Five musicians who hate Eric Clapton with a passion: “He’s a famous racist”

Posted On October 8, 2025October 8, 2025

At first glance, this hatred may seem a little unwarranted. Eric Clapton‘s work in music is almost unimaginably vast.

Having been an integral cog in the music machine that launched British rock to the pinnacle of culture in the 1960s, through stints in acclaimed bands like The Yardbirds and John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, Clapton would continue his reign as one of the finest guitarists of all time in a series of supergroups. It is a marvel that he has since become one of the most polarising figures in rock music.

Founding perhaps the most cantankerous outfit of all time in Cream, Clapton would once again pull off the trick of enigmatic axeman in Blind Faith and, later, helming Derek and the Dominos, which points to Clapton being regarded as one of the most talented guitarists of all time. Known as Slowhand to some and simply as ‘God’ to one particular London vandal, Clapton’s reputation as one of the greats of the business was shot down in the ’70s — the man holding the smoking weapon? Clapton himself.

In 1976, during one of the darkest periods of racial tensions of the 20th Century, Clapton voiced his support for the far-right politician Enoch Powell. The British Conservative MPs’ anti-multicultural views had taken a stranglehold of swathes of the country. It was into this den of degenerate populism that Clapton ventured. The drunken guitarist decided to voice his own unwelcomed opinions on the matter during a visit to Birmingham that year.

The musician began his remarks in the worst possible way, addressing the audience: “Do we have any foreigners in the audience tonight? If so, please put up your hands. So where are you? Well, wherever you are, I think you should all just leave. Not just leave the hall, leave our country. I don’t want you here, in the room or in my country.”

“Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. Get the foreigners out,” exclaimed Clapton to his captive audience. “Get the w*gs out. Get the c**ns out. Keep Britain white,” he added. While it has been made abundantly clear in the statements that followed the comments that Clapton was inebriated, it does not disqualify the heinousness of his words. Of course, Clapton has routinely distanced himself from such views in the years that followed, expressing great regret for the racist comments.

“I was so ashamed of who I was, a kind of semi-racist, which didn’t make sense,” he said. “Half of my friends were black, I dated a black woman, and I championed black music,” in comments that will make the majority of those reading shudder.

Clapton is now sober, but anybody hoping that he may have curtailed his viewpoint over the years – or decided to take the high road when it comes to confrontation – will be sadly mistaken. Not only has he continued to be a tough customer when it comes to viewpoints on either his own music or the work of others, but during the global pandemic, as thousands died and millions were left terrified about what their new future may look like, the guitarist claimed the vaccine was dangerous after he had taken it, telling Oracle: “I lost the use of my hands for about three weeks. I thought I was in real trouble.”

“Now I’ve stopped watching TV,” Clapton continued. “One of the cartoons was a drawing of a guy interviewing two Quakers, and saying, ‘How come none of your community have got Covid?’, and he says, ‘Well, we don’t watch TV’. It’s so true man, so much of the sickness is in our heads.”

The former Cream man later clarified his comments by suggesting he was “neither anti nor pro” the vaccine. “I’m freedom of choice, really, and respect for other people, and kindness, and the things that used to motivate, or were things to aspire to. Aspirations towards goodness,” he said. “And I’m also quite, in an abstract way, religion – I believe in God and I think there’s a purpose. And this seems to be my purpose for the moment.”

However, it would seem that the damage is already done, and Clapton’s reputation as one of the greats of music history is forever tarnished by his unsavoury actions. Most cases like this would see an influx of contemporaries clamour to protect the musician, but such is his stance that even the music world has turned on Slowhand. Below, we’ve got five musicians who truly dislike the man.

Five musicians who hate Eric Clapton:

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