What to know | Booted From Tour After Shouting "Free Palestine," Macklemore Accuses Kraft of Pressuring Sheeran

On the night of September 4th, Macklemore stood onstage at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, with footage from Gaza playing behind him, and said "Free Palestine." The next night, at the second show, he said it again. Ten days later, he was no longer the opening act for Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour.

Macklemore had originally been booked to open ten dates on Sheeran's fall tour, but was pulled from the remaining shows. In a lengthy statement posted to Instagram, he named names: Robert Kraft called Sheeran and said Macklemore was not allowed to set foot on any stadium bearing his name — the tour was slated to later play Gillette Stadium, owned by the Kraft Group. Macklemore wrote that Sheeran told him Kraft had also rallied other stadium owners to issue a joint ultimatum: keep Macklemore, and forget about performing at our venues.

Tour promoter Messina Touring Group gave Rolling Stone a different version of events, naming no one directly, saying only that "multiple venues informed us they would not allow Macklemore to remain on the bill, which would have resulted in the cancellation of the entire tour, affecting hundreds of thousands of fans." As a result, "after discussions with all parties, Macklemore will no longer be part of the remaining tour dates."

Thirteen Years of Friendship, One Phone Call

In his statement, Macklemore called Sheeran a friend of thirteen years, someone he'd "pulled all-nighters with, been in the same studio with, shared the same stage with." But he was also blunt about how the friendship had been strained by political reality: "Ed's in a tough spot, and he knows it. His usual 'stay out of it' public image was pushed against a wall for the first time." He said Sheeran told him that the words "Free Palestine" and the imagery of Palestinian flags had hurt a number of people he'd spoken with, but Sheeran still couldn't get past his own line: "I don't take sides."

Macklemore's response, as written in the statement: he'd said the same thing on stages around the world for the past three years. "The reason it's a problem now is because I'm sharing a stage with one of the biggest artists in the world, standing in some of the largest stadiums in America."

This isn't the first time Macklemore has paid a price for publicly supporting Palestine. In 2024, he was originally booked for the Neon City music festival, but was dropped from the lineup less than a week after footage surfaced of him saying "Fuck America" at a benefit show for Palestine. He also released "Hind's Hall," a single in support of the Columbia University campus protesters.

The backlash has been substantial as well. Both the Israeli American Council and singer P!nk publicly condemned Macklemore's comments at MetLife. P!nk said the remarks left her "alarmed," and brought up an incident from a 2017 performance where Macklemore wore an outfit widely criticized as invoking offensive stereotypes. Macklemore, for his part, stressed in his statement that his opposition is to the actions of the Israeli state, not to Jewish people.

At the end of his statement, Macklemore wrote that he didn't need ten shows — two were enough, standing in front of ninety thousand people, saying the words that had "become too dangerous." "If these words cost me the stage but bring the conversation back to Palestine, then this was the most successful run of my touring career."