Queen’s Brian May Calls Out Anti-Vaxxers: ‘I Think They’re Fruitcakes’

You can count Queen guitarist Brian May among those dismayed not only to the political response of the Covid pandemic, but also to those currently questioning the safety of the vaccines. In a recent interview with The Independent, May shared his views, explaining that he can still respect one of his music peers, Eric Clapton, while sharing a different viewpoint on the subject of vaccinations.

When asked about artists such as Clapton and Stone Roses singer Ian Brown who have publicly questioned the safety of vaccines and refusing to play shows with COVID restrictions in place, the musician shook his head before stating, “I love Eric Clapton, he’s my hero, but he has very different views from me in many ways. He's a person who thinks it’s OK to shoot animals for fun, so we have our disagreements, but I would never stop respecting the man."

He continued, addressing more the idea of anti-vaxxers stance, "Anti-vax people, I’m sorry, I think they’re fruitcakes. There’s plenty of evidence to show that vaccination helps. On the whole they’ve been very safe. There’s always going to be some side effect in any drug you take, but to go around saying vaccines are a plot to kill you, I’m sorry, that goes in the fruitcake jar for me.”

The comments came after May had already taken his shot at how England in general had handled the pandemic, calling out leader Boris Johnson. “At every point he did too little, too late,” he says. “Hundreds, if not thousands of our relatives died because of bad advice and because of the bad decisions that Boris made with Hancock and those other people. If he’d taken the precautions of shutting down the borders a year earlier, we wouldn’t have been in the situation we were. And the fact that he’s willing to trade lives quite openly for economic gain, I find horrific… completely unacceptable."

"It’s like Winston Churchill going out in his garden and seeing the planes overhead and the bodies and going ‘the bombs are dropping! The bombs are dropping! Should we hide?," he continued. "No, actually let’s think of the economic consequences of hiding.’”

May also bemoaned being able to speak your mind in today's culture, especially with social media involved, stating, "Having a point of view and expressing it has become impossible. If you don’t go along with the herd view you get vilified and drummed out of business. I find it very, very unhealthy.”

“I don’t really want people spreading misinformation, especially if my kids are getting hold of it, or my grandchildren,” he adds. “It was all done in a Hollywood studio? Bullshit.”

May has had a series of health issues over the past couple of years, revealing he suffered a heart attack after a "bizarre gardening accident" in 2020 and underwent eye surgery in May of this year. But as May revealed in the interview, he is feeling much healthier these days becoming a "health and exercise addict."

Earlier this year, it was revealed that May and drummer Roger Taylor had been working on new music with current Queen vocalist Adam Lambert, but hadn't really connected on anything as of yet.