Musician Eric Clapton helped raise money at a fundraiser for fellow vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 campaign for the Democratic presidential primary ticket on Monday.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer entertained Kennedy and donors at a private home in Los Angeles’ posh Brentwood neighborhood where tickets began at $3,300 and went up to $6,600 for some face time with Kennedy, according to TMZ.
After the event, RFK Jr.’s campaign said it had raised a combined $2.2 million for the Democratic long shot’s campaign and its independent PAC.
Kennedy, the son of assassinated presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Sr., celebrated Clapton as a figure of unity at the backyard concert.
In a statement on his website, he thanked The Yardbirds rocker “for bringing his musical artistry and rebellious spirit to my gathering.”
“Eric sings from the depths of the human condition,” he wrote. “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.”
Though neither Kennedy’s call for bipartisanship nor Clapton’s performance mentioned vaccines, both men are outspoken critics of coronavirus shots.
Clapton complained about suffering “disastrous” but temporary side effects from the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine in 2021, and he railed against vaccine requirements when in-person gatherings began returning later that summer.
In 2020, Clapton collaborated with singer Van Morrison, another open vaccine skeptic, on the anti-lockdown song “Stand and Deliver,” in which they compared COVID safety protocols to slavery.
Kennedy has spent the last two decades peddling widely debunked disinformation about vaccines, which he has claimed cause autism, allergies, cancer and other ailments in children.
The activist-turned-politician was banned from Instagram for spreading COVID misinformation in 2021, and this July, he called himself “the first person censored by the Biden administration” when Republicans invited him to testify before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
While Kennedy is polling far behind President Joe Biden in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, his numbers are not insignificant.
According to a HarrisX/Harris poll sponsored by the Harvard University Center for American Political Studies released last week, Kennedy trails Biden 15% to 60%.
Earlier this summer, American Values 2024, the political action committee arm of Kennedy’s campaign, reported raising $16 million in June and July.
Meanwhile, Biden raised $72 million for his reelection bid between his April campaign announcement and the end of the second fiscal quarter in June.