Ed Sheeran’s international tour has entered a crisis: one of the opening acts, rapper Macklemore, was removed from the U.S. tour dates for expressing his support for Palestine from the stage, and all the other artists opening for the British singer resigned in protest of the decision.
On Monday, Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, said he would prevent Macklemore from performing this month at Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts. Macklemore, who made pro-Palestinian comments during concerts in New Jersey, reported that he was also removed from the rest of Sheeran’s U.S. tour.
On Tuesday, Finneas, producer and brother of Billie Eilish; Irish singer-songwriter Aaron Rowe; the Irish band Beoga, and the Danish band Lukas Graham withdrew from their performances as opening acts on the tour and expressed their support for both Macklemore and the Palestinian people.
Macklemore, a rapper known primarily for 2012’s “Thrift Shop,” has publicly defended Palestinian rights since Israel began its years-long bombing campaign in Gaza following the October 7 attacks. While opening for Sheeran earlier this month at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, the rapper wore a keffiyeh in black and white tied around his neck.
“A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour from the beginning was to be able to get up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very close to my heart: Free Palestine,” he stated, according to a video of the event. He added that “to all my Jewish brothers and sisters, criticizing Israel, criticizing apartheid, and being against genocide is in no way a criticism of you.”
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Macklemore has performed regularly at pro-Palestinian demonstrations since 2023. In 2024, he released “Hind’s Hall,” named after the building occupied by student protesters at Columbia University, who renamed it in honor of Hind Rajab, a 5-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza.
Error al procesar la solicitud de traducciónMacklemore held Kraft, the owner of Gillette Stadium, where Sheeran and Macklemore were scheduled to perform later this month, directly responsible. According to Macklemore, Kraft had “mobilized some of the other stadium owners” and given Sheeran an ultimatum: “If Macklemore is still on the tour, you won’t be allowed to play at our venues.”
Kraft, a defender of Israel who withdrew his funding from Columbia University as a rebuke for how the institution handled the protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, confirmed that he decided to cancel Macklemore’s performances at Gillette Stadium. He did not address Macklemore’s claims that he had “reached out” to other stadium owners and did not respond to requests for further information.
“Based on Macklemore’s recent actions, the content disseminated from the stage during Ed Sheeran’s concerts in New Jersey, and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery that we find deeply offensive and painful to the Jewish community, we determined that his participation in the September 25 and 26 concerts at Gillette Stadium would cross that line,” Kraft said in a statement.
“This decision does not seek to minimize the suffering of innocent Palestinians nor deny anyone the right to defend them,” he continued. “Too many lives have been lost and there has been too much suffering, but sharing only selective information and ignoring the actions of Hamas is not honest and only fosters more division and hatred.”
Sheeran blamed the concert promoter, who, he said, forced him to make that decision. “After Macklemore’s performances at my New Jersey concerts, the venues for the upcoming dates of my tour communicated that they would cancel the concerts if he remained as the opening act,” he stated on Instagram on Tuesday. “Macklemore’s departure from the tour was the promoter’s decision, not mine.” The promoter did not respond to a request for comment.
Will it set a precedent?
Legally, under the First Amendment, Kraft and others who are private owners of stadiums have the right to choose who performs at their venues, said Lee Rowland, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship. But “that doesn’t mean it’s healthy for our democracy or good for free speech,” Rowland stated.
Rowland indicated that the cancellation of Macklemore’s tour dates “illustrates the immense power that money has over our public discourse”.
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Macklemore was scheduled to be Sheeran’s opening act at seven other U.S. stadiums. Several of them are publicly owned. The other venues did not respond to requests for comment.
Among them is AT&T Stadium, owned by the city of Arlington, Texas. AT&T Stadium is scheduled to host a sold-out Ye concert later this year. The artist made a series of antisemitic comments that he now attributes to a brain injury and untreated bipolar disorder, and he is selling out his concerts in the U.S.
In 2014, Macklemore apologized publicly for performing in a prosthetic hooked nose, a wig, and a fake beard, something he called a “randomly chosen costume,” but which observers widely interpreted as an antisemitic caricature. Kraft did not respond to a question about whether he was referring to that incident or something else when he accused Macklemore of antisemitism in the past.
Macklemore’s cancellation will likely have a chilling effect on other artists, Rowland said.
“We will undoubtedly see widespread self-censorship, so that artists ensure their content is harmless and uncontroversial enough not to offend a promoter or a stadium owner who would then deprive the public of their performance”.
In his statement, Sheeran, one of the world’s best-selling and most-streamed artists, said he was “not complicit” and defended his silence regarding “the conflict between Israel and Palestine.”
“I have my personal opinions about this devastating conflict,” he said. “The fact that I choose not to speak publicly does not mean that I don’t have them or that I don’t care.”
The children’s entertainer and activist known as Ms. Rachel, who has been a prominent critic of Israel’s war in Gaza for humanitarian reasons, publicly questioned Sheeran for his alleged neutrality and wrote on Instagram: “Ed Sheeran makes a political statement to his followers when he gives a concert to support Ukraine, but considers Palestine too dangerous and political.”
In addition to other members of his tour resigning in protest, Macklemore received shows of support from Representatives Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal, and from artists Zara Larsson and PinkPantheress.
In his statement, Macklemore attempted to refocus attention on Gaza, where more than 70,000 people—many of them women and children—have died due to Israel’s actions.
Sheeran “told me that the words ‘Free Palestine’ and the image of the Palestinian flag were hurtful to many of the people he spoke with,” Macklemore stated.
“I told him that if those words were more offensive than the murder of tens of thousands of Palestinian children at the hands of Israel, then there was a fundamental disconnect between those people’s stance and mine.” Source: CNN
