Pink Floyd's Legal Battle Nearly 40 Years Ago Ended the Band for Good Isabella TorregianiAugust 29, 2025 at 7:18 PM Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Tensions had long boiled within Pink Floyd, especially after founding member Roger Watersleft the group in 1985.
- - Pink Floyd's Legal Battle Nearly 40 Years Ago Ended the Band for Good
Isabella TorregianiAugust 29, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Tensions had long boiled within Pink Floyd, especially after founding member Roger Watersleft the group in 1985. While disagreements were nothing new among the bandmates, what ultimately cemented the end of any future together wasn't just creative differences — it was a lawsuit.
In December 1985, Waters formally quit the band, believing his departure would mark the end of Pink Floyd entirely. He assumed the group couldn't, and wouldn't, continue without him. He was wrong.
Rather than dissolve, the remaining members, primarily David Gilmour and Nick Mason, carried on. What followed was a legal clash that would forever fracture one of rock's most iconic acts.
Waters sued his former bandmates in an effort to stop them from using the Pink Floyd name, arguing the group had become a "spent force of creativity" and that continuing would tarnish its legacy.
The case dragged on for nearly two years, with both sides defending their rights to the name and legacy. Though it was eventually settled out of court during a Christmas Eve meeting on Gilmour's houseboat, the damage to their relationships was lasting.
"It's one of the few times that the legal profession has taught me something," Waters later reflected. "Because when I went to these chaps and said, 'Listen, we're broke, this isn't Pink Floyd anymore,' they went, 'What do you mean? That's irrelevant, it is a label and it has commercial value, you can't say it's going to cease to exist.'"
Even though they reunited briefly in 2005 for Live 8, a one-off charity performance, the wounds never truly healed. In a 2020 interview withRolling Stone, Waters revealed an attempt to reconcile with Gilmour and Mason.
"About a year ago, I convened a sort of Camp David for the surviving members of Pink Floyd… I proposed all kinds of measures to get past this awful impasse… It bore no fruit."
For his part, Gilmour has made it clear he has no desire to reunite. Reportedly speaking to Guitar Player, he said. "It has run its course, we are done. I'm all for Roger doing whatever he wants to do and enjoying himself. But I absolutely don't want to go back. I don't want to go and play stadiums. I'm free to do exactly what I want to do and how I want to do it."
In a moment of hindsight, Waters did admit to the BBC that taking the band to court was a mistake. "I was wrong. Of course I was. Who cares?"
But by then, the consequences were irreversible — the legal battle didn't just divide the band further, it seemingly closed the door on Pink Floyd ever fully coming back together.
This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 29, 2025, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Source: "AOL AOL Entertainment"
Source: FORTE MAG
Full Article on Source: FORTE MAG
#LALifestyle #USCelebrities
