Ed Sheeran cuts Macklemore from US Loop tour after Gaza stage remarks

Venues refused Macklemore and warned of tour cancellation, promoter says

Rapper Macklemore, whose real name is Benjamin Haggerty, confirmed Monday he was dropped from Ed Sheeran’s US Loop tour after making pro-Palestinian comments during two opening-act performances earlier this month. The decision ended a week of what he described as “difficult conversations” with Sheeran — friends for 13 years, the rapper said in his statement — that concluded “in a place of fundamental disagreement.”

The controversy began on 4 September, when Macklemore, described by BBC News as a long-time pro-Palestine activist, performed at Sheeran’s concert at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Addressing the audience, he said: “A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so that I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very, very dear to my heart: Free Palestine.” He then performed his song Hind’s Hall, which the BBC reported condemns Israel’s military action in Gaza, while video footage of the devastation in Gaza was shown on the big screen.

The next night, Macklemore returned to the same stage and directly addressed his “Jewish brothers and sisters” in the audience. “Criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide, is in no way a criticism of you,” he said, adding that he wanted people in Gaza and the West Bank to know they had not been forgotten.

After the first performance, the campaign group StopAntisemitism criticised the rapper, saying “Jewish fans bought tickets to see Ed Sheeran sing… not to be ambushed by Macklemore’s anti-Israel propaganda.” The backlash grew over the following days and included a petition by the Israeli-American Council urging Sheeran to remove Macklemore from the tour. “This was an Ed Sheeran concert - not a political rally, not a protest, and not an activist event,” the council said, adding that the rapper used “biased messaging and disputed claims.”

The comments occurred against the backdrop of an ongoing military campaign in Gaza that the Israeli military launched in response to an unprecedented Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage. More than 73,780 people have been killed in Gaza during the campaign, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN. Israel rejects allegations of genocide, saying its troops conduct self-defence operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank in accordance with international law.

In his statement on Instagram, which was nearly 1,000 words long, Macklemore said that after a week of “difficult conversations” with Sheeran, he was dropped from the lineup. He stood by his remarks, writing that the real victims of the dispute are the Palestinian people in Gaza. He also emphasised that even though he had performed only two shows on the tour, if his words succeeded in “turning the conversation back to Palestine, then it was the most successful tour I’ve ever been on.”

Tour promoter Messina Touring Group told Rolling Stone magazine that venues had told it they would not allow Macklemore to perform, “which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans.”

In his statement, Macklemore said he empathised with the difficult position Sheeran was in, but criticised the English singer for not taking a stance. “Taking a side can cost you. Money, brand deals, sponsorships, festivals, private shows, relationships and access. I’ve lost all of those things,” he wrote. “But there is no neutral position between the oppressor and the oppressed.”

Macklemore also addressed the accusations of antisemitism, writing that “one of the most effective ways to enforce silence has been to weaponize the accusation of antisemitism.” He added: “When criticizing Israel, opposing Zionism or saying ‘Free Palestine’ gets conflated with hatred of Jewish people, it doesn’t protect Jewish people. It protects Israel from accountability.”

The furore also drew in US singer Pink, who is Jewish, after she reposted a message criticising Macklemore. She too received massive backlash, with critics taking aim at everything from her parenting style to past comments about women including Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Pink later posted a long statement saying she does not speak for Israel or for any government, and explained her criticism of Macklemore’s comments and conduct on stage.

“Last weekend [Macklemore] stood in front of a stadium full of music-loving families, with violent images from a war on the screens, dedicated a song to the movement of his choice, and then took the mic to tell all of the Jews in the stadium that it wasn’t about them,” she wrote. “You don’t get to decide that for us.”

Pink also noted that in 2014, Macklemore performed his same-sex anthem Same Love at the Grammys, where 33 LGBTQ+ couples were married on stage. Later that year he apologised for a costume he wore that included a black wig, beard and a fake hooked nose, which critics said was antisemitic.

Ed Sheeran has not publicly commented, and who will replace Macklemore for the rest of the tour was not immediately known.