“Thought they were better than that”: Fans react to Coldplay’s Chris Martin asking audience to “send love” to Charlie Kirk’s family

During Coldplay's performance at Wembley Stadium in London on Friday, Sept 12, singer Chris Martin made a contentious request. Martin asked the crowd to send out their love to "anywhere you wanna send it in the world." He then shouted out Charlie Kirk, who was killed by a gunman on Sept 10.

What happened at the Coldplay concert

Martin said to their U.K. audience, "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. 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 have been going through terrible stuff, you can send it to Charlie Kirk’s family, you can send it to anybody’s family," he said to the audience, adding, "You can send it to people you disagree with, but you send them love anyway… You can send it to peaceful people in the Middle East, in Ukraine, and Russia."

Kirk's death is a controversial topic, and Coldplay's frontman asking the crowd to send out their love to him has left people online reeling. The reactions were overwhelmingly negative, with people saying that they don't support the right-wing conservative's political views.

Reactions online to Martin's statement

A number of folks online pointed out that recent news about the band has had nothing to do with the music itself. Instead, they have gone viral for the now-dubbed Coldplay Cam, statements about the war in Gaza, and now, Charlie Kirk.

"Chris can obviously send love to whoever he wishes. But he also has to accept the inevitable backlash he receives," @Coldplaykind tweeted. "Some people will now associate Coldplay with Israel, Putin, and Charlie Kirk. It’s frustrating most of their recent news headlines haven’t been about the music."

@john_wilddog wrote, "This has to be Coldplay's most insane tour. a cheating couple on the jumbotron. getting yelled at for treating Israelis and Palestinians as equals. Now 'shout out to his family' for Charlie Kirk. I'm half expecting them to awkwardly announce some major world news story on stage now."

Another person on X added, "I am very disappointed that Coldplay would choose to dedicate a song to the repulsive troublemaker Charlie Kirk - I thought they were better than this. 🤷‍♀️"

Some pointed out that the biggest controversy about Coldplay before this year was simply people disliking their music.

"Coldplay going their whole career without controversy just to throw that away for Charlie Kirk," said one person on X.

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