Robbie Williams' justification for performing at Qatar World Cup leaves people confused
Robbie Williams has defended his decision to perform at the Qatar World Cup, despite a host of other well-known performers boycotting the event.
The singer, now 48, explained that it would be 'hypocritical' of him not to attend, despite the country's history of human rights violations and links to Islamic extremism.
He told il Venerdi, the weekly magazine of the la Repubblica newspaper, that he has already performed in countries with questionable records in these areas and therefore couldn't boycott Qatar without being 'hypocritical'.
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"I don't condone any abuses of human rights anywhere," he said. "But if we're not condoning human rights abuses anywhere, I wouldn't even be able to perform in my kitchen."
The former Take That singer continued: "Anybody leaving messages saying 'no to Qatar' are doing so on Chinese technology. It would be hypocritical of me to not go [to Qatar] because of the places that I do go to.
"I think that the hypocrisy there is that if we take that case in this place, we need to apply that unilaterally to the world... Then if we apply that unilaterally to the world, nobody can go anywhere."
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However, while Williams might be happy to perform in the country, his justification only prompted further criticism from commentators.
One slammed: "Just be honest and say the money was too good to pass up."
"Let meeeee, disingenuously and with a poorly constructed argument attempt to placate youuu..." joked a second, while another said: "This is sad, disappointing & indefensible.
"Saying 'I can't solve all injustice & inequality so I might as well just go along with promoting this awful regime' when you have a platform for real protest takes you right off the side of the angels."
"To say nothing of the human rights abuses he commits whenever he records an album," wrote a fourth, while a fifth added: "Excited to find out what the f**k is going on in Rob's kitchen!"
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Williams is tipped to perform at the opening ceremony alongside K-pop star Jungkook, the MailOnline reports.
This comes after Williams also decided to perform at the Russian World Cup back in 2018 after the country had already invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014.
As we all know, Russia went on to launch a full scale invasion of Ukraine earlier this year.
LADbible has reached out to a representative for Williams for comment.
Emma Guinness