Billie Eilish led a chorus of condemnation from artists at Glastonbury festival after the US supreme court overturned a constitutional right to abortion in the states.
The 20-year-old singer was performing on Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage when she decried the controversial ruling.
Introducing her hit song Your Power, she told festivalgoers: “Today is a really dark day for women in the US and I’m just gonna say that ’cos I can’t bear to think about it any longer in this moment. This song is dedicated to that I guess…”
News of the US supreme court ruling emerged shortly after 6pm UK time and almost immediately triggered an angry and emotional response from artists playing the world’s biggest greenfield festival.
Phoebe Bridgers, the American singer-songwriter, led chants of “Fuck the Supreme Court” after saying she had been having “the shittiest time”.
She asked if any Americans were in the audience, which drew boos from the crowd, then added: “Who wants to say, ‘Fuck the supreme court’? One, two, three…”
“Fuck that shit. Fuck America and all these irrelevant old motherfuckers trying to tell us what to do with our fucking bodies. Fuck it.”
At least 26 US states are expected to ban abortion immediately, or as soon as practicable after the ruling, which will affect tens of millions of women.
US president Joe Biden called the ruling a “tragic error” and said it had led America down “an extreme and dangerous path”.
Joe Talbot, frontman of the British rock band Idles, said the court’s decision had taken the US “back to the Middle Ages”.
Addressing huge crowds from Glastonbury’s Other stage, less than an hour after the ruling was made public, Talbot said: “They just reversed the laws back to the middle ages in America where they’re just deciding whether it should be illegal to have an abortion or not.”
He made the remarks while introducing the song Mother, and added: “Long live the open minded. Long live my mother and long live every single one of you.”
The decision is likely to spark protests and rallies, and intensify debate within and between states about abortion, and even between cities.
