Brian May renews stance on Queen not playing Glastonbury due to "politics": “They like killing badgers”

16 January 2026, 17:01

Queen guitarist Brian May with Glastonbury Festival's Pyramid Stage inset. Picture: Thomas Niedermueller/Getty Images, Matt Cardy/Getty Images

By Jenny Mensah

The legendary Queen guitarist has quashed hopes once again of the band ever playing the Somerset festival due to Michael Eavis' support on badger culling.

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Sir Brian May says Queen cannot play Glastonbury Festival due to "politics".

The legendary guitarist has long held a grudge against the Somerset festival because of founder Michael Eavis's support of badger culling.

While the Bohemian Rhapsody rocker seemed to thaw on the subject as recently as 2023, he seems to have doubled down on his original stance of not playing the festival.

Speaking in a new interview with the Daily Mail, the rock icon said: “I wouldn’t do Glastonbury next year because of the politics of the people who run it. Unless that changes, I won’t do it.”

"They like killing badgers, and they think it’s for sport,” added the 78-year-old rocker. “And that’s something I cannot support because we’ve been trying to save these badgers for years, and they are still being killed for years, so that’s the reason we’re missing out on it.”

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Back in 2023 when speaking to The Guardian, May appeared to soften his stance, saying: “The fact that Michael Eavis supports badger-culling is difficult for me to swallow.

“I don’t really want to endorse his festival, but it’s not impossible that we could sit down and talk. I’ll talk to anyone – that’s the way we go forward”.

May was previously slammed by Michael Eavis for his stance on badgers, calling the Queen rocker a “danger to farming”.

May said in response: “We won’t [play Glastonbury] and there are a lot of reasons for that. One of them is that Michael Eavis has frequently insulted me, and I don’t particularly enjoy that.

"What bothers me more is that he’s in favour of the badger cull, which I regard as a tragedy and an unnecessary crime against wildlife"

He added: “There’s a little bit of a schism there, I wouldn’t do Glastonbury. Unless things changed radically.”

Brian May then doubled down on his stance on the festival, telling The Sun: “Would I ever do it? No. As the man who runs it advocates killing badgers for no good reason and I could never level with that.

“Have they tried to book us? I think the feeling is mutual so I think they understand how I feel.”