Eric Clapton has been very vocal about lockdown measures and his overall feelings related to the coronavirus pandemic. However, he says his opinions have led him to be “ostracized” by his friends and family.
The guitar icon touched on this in a recent interview with Oracle Films where he said (as transcribed by Ultimate Classic Rock), “I’ve tried to reach out to fellow musicians. I just don’t hear from them anymore. My phone doesn’t ring very often. I don’t get that many texts and emails anymore. It’s quite noticeable.”
Clapton would go on to say regarding his relationships with friends and family members, “I was ostracized, and I could feel that everywhere. I could feel alienation because I held a different view.”
Clapton famously appeared on Van Morrison’s anti-lockdown song “Stand And Deliver,” which was released in November 2020. He was so against the U.K.’s lockdown measure he told Oracle Films, “I thought quite strongly about taking my family away from England. We’ll go and live somewhere else, we’ll start somewhere else.”
Clapton received the AstraZeneca vaccine in early 2021, but he would go on to recount “disastrous” side effects for two weeks which included numbness in his hands and feet and fearing never being able to play guitar again.
Considering all of this, Clapton told Oracle Films, “I believe most of all in free speech and freedom of movement. And life and love and kindness. I’ve seen scorn and contempt from both sides. And I get caught in the crossfire a lot. But I don’t really feel educated enough to know enough about either of these areas.”
