Another day, another Coldplay concert making headlines for the wrong reasons.
Just six weeks after the kiss cam at the band’s concert at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, caught a married tech CEO cozying up to his married head of HR in a moment that went mega-viral, Coldplay is back in the news for the awkward way frontman Chris Martin handled an interaction with two Israelis fan on stage over the weekend.
On Tuesday’s show, Megyn was joined by Lions and Scavengers author Ben Shapiro to discuss the bizarre moment and why they found it “shameful” and “disturbing.”
Strange Encounter
Coldplay was across the pond performing at London’s Wembley Stadium Sunday night when he invited two women to join him on stage. Sitting behind a piano, Martin asked the fans where they were from. They responded, “Israel,” which led to a bizarre reaction from Martin.
“From Israel,” he asked uncomfortably as the crowd audibly moaned and booed. “Okay, well listen. I’m gonna say this. I’m very grateful that you’re here as humans, and I’m treating you as equal humans on earth regardless of where you come from or don’t come from. Thank you for being here, and thank you for being loving and kind.”
He then offered a telling shoutout. “And although it’s controversial, maybe, I also want to welcome people in the audience from Palestine because we are–,” Martin added as the audience cheered. “I believe we’re all equally human. And thank you for being here.”
‘Shameful’ Response
The bizarre encounter started making the rounds on social media, where the singer was criticized for his “mortifying” and “dehumanizing” treatment of the fans. Megyn, for one, called it “shameful.”
“I can’t believe it is at this point now where you get an Israeli on the stage and… you are jarred,” she said. “You can clearly see… he is jarred… as if she said… North Korea or someplace where you are like, ‘Holy sh-t. What have you been through? What’s going on?'”
Shapiro joked that people should “beware” of going to Coldplay concerts because “all [Martin] does is just go around ruining random people’s lives,” but, in all seriousness, he said the encounter speaks to the current state of the world.
“I mean the entire premise, which is like, ‘Look at me. I’m bestowing humanity on you because you come from a country that is in the middle of a war after the worst assault on Jews since World War II… and now I’m also going to name check people who are on the other side of that’… Would he do this in literally any other circumstance,” Shapiro asked. “If they said, ‘I’m from Russia’… Would he say, ‘You’re human and so are people from… Ukraine’? I can’t imagine… him doing something like that.”
In his view, Martin handled the situation poorly no matter where you stand on the Israel-Hamas war. “He didn’t have to go there. Wherever you are on these issues – and obviously my perspective is extremely clear on this – you just don’t have to do it,” Shapiro added. “The fact that he felt the necessity to sort of apologize for the presence of Israelis at his concert says something really disturbing because you don’t have to do that. You don’t have to.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Shapiro by tuning in to episode 1,139 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.