Sheeran’s Mathematics Tour grossed $857.7M, Billboard Boxscore figures show
Stadium owners including Robert Kraft, 85, led to the removal of rapper Macklemore from Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour by telling Sheeran’s team that the rapper would not be allowed to perform at their venues if he remained on the bill, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Kraft, whose Kraft Group owns Gillette Stadium, said in a statement that allowing Macklemore to perform at Gillette after his comments would cross a line. The Loop Tour is scheduled to play Gillette in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on Sept. 25 and 26.
Sheeran’s prior tours have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, according to Billboard Boxscore. His three-year Mathematics Tour grossed $857.7 million, his Divide Tour netted $776.4 million, and the 10 shows he performed in February for the current Loop Tour took in more than $70.8 million.
Sheeran, 35, confirmed he had received an ultimatum from venue owners but said the decision to pull Macklemore was not his. “Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine,” he wrote on social media.
The singer-songwriter also defended his choice not to publicly comment on the Israel-Hamas war. “I have my personal views on this devastating conflict,” Sheeran wrote. “Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn’t mean I don’t have them, and it doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
Three of Sheeran’s opening acts and his Irish backing band Beoga quit the Loop Tour on Tuesday in solidarity with Macklemore. Irish singer-songwriter Aaron Rowe, the Danish band Lukas Graham and American musician Finneas — brother of singer Billie Eilish — announced they would no longer tour with Sheeran. The three acts are the only supporting performers listed on the tour’s website. Beoga, the Irish folk group serving as Sheeran’s band, also said it would no longer appear with the singer-songwriter.
“Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed,” Finneas said on social media. A representative for Sheeran did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Macklemore, 43, known for early-2010s hits such as “Thrift Shop” and “Can’t Hold Us,” had made several comments about Gaza while opening for Sheeran earlier this month at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. He thanked Columbia University students who led pro-Palestinian encampments and said criticism of Israel was not an attack on Jewish people.
“Free Palestine,” Macklemore said. “I want those words to be loud and clear, so the people from Gaza all the way to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten them.”
Artists have faced significant scrutiny for the positions they have taken — or declined to take — on the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel and the conflict that followed. Last year, the punk duo Bob Vylan drew an uproar in England for chanting “Death to the IDF” at the Glastonbury music festival, a reference to the Israel Defense Forces. The performance was broadcast live on the BBC.
The Loop Tour began in January in New Zealand and carried on through Australia and parts of Central and South America before moving to the United States and Canada. It is scheduled to conclude in December.