Eric Clapton helped raise $1 million for Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign at a private fundraiser on Monday night, Kennedy’s campaign announced Tuesday.

Clapton and his band performed at an event, which raised a total of $2.2 million, including $1 million for Kennedy’s campaign and $1.2 million for a political action committee supporting him.

“I am deeply grateful to Eric Clapton for bringing his musical artistry and rebellious spirit to my gathering in Los Angeles last night,” Kennedy said in the press release, which described the Monday night event as a “once-in-a-lifetime musical performance.”

Kennedy’s campaign announced in late August that Clapton would perform at the private fundraiser, which reportedly offered tickets starting at $3,300, up to a maximum of $6,600.

Kennedy and Clapton have both been outspoken about their skepticism of vaccines, which has resulted in fierce blowback from the public.

In the statement Tuesday, Kennedy praised Clapton but did not mention their shared skepticism about COVID-19 vaccines.

“I sometimes think that in our divided society, it is music rather than any kind of intellectual agreement that has the most potential to bring us together again,” Kennedy said in the press release.

“Eric sings from the depths of the human condition. If he sees in me the possibility of bringing unity to our country, it is only possible because artists like him invoke a buried faith in the limitless power of human beings to overcome any obstacle,” he added.

Kennedy is one of two long-shot Democratic presidential bids to challenge incumbent President Biden for the Democratic nomination. While neither Kennedy nor author Marianne Williamson have made any significant headway against the president, Kennedy has been critical of efforts of establishment Democrats to block any serious threat to Biden’s campaign.

  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    A lot of people were racist as hell in the 70s and 50 years is a long time to possibly change. I don’t know anything about Clapton beyond hearing his music. He still a racist xenophobe?

    • supert@lemmy.sdfeu.org
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      1 year ago

      He said he regretted it, he was young and stupid and he no longer holds those views.

      But, a lot of people were also not racist in the 1970s.

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        Most of the people that weren’t racist in the 70s had reasons to be not racist in the 70s. Mostly you grew up in a mixed neighborhood and had friends of other races, or your parents weren’t racist. Chances are if you’d have taken 100 people who weren’t racist and threw them in families in some white kkk town in Alabama to grow up, 95 of them would have been racist.

        If they guy apologized ages ago for it and never said any other racist shit for 40 years I’m not going to hold it against him. I’ll just hold him backing Kennedy against him. I don’t know about Clapton, but I know RFK JR is a twat. Lol