters, according to Variety.
A report in the entertainment website Variety said that BMG’s latest CEO Thomas Coesfeld, who took up his position last year, decided recently to nix a 2016 publishing deal with Waters due the the Pink Floyd frontman’s inflammatory comments about Israel, Ukraine and the United States.
BMG had already declined last year to have a publishing role in a newly recorded version of Pink Floyd’s epochal 1973 album “Dark Side of the Moon”. The album ultimately came out through UK-based Cooking Vinyl.
A BMG spokesperson declined requests for comment on whether the company was finalizing its separation from the aging rocker.
In an interview late last year, Waters hinted at a battle with BMG and blamed pressure from pro-Israeli interests toward BMG’s parent company Bertelsmann. Bertelsmann issued a statement expressing “solidarity with Israel” shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre.
Waters’ statements and actions in recent years have veered from anti-Zionism into antisemitism. In addition, he rattled detractors last year when he spoke to the United Nations Security Council at Russia’s invitation, claiming that its 2022 invasion of Ukraine was “not unprovoked.”