Billy Joel Says Trump Charlottesville Remark Made Him Get Political

Billy Joel confessed in a new series about his life that he has “never liked getting political onstage.”

However, the singer shared one particular Trump moment that inspired him to express his views.

“Sometimes there are things that happen and you can’t just look away,” Joel said in part two of his HBO documentary, “Billy Joel: And So It Goes,” according to Entertainment Weekly.

Joel said he took action after seeing white nationalists marching in the streets in Charlottesville, Virginia, for the “Unite the Right” rally, and comments that Trump made after a man drove his car into a crowd and killed a protester.

“I was angry,” Joel said of watching the demonstration. “Here they are marching through an American city saying, ‘Jews will not replace us.’ We fought a war to defeat these people!”

“And when Trump comes out and says, ‘There were very fine people on both sides,’” the “Uptown Girl” singer recalled. “He should’ve come out and said, ‘Those are bad people.’ There is no qualifying it. The Nazis are not good people. Period.”

To protest Trump’s comments, Joel said that he added a Star of David to his outfit when he performed at Madison Square Garden following the march.

“I had to do something, but I didn’t want to get up on a soap box on stage and say, ‘This is wrong,’” he said. “So I wore the star. But basically to say, no matter what, I will always be a Jew.”

Joel has previously spoken out about Trump’s comments, telling CBS News back in 2018 that he “had to do something that night” he performed.

“It really enraged me, actually,” Joel said at the time. “My old man, his family got wiped out. They were slaughtered in Auschwitz. Him and his parents were able to get out. But then he was in the U.S. Army during the war and fought with Patton and was shot at by Nazis. My family suffered. And I think I actually have a right to do that.”