Macklemore, the controversial rapper who called for a “Free Palestine” before more than 80,000 people at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey while opening for Ed Sheeran, was dropped from the remaining U.S. dates of Sheeran’s “Loop Tour” after multiple venues refused to host concerts with him on the lineup.
“We have been notified by venues on the upcoming U.S. tour dates that they will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup, which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans,” Messina Touring Group, which is promoting the U.S. leg of Sheeran’s tour, told Rolling Stone magazine.
“After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates,” it added.
Macklemore had been scheduled to perform at eight of the 10 remaining shows on the U.S. leg of the tour.
Venues that reportedly objected included Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia; Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.; Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta; Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis; Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C.; AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas; and Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., according to Rolling Stone.
The decision followed two performances by Macklemore at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on Sept. 4 and 5. During the first show, the rapper led concertgoers in chants of “Free Palestine” during the opening performance and referenced Gaza and the “occupied West Bank.”
He also performed his protest song “Hind’s Hall,” which takes its name from the moniker anti-Israel protesters gave Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall after breaking into and occupying the building in April 2024.
“A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: ‘Free Palestine,’” Macklemore told the crowd.
The Israeli-American Council launched a petition following the concert calling on 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 IAC wrote in the petition, which also targeted tour venues and concert promoter Live Nation.
The organization, which represents more than 150,000 Israeli Americans across the United States, told JNS on Monday that it “applauds the decision to remove rapper Macklemore from the Ed Sheeran tour, thereby sparing future audiences the rapper’s antisemitic rants against Israel.”
“The IAC’s call-to-action petition demanding Macklemore’s removal demonstrates the power of a united community,” it said. “The rapper may have a First Amendment right to traffic in Jew-hatred, but he does not have the right to peddle his poison on stage in front of tens of thousands of concertgoers.”
“In the face of such an affront, IAC’s coast-to-coast community will not remain silent,” it told JNS. “We thank Mr. Sheeran and the tour’s producers for creating a welcoming environment for his fans.”
During his second MetLife performance, Macklemore addressed Jewish audience members directly, stating that “criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you.”
The rapper wrote on social media on Monday that Robert Kraft, a prominent Jewish philanthropist whose Kraft Group owns Gillette Stadium, had called Sheeran following the MetLife performances. Sheeran had been scheduled to perform there with Macklemore later in the tour.
“Ed told me that Kraft said I would not be allowed to perform in his stadium,” Macklemore wrote, adding that “Kraft had rallied some of the other stadium owners and collectively” gave Sheeran an ultimatum.
‘Advances more divisiveness and hate’
Kraft, who also founded the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, responded in a statement to TMZ on Monday and said he would “welcome the opportunity to sit down with Macklemore and discuss the facts.”
“Gillette Stadium has a longstanding commitment to providing a welcoming environment for all guests and ensuring that events held at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech,” he told TMZ.
“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 offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community, we determined that his participation in the Sept. 25 and 26 concerts at Gillette Stadium would cross that line.”
Kraft stated that he did not intend to diminish “the suffering of innocent Palestinians” or deny “anyone the right to advocate on their behalf.”
“But that advocacy should not come at the expense of the Jewish community or obscure the responsibility of Hamas, a United States and globally—including Canada, European Union, United Kingdom and Japan—designated terrorist organization whose horrific actions have caused immeasurable suffering for Palestinians and Israelis alike,” he said.
“Only sharing selective information and ignoring the actions of Hamas is not honest and only advances more divisiveness and hate,” Kraft added.
“Standing with the Palestinian people and standing against Hamas, antisemitism and hate should not be mutually exclusive,” he stated. “Much of my time and attention for the last decade has been focused on the fight against antisemitism and hate of all kinds, and I feel a responsibility to stand up when I believe that line has been crossed.”
‘The stage becomes resistance’
Macklemore wrote that Sheeran was in a “f*****d up position” and that his “typical apolitical stance was being challenged in a way it never had been before.”
“He told me that the words ‘Free Palestine’ and the image of the Palestinian flag were hurtful to a lot of people he spoke with,” the rapper wrote.
“I told him that if those words were more offensive than tens of thousands of Palestinian children being killed by Israel, then there was a fundamental disconnect between where those people stood and where I stood,” he added.
“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?” he wrote. “The stage becomes resistance. Maybe that’s why this time it became so important to silence me.”
Macklemore, whose legal name is Benjamin Haggerty, apologized in 2014 after a costume he wore resembled an antisemitic Jewish caricature.
He added that “one of the most effective ways to enforce that silence has been to weaponize the accusation of antisemitism.”
“I didn’t need 10 shows from Ed,” he stated. “I needed two. Two chances to stand in front of 90,000 people and say the words that somehow became too dangerous to say. Free Palestine. But if those words cost me the stage, while turning the conversation back to Palestine, then it was the most successful tour I’ve ever been on.”
Sheeran’s North American tour is scheduled to continue through Nov. 7, with Lukas Graham and Aaron Rowe remaining among the supporting acts.
