Coldplay can’t seem to escape controversy of late, even when they’re trying to preach love for all humankind. There was the jumbotron “kiss cam” controversy in July, which captured a tech CEO apparently cheating with his chief of human resources. Now, they’re getting heat for telling fans they can “send love anywhere,” including to the family of Charlie Kirk, the right-wing activist and Trump ally who was fatally shot on Wednesday. And the political divisiveness continues to ramp up in the wake of Kirk’s death.
In footage captured from the band’s show at London’s Wembley Stadium on Friday, frontman Chris Martin beckoned fans to send some love out into the world before they performed “Fix You.”
“For the final time for a few years in London, let’s raise our hands like this, and send love anywhere you wanna send it in the world,” he said from the stage, raising his hands in the air (something the band has been doing throughout their recent tour). “There are so many places that might need it today. So here it comes from London. You can send this to your brother or your sister. You can send it to the families of people who’ve been going through terrible stuff. You can send it to Charlie Kirk’s family. You can send it to anybody’s family. You can send it to people you disagree with, but you send them love anyway.”
The sending love out to people, places, and the overall universe really, is on-brand for Coldplay. In Rolling Stone’s cover story from December, he said, “That’s really our mission right now: We are consciously trying to fly the flag for love being an approach to all things. There aren’t that many [groups] that get to champion that philosophy to that many people. So we do it. And I need to hear that too, so that I don’t give up and just become bitter and twisted and hidden away, and hate everybody. I don’t want to do that, but it’s so tempting.”
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(Speaking of being on-brand, the night prior, country artist Gavin Adcock — who has been feuding with Charley Crockett over “authenticity” in country music — unsurprisingly led a Charlie Kirk chant at his concert, as Fox News reported.)
Kirk was apparently not a fan of Coldplay, which he revealed in a video where he was discussing the Coldplay kiss cam footage from July. In case you were somehow offline for the many days that story went viral: Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and the company’s chief human resource officer Kristin Cabot were caught canoodling on Coldplay’s jumbotron, which inadvertently exposed their apparent affair. When they realized they were seen on camera in an intimate embrace, they ducked and hid. Martin then joked from the stage (which turned out to not be a joke at all), “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.”
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In Kirk’s clip about the viral kiss cam episode, he said, “I would rather be caught dead than be at a Coldplay concert. I would rather go to a WNBA [Women’s National Basketball Association] game than go to a Coldplay concert. I couldn’t think of something more boring and banal and a waste of time.”
Kirk was the co-founder of Turning Point USA, which was formed to foster a culture of conservatism on school campuses around the nation. He was fatally shot Wednesday while speaking to students at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. The suspected shooter, Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old from Utah, was taken into custody on Friday.
