Singer Lionel Richie blasted U.S. officials for “allowing” the conflict in Ukraine to continue and “taking too long” to stop it.
Richie shared his criticisms at the Thursday ceremony to commemorate him winning the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song honoree by the Library of Congress.
“It’s a tragedy that we’re allowing this and all behavior that does not fall under my grandmother’s rules: that you treat someone the way you want to be treated,” Richie said.
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His comments arose as he discussed his song “We Are the World” and how it applies in the modern-day. Richie co-wrote the song with the late Michael Jackson.
“I tried to explain to people years ago. You save the starving people in Africa because one day it’s going to be at your doorstep, and it might be you. And if you don’t have any training in saving people, you’re going to die, too,” Richie said, creating an imagined scenario. “They’re bombing your neighborhood, and they just blew up your house. And the world says, ‘Well, we’re thinking about what we do about that.'”
“Really? How much longer are you going to take? Problem is, we’re taking too long, we’re going to lose mankind,” Richie said. “And I’m afraid that the words that we wrote 30-some odd years ago still applies.”
“So when someone says, ‘You need to write a new song,’ the answer is, I already wrote it. Just listen to it again. That’s where we are right now in the world.”
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Richie received his prize at an all-star tribute in Washington, D.C., on March 9. Singers Gloria Estefan and Chris Stapleton performed at the award ceremony.
