This week, Prince Harry, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, marked National Voter Registration Day in the United States by declaring that “every voice matters” in the upcoming presidential election.
Pharrell Williams might have been happier if he’d just kept his mouth shut.
In an interview published the day after Vice President Kamala Harris met with former President Trump, the versatile musician said he often gets “frustrated” by celebrities’ political endorsements.
“Some celebrities that I respect have opinions, but not all of them,” he says. “I’m one of those people who says, ‘You know what? Shut up. No one’s listening.'”
Williams’ comments came during a week that includes the first presidential debate and National Voter Registration Day, a notable event on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, big names in the music industry, including Billie Eilish, have voiced their support for the Harris-Waltz Democratic coalition and urged their fans (Swift more subtly, Eilish less so) to follow suit.
“The choice is clear,” Eilish wrote on Tuesday.
Williams says he’s “not very involved in politics” and people are unlikely to get that message (though he does admit he’d never vote for the “far right”).
“I prefer to stay out of the way,” he said, describing himself as a “humanitarian” rather than an “activist.”
“I’m going to vote how I want to vote. I care about my people, I care about the country. But I feel like there’s a lot of work that needs to be done and I really want to take action,” he added.
With a mission to eliminate wealth disparities, Williams is the founder of two equity-based nonprofits that provide educational technology to poor youth and provide funding and mentoring to Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs.
“I’m not an activist, but I do believe in activism,” Williams said.
Despite his comments, “Get Lucky” singer Hillary Clinton campaigned alongside Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“Politics is not my specialty,” he said at the time, “but I’m a human being. I’m a human being with a family. I’m a human being who shares this planet with other human beings. This election is too important. I can’t just sit back and be quiet.”
Two years later, in 2018, Williams protested after then-President Trump performed her song “Happy” at a political event just hours after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Williams’ lawyers wrote in a letter that “there is nothing ‘happy’ about the tragedy that befell our nation on Saturday, and the use of this song for this purpose is not authorized.”
But whether or not Williams publicly endorses a candidate, he told The Hollywood Reporter that production on the Lego animated biopic has wrapped, with the film set for release on October 11.
“When it came time to tell my story, I wanted to tell it in a way that kids could understand, so I chose the Lego format,” Williams said last week.
