Bryan Adams is apologizing following his expletive-ridden rant about the coronavirus canceling his concert series at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
On Monday, the Canadian singer shared a video to Instagram of him playing guitar and singing “Cuts Like a Knife” accompanied with a caption sarcastically thanking the “bat eating, wet market animal selling, virus making greedy (expletives)” for starting the pandemic.
“The whole world is now on hold, not to mention the thousands that have suffered or died from this virus. My message to them other than ‘thanks a (expletive) lot’ is go vegan,” Adams wrote. “To all the people missing out on our shows, I wish I could be there more than you know. It’s been great hanging out in isolation with my children and family, but I miss my other family, my band, my crew and my fans.”
The note prompted social media outcry, with some posters accusing Adams of racism. On Tuesday, Adams issued a statement on Instagram in the same fashion: He shared a video singing “Into the Fire,” alongside a caption apologizing for his previous post.
“Apologies to any and all that took offence to my posting yesterday. 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,” Adams wrote. “I have love for all people and my thoughts are with everyone dealing with this pandemic around the world.”
Adams isn’t the first classic rocker to call out wet markets in response to the coronavirus and call for veganism.
Speaking with NME in an interview published in April, Queen’s Brian May said he thinks a vegan diet would be better for people’s overall health.
“If you want to get deep into it, I think we should be looking again at whether we should be eating animals,” Queen’s co-founder said. “That’s a central issue here, this pandemic seemed to come from people eating animals and it’s becoming more well known that eating animals is not the greatest thing for our health.”
The consensus among researchers studying the spread of the virus pinpoints COVID-19’s likely origin to a “wet market” in Wuhan, China, where live and dead creatures including bats are sold as food and for alleged medicinal purposes. Though experts have not ruled out the possibility that the pathogen could have been brought to the market by an already infected person, there is no evidence to suggest COVID-19 originated outside the country.
Read more at usatoday.com
