Yesterday, Bryan Adams uploaded a video to his Twitter and Instagram accounts in which he played his 1983 hit ‘Cuts Like a Knife’. Alongside it, Adams captioned the post with an expletive-laden rant about coronavirus forcing him to cancel a tenancy of planned gigs at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
In the post, Adams blamed “some fucking bat eating, wet market animal selling, virus making greedy bastards” for forcing the world to be “on hold”, along with causing suffering and death from the virus. He was referring to the (unproven) theories that wet markets in China were the source of the virus. His “messages” to them were “Thanks a fucking lot” and “Go vegan”.
As you might imagine, Adams’ post drew backlash from the internet, and he was widely criticised on social media for spreading racism and misinformation. He’s since deleted the Twitter post, and turned off comments on his Instagram post.
Now, Adams has… kind of? said sorry for the whole thing.
“Apologies to any and all that took offence to my posting yesterday,” Adams wrote on social media alongside a video of him performing ‘Into the Fire’.
“No excuse, I just wanted to have a rant about the horrible animal cruelty in these wet-markets being the possible source of the virus, and promote veganism. I have love for all people and my thoughts are with everyone dealing with this pandemic around the world.”
It’s probably one of the weaker expressions of regret, one of those “sorry you were offended” apologies, and Adams stopped short of actually acknowledging why what he said was inappropriate.
You can read the post from Adams below.
