Deftones guitarist Stephen Carpenter has addressed criticism of nonsense he shared about COVID-19 and vaccines.
“I made some people… you know, people got a little aggravated [and] feel like I was insensitive,” he said on The Dr. Greenthumb Show Podcast. “I want to say, hey you know, I never had the intent to upset anybody in any way with my opinions.
"But I was just giving my opinions. And for all those who’ve experienced it in any way, it’s not to upset or offend you in any way with my opinion. But I did you know, and some were… they were ruffled.”
Carpenter faced backlash over comments he made on Tin Foil Hat with Sam Tripoli, a podcast about conspiracy theories.
“You are not capable of catching a virus from somebody,” the musician claimed. “You develop viruses because you have some type of poison or toxin within you. And that’s your poisoned and toxined [sic] cells secreting the virus to clean them from the body.”
He added: “I’m grateful for COVID, for teaching me the actual germ theory, and that is the virus is something the body creates.”
Carpenter said incorrectly that there has “never been one single vaccine that’s ever worked ever” and claimed “it’s stuck in you forever and you just suffer with whatever it becomes.”
He also admitted to believing Earth is flat. “I know we’re not on a spinning, flying space ball,” he said.