Billy Joel in ‘Total Shock’ Over Eric Clapton’s Anti-Vax Rants: ‘It’s Not Pleasant’

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Billy Joel is in “total shock” over Eric Clapton’s recent anti-vaccine rants.

Joel joined Howard Stern on The Howard Stern Show, where the two discussed their mutual love for the band Cream.

Despite their love for the 1960s rock band, they also share mutual disappointment for Cream’s guitarist Eric Clapton.

“Clapton is like one of my heroes, but he got weird with the pandemic,” Stern said, according to the Daily News. “Did you read about him? He was like one of the guys who was anti-vax?”

Stern was referring to Clapton’s recent anti-vax rallying cries and his anti-mask and anti-lockdown stance at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

Clapton and Van Morrison even collaborated on the anti-lockdown song “Stand and Deliver” in December 2020, during which they accused the U.K. government of attacking personal freedoms.

In May, Clapton also penned a letter claiming he had had a “disastrous” reactions to the coronavirus vaccine — blaming what he called the “propaganda” that promoted the vaccine’s safety.

“In February this year, before I learned about the nature of the vaccines, (and being 76 with ephezyma [sic]) I was in the avant garde,” he wrote in the letter, which was shared on Telegram and verified by Rolling Stone. “I took the first jab of [the AstraZeneca vaccine] and straight away had severe reactions which lasted ten days, I recovered eventually and was told it would be twelve weeks before the second one.”

It’s also been reported that Clapton is now bankrolling British group Jam for Freedom, whose lyrics include, “You can stick your poison vaccine up your arse.”

“Yeah, it was a total shock to me,” Joel told Stern of Clapton’s viewpoint. “I didn’t know what his politics were, but it’s not pleasant.”