This story has been updated with a statement from Robert Kraft.
Macklemore says Ed Sheeran booted him from his U.S. tour after venues planned to cancel shows over the rapper’s pro-Palestine comments. In a statement posted to Instagram, Macklemore accused New England Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft, who owns Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, of threatening to pull Sheeran’s concert if the rapper was not removed as a support act. He also said Kraft rallied owners of other tour venues to follow suit, prompting Sheeran’s team and Messina Touring Group to ultimately kick him off the bill.
“Ed was in a fucked up position,” Macklemore wrote of his longtime friend and “brother,”adding they had spoken multiple times about the matter. “His typical apolitical stance was being challenged in a way it never had been before.” Sheeran told Macklemore that people objected to the phrase “Free Palestine,” uttered on stage during the rapper’s two prior support dates. (Macklemore’s actions irked, among others, Pink, who said, at the center of her own subsequent firestorm, “What I need is to be able to say, as a Jewish mom, ‘that scared me, and it scared people I love.’”) Macklemore responded to Sheeran that those words should not be “more offensive than tens of thousands of Palestinian children being killed by Israel.”
Sheeran, Macklemore added, “couldn’t get past his public facing, ‘I don’t take sides’…. [But] when one side has bombs and the bottomless financial and military support from America, refusing to take a side doesn’t leave you in the middle.” Macklemore also used his time onstage to show footage of the destruction in Gaza and to perform “Hind’s Hall,” his song named for Hind Rajab, a six-year-old killed by Israeli military.
Macklemore added that he has been speaking in support of Palestine on stage for almost three years. “So why is it an issue now? Because now I’m sharing a stage with one of the biggest artists in the world, in some of the biggest stadiums in America. At a certain level of exposure, ‘Free Palestine’ becomes too much of a risk. If I kept doing the shows, saying Free Palestine, with Ed implicitly supporting it, the crowd getting loud and showing undeniable support for Palestinian liberation, what artist might speak out next? The stage becomes resistance. Maybe that’s why this time it became so important to silence me.” He also said his friendship with Sheeran would not “disappear because of one painful disagreement.”
In a statement provided to NBC News, Kraft confirmed he had helped kick Macklemore off the tour. “Based on Macklemore’s recent actions, material shared from the stage during Ed Sheeran’s shows in New Jersey, and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply hurtful offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community, we determined that his participation in the September 25th and 26th concerts at Gillette Stadium would cross that line. This decision is not about diminishing the suffering of innocent Palestinians or denying anyone the right to advocate on their behalf.”
Kraft added, “I agree with Macklemore. Too many lives have been lost and there has been too much suffering, but only sharing selective information and ignoring the actions of Hamas is not honest and only advances more divisiveness and hate.”
A representative for Messina Touring Group confirmed to Pitchfork that multiple venues said they would “not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup.” The company, which is part of AEG, added Macklemore had been dropped “after discussions with stakeholders.” The promoter, according to Rolling Stone, said the following venues had joined Kraft’s Gillette Stadium in objecting to Macklemore: Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia; Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta; Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis; Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte; AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas; and Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. Pitchfork has emailed those venues for comment.