Robbie Williams has broken his silence over his decision to perform at the Qatar World Cup. In a bizarre interview, the singer said if he refused to perform in places where there were no human rights abuses he would not "be able to perform in [his] own kitchen".
The popstar has taken flak over his decision to perform at the World Cup due to Qatar's human rights record, most noticeably its attitude towards the LGBTQ+ community, according to StokeonTrentLive. Williams has chosen to perform in the Middle Eastern country despite other artists, including Dua Lipa and Rod Stewart, refusing to perform there.
But in an interview with Il Venerdi Williams defended his decision and said he would be hypocritical to turn down the gig as he plays in other places with poor human rights records. Referencing China's similarly poor record on human rights, he said: "Anybody leaving messages saying ‘no to Qatar’ are doing so on Chinese technology.
He added: "You get this microscope that goes ‘okay, these are the baddies, and we need to rally against them’. I think that the hypocrisy there is that if we take that case in this place, we need to apply that unilaterally to the world. Then if we apply that unilaterally to the world, nobody can go anywhere.
"It would be hypocritical of me to not go because of the places that I do go to. I also think that change will take a long time. What we’re saying is: ‘You behave like us, or we will annex you from society. Behave like us, because we’ve got it right’.
“I don’t condone any abuses of human rights anywhere. But, that being said, if we’re not condoning human rights abuses anywhere, then it would be the shortest tour the world has ever known: I wouldn’t even be able to perform in my own kitchen."
