Two big things most people seem to be willfully not even attempting to understand:
Macklemore asked to join my tour last year and I agreed, because I respect him as an artist. As with all my support acts, I agree that they play a setlist of their choosing.
and:
“Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine. Macklemore’s contract for the tour was with the promoter, not me.
Too many accounts want people to focus on the guy that gave Macklemore this platform to say it, and for no one to look at the people who stopped Macklemore from saying it again.
It’s really hard to tell if it’s people repeating Israeli propaganda because they fell for it, or they know blaming Ed is bullshit and hoping to get others to fall for it.
For real, hes the artist. The publisher needs him. If he turns around and says I support Macklemore what can the publisher do but grovel? People aren’t paying to see them, they are paying to see the artists.
For real he had all the leverage right there. People need him to earn millions in the upcoming shows. He could have simply said that his decision was also final, and pulled out. He could have offered to do more shows at better stadiums, and let them figure out how to deal with the political fallout. Even hardcore fans while distraught would have been angry at the stadiums, not ed. He fucked up that entire situation against himself.
How the fuck do people not know about entertainment contracts in 2026?!
Oh boo hoo. Didn’t hold back Pearl Jam vs ticket master. Or Madonna vs the pope. Or NWA vs the FBI, or Lupe Fiasco vs Obama.
Having a spine and being absolved by history is well worth the cost of losing access to pansy billionaires’ stupid, ginormous venues. The fans are coming to see the artists. The artists have the ultimate power. And Sheeran used his voice for nothing.
And for what? Sheeran is going to be dealing with the fallout from this fiasco for ages - the economic effects of this whole fiasco will likely be comparable to the effects of he were to simply tell Kraft to shove it, which should have been incredibly easy to do given how he’s sitting on a $400m net worth. That is the definition of “fuck you money”, and he fucken blew it. Limp-dicked pansy.
Why don’t you spend even a fraction of this energy talking about Robert Kraft?
He’s the billionaire who actually did this.
Seriously bud, take a deep breath, think for just a second, and tell me why you think everyone’s focus is being diverted from Robert Kraft silencing Macklemore
Why don’t you spend even a fraction of this energy talking about Robert Kraft?
Take your own advice. This is 2nd day in a row where you spent all day yesterday typing defenses for Sheeran, calling anyone who disagrees Israeli. Ed doesn’t need defending. Go fuck with Kraft instead of playing tone police.
Fun fact: you’re not the one who brought up Kraft, you likely learned about him from other users who brought it up 😱
You can do both. You can call out Kraft as the billionaire Zionist who wants to control speech, and you can also call out the millionaire Sheeran that obeyed so he can keep getting paid.
That’s not what you’re doing. All you’re doing is deflecting criticism from Sheeran, and if by some dumb luck your strategy worked and people started talking about Kraft only, you’d come in here and say “it’s wild that people are so focused on what a sports guy is saying, when Trump is he real villain”.
If we’re going to have a conversation about where to put our energy, then I have some questions about why the hell you’re simping so hard for Ed fucken Sheeran lol
So why are you ignoring billionaire Rober Kraft and the other NFL owners?
Maybe you should ask Sheeran.
Questions were also raised about [Sheeran’s] relationship with Kraft. Sheeran sang at the businessman’s wedding in 2022, and in a subsequent interview called him “super sweet”.
I don’t think anyone is defending the people who pulled Macklemore off the tour, we just can’t really know who they are. Personally I wasn’t asking for Ed to not perform but to actually say something in defense of Macklemore instead of just going ‘oh well, anyways’.
Macklemore said he’s not mad at Ed, it’s not his fault.
He said Bob Kraft did it, and Kraft verified he did.
but to actually say something in defense of Macklemore instead of just going ‘oh well, anyways’.
Especially right now after reading the above text, it would be fucking wild if you really think you still know everything that fucking happened.
Things exist before you know about them, stop acting like trump, our society can not afford everyone to do that, and you all fucking are more and more every damn day.
Macklemore said he’s not mad at Ed, it’s not his fault.
That’s just a straight up lie. He called him a spineless coward who isn’t neutral and chose money and career opportunities over refusing to comply with silencing him, he said he will continue to be available to talk to Ed about Palestine in the hopes of not ending a 13 year friendship over this, not in those exact words.
"I’m going to speak from the heart and share the truth. Ed Sheeran and his team have made the decision to remove me from The Loop tour. But before I get into it, I want to say something that should be obvious. In this moment I think it matters. I am not a victim. Ed Sheeran is not a victim. Pink is not a victim. We have careers, money, opportunities, safety and audiences around the world. Whatever consequences any of us face for what we say, we get to go home to our families.
The victims are the Palestinian people. The men, women and children who have been killed, starved, displaced and forced to live through unimaginable violence. More than 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza alone. People are being killed today, and people will be killed tomorrow. I want to make sure that as I tell this story, we don’t lose sight of that.
Last Monday, in the middle of all the media attention surrounding Pink and what I said at MetLife, Ed told me that Robert Kraft called him. We were scheduled to play Gillette Stadium later this month, which is owned by the Kraft Group. Ed told me that Kraft said I would not be allowed to perform in his stadium. Ed also told me that Kraft had rallied some of the other stadium owners and collectively they gave him an ultimatum: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues.
Ed was in a fucked up position. He knew it. 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. 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. But he couldn’t get past his public facing, “I don’t take sides.
And I get why people don’t. Taking a side can cost you. Money, brand deals, sponsorships, festivals, private shows, relationships and access. I’ve lost all of those things. But there is no neutral position between the oppressor and the oppressed. When one side has the bombs and bottomless financial and military support from America, refusing to take a side doesn’t leave you in the middle.
What I said at MetLife I have been saying on stages around the world 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.
And one of the most effective ways to enforce that silence has been to weaponize the accusation of antisemitism. Antisemitism is real. And that is exactly why the word matters too much to be used as a shield against criticism of the Israeli state. 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.
I hope this isn’t the end of my relationship with Ed. Thirteen years of friendship doesn’t disappear because of one painful disagreement. I hope we both continue listening, studying what is happening in Palestine and wrestling with what neutrality means in a moment like this. My door will always be open to continuing that conversation.
When my brother Omar was doing the subtitles for the video I posted from MetLife, I thanked him. He told me there’s a phrase in Arabic:
لا شكر على واجب
“La shukra ala wajeb.” There is no thanks for a duty.
That stayed with me. Because that’s what this has become for me and millions of others around the world. A duty. Not something deserving of praise or gratitude. Not brave. Human.
Who is winning the internet, who is getting canceled, who gets to play the stadium and who doesn’t, all of it becomes so small when held against what we are actually witnessing in Gaza and the West Bank. An entire people being displaced, starved and killed while the world debates which words we are allowed to use to describe it, how those words make us feel, and whether our discomfort matters more than the people living through a genocide.
I didn’t need 10 shows from Ed. I needed 2. 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."
I don’t have to blame Ed for the situation to recognize that he’s complicit. Saying nothing about Palestine only helps Israel. The attempt to make the shows apolitical is fruitless and ignorant. He may not be the one to silence Macklemore, but he finds it acceptable. No matter what he thinks he’s doing, he’s supporting Israel.
You’re just completely fucking incapable of seeing the value in that? It totally escapes your grasp and you somehow think that means he supports Israel
He accepted Macklemore’s request to join, for the stated reason of artistic merit
Knowing he’d say what he said
Absolutely no evidence of that
that means he supports Israel
I never claimed to know how he feels about the situation. What I said was that the actions he’s taking (or lack thereof) support Israel. That is true regardless of whatever he feels about the situation
I’m not pop culture pilled enough to know much beyond Thrift Shop and I have no clue what you’re saying with the Charlie Murphy comment.
Though if Macklemore had just done the pro Palestine songs without specifically yelling “free Palestine” to the crowd, then I don’t think anything would’ve happened. Not giving any excuses, just theorizing that the moneyed interests are less concerned about activist language when it’s masked by art. They more fear the explicit calls to action that leave little room for interpretation.
C’mon now, Sheeran is a huge name with huge power. He likely didn’t push for booting Macklemore, but he did fuck all to tell the promoter and stadium owners to pound sand and keep him on the tour. Promoters and stadium owners don’t make money without a product and Sheeran is huge product - Bland, spineless product that stands for nothing, but product.
Two big things most people seem to be willfully not even attempting to understand:
and:
Too many accounts want people to focus on the guy that gave Macklemore this platform to say it, and for no one to look at the people who stopped Macklemore from saying it again.
It’s really hard to tell if it’s people repeating Israeli propaganda because they fell for it, or they know blaming Ed is bullshit and hoping to get others to fall for it.
He could still push back and actually defend macklemore instead of acting as if he has no pull on what happens on his own tour.
For real, hes the artist. The publisher needs him. If he turns around and says I support Macklemore what can the publisher do but grovel? People aren’t paying to see them, they are paying to see the artists.
For real he had all the leverage right there. People need him to earn millions in the upcoming shows. He could have simply said that his decision was also final, and pulled out. He could have offered to do more shows at better stadiums, and let them figure out how to deal with the political fallout. Even hardcore fans while distraught would have been angry at the stadiums, not ed. He fucked up that entire situation against himself.
How the fuck do people not know about entertainment contracts in 2026?!
He didn’t pay for this tour to happen, he signed a contract saying he would do the tour.
Macklemore signed a different contract.
If Ed doesn’t perform, no one is ever going to finance a tour for him again.
At the bare minimum blame him in addition to the people who are actually responsible
All everyone is doing is ignoring the people who actually censored the comments they claim to be upset were censored.
How do you not understand that?
Oh boo hoo. Didn’t hold back Pearl Jam vs ticket master. Or Madonna vs the pope. Or NWA vs the FBI, or Lupe Fiasco vs Obama.
Having a spine and being absolved by history is well worth the cost of losing access to pansy billionaires’ stupid, ginormous venues. The fans are coming to see the artists. The artists have the ultimate power. And Sheeran used his voice for nothing.
And for what? Sheeran is going to be dealing with the fallout from this fiasco for ages - the economic effects of this whole fiasco will likely be comparable to the effects of he were to simply tell Kraft to shove it, which should have been incredibly easy to do given how he’s sitting on a $400m net worth. That is the definition of “fuck you money”, and he fucken blew it. Limp-dicked pansy.
Why don’t you spend even a fraction of this energy talking about Robert Kraft?
He’s the billionaire who actually did this.
Seriously bud, take a deep breath, think for just a second, and tell me why you think everyone’s focus is being diverted from Robert Kraft silencing Macklemore
Take your own advice. This is 2nd day in a row where you spent all day yesterday typing defenses for Sheeran, calling anyone who disagrees Israeli. Ed doesn’t need defending. Go fuck with Kraft instead of playing tone police.
No, I’ve spent a brief amount of time over two days saying people should blame the billionaires doing this instead…
And that not blaming them, is letting them off the hook.
Why are you so motivated to make sure no one blames the people responsible?
https://lemmy.world/u/inb4_FoundTheVegan
Seriously, you keep focusing on the artist and not the billionaires, if you cany provide a plausible reason, people are left with assumptions.
Fun fact: you’re not the one who brought up Kraft, you likely learned about him from other users who brought it up 😱
You can do both. You can call out Kraft as the billionaire Zionist who wants to control speech, and you can also call out the millionaire Sheeran that obeyed so he can keep getting paid.
That’s not what you’re doing. All you’re doing is deflecting criticism from Sheeran, and if by some dumb luck your strategy worked and people started talking about Kraft only, you’d come in here and say “it’s wild that people are so focused on what a sports guy is saying, when Trump is he real villain”.
Edit: like this: https://lemmy.world/comment/25841725
If we’re going to have a conversation about where to put our energy, then I have some questions about why the hell you’re simping so hard for Ed fucken Sheeran lol
Yes…
I pointed out people should be talking about the person who really did this.
So why are you ignoring billionaire Rober Kraft and the other NFL owners?
Why are you distracting from genocide supporters?
Do you not understand what you’re doing or is it intentional support of Israel causing you to do this?
Maybe you should ask Sheeran.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm17jz89rxevo
I don’t think anyone is defending the people who pulled Macklemore off the tour, we just can’t really know who they are. Personally I wasn’t asking for Ed to not perform but to actually say something in defense of Macklemore instead of just going ‘oh well, anyways’.
You absolutely can…
You just haven’t put any effort into finding out what happened.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2026-09-14/bob-kraft-explains-decision-to-urge-ouster-of-rapper-macklemore-from-ed-sheeran-tour
Macklemore said he’s not mad at Ed, it’s not his fault.
He said Bob Kraft did it, and Kraft verified he did.
Especially right now after reading the above text, it would be fucking wild if you really think you still know everything that fucking happened.
Things exist before you know about them, stop acting like trump, our society can not afford everyone to do that, and you all fucking are more and more every damn day.
That’s just a straight up lie. He called him a spineless coward who isn’t neutral and chose money and career opportunities over refusing to comply with silencing him, he said he will continue to be available to talk to Ed about Palestine in the hopes of not ending a 13 year friendship over this, not in those exact words.
Here’s what he actually said: https://www.instagram.com/p/DdRdsy0m2HK
"I’m going to speak from the heart and share the truth. Ed Sheeran and his team have made the decision to remove me from The Loop tour. But before I get into it, I want to say something that should be obvious. In this moment I think it matters. I am not a victim. Ed Sheeran is not a victim. Pink is not a victim. We have careers, money, opportunities, safety and audiences around the world. Whatever consequences any of us face for what we say, we get to go home to our families.
The victims are the Palestinian people. The men, women and children who have been killed, starved, displaced and forced to live through unimaginable violence. More than 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza alone. People are being killed today, and people will be killed tomorrow. I want to make sure that as I tell this story, we don’t lose sight of that.
Last Monday, in the middle of all the media attention surrounding Pink and what I said at MetLife, Ed told me that Robert Kraft called him. We were scheduled to play Gillette Stadium later this month, which is owned by the Kraft Group. Ed told me that Kraft said I would not be allowed to perform in his stadium. Ed also told me that Kraft had rallied some of the other stadium owners and collectively they gave him an ultimatum: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues.
Ed was in a fucked up position. He knew it. 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. 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. But he couldn’t get past his public facing, “I don’t take sides.
And I get why people don’t. Taking a side can cost you. Money, brand deals, sponsorships, festivals, private shows, relationships and access. I’ve lost all of those things. But there is no neutral position between the oppressor and the oppressed. When one side has the bombs and bottomless financial and military support from America, refusing to take a side doesn’t leave you in the middle.
What I said at MetLife I have been saying on stages around the world 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.
And one of the most effective ways to enforce that silence has been to weaponize the accusation of antisemitism. Antisemitism is real. And that is exactly why the word matters too much to be used as a shield against criticism of the Israeli state. 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.
I hope this isn’t the end of my relationship with Ed. Thirteen years of friendship doesn’t disappear because of one painful disagreement. I hope we both continue listening, studying what is happening in Palestine and wrestling with what neutrality means in a moment like this. My door will always be open to continuing that conversation.
When my brother Omar was doing the subtitles for the video I posted from MetLife, I thanked him. He told me there’s a phrase in Arabic:
لا شكر على واجب
“La shukra ala wajeb.” There is no thanks for a duty.
That stayed with me. Because that’s what this has become for me and millions of others around the world. A duty. Not something deserving of praise or gratitude. Not brave. Human.
Who is winning the internet, who is getting canceled, who gets to play the stadium and who doesn’t, all of it becomes so small when held against what we are actually witnessing in Gaza and the West Bank. An entire people being displaced, starved and killed while the world debates which words we are allowed to use to describe it, how those words make us feel, and whether our discomfort matters more than the people living through a genocide.
I didn’t need 10 shows from Ed. I needed 2. 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."
I don’t have to blame Ed for the situation to recognize that he’s complicit. Saying nothing about Palestine only helps Israel. The attempt to make the shows apolitical is fruitless and ignorant. He may not be the one to silence Macklemore, but he finds it acceptable. No matter what he thinks he’s doing, he’s supporting Israel.
He is the one that got Macklemore on stage…
Knowing he’d say what he said…
You don’t think that was beneficial?
You’re just completely fucking incapable of seeing the value in that? It totally escapes your grasp and you somehow think that means he supports Israel
What the actual fuck is wrong with people?
He accepted Macklemore’s request to join, for the stated reason of artistic merit
Absolutely no evidence of that
I never claimed to know how he feels about the situation. What I said was that the actions he’s taking (or lack thereof) support Israel. That is true regardless of whatever he feels about the situation
Name any two songs he’s made in the last five years besides Hinds Hall and Hinds Hall 2…
Ok Charlie Murphy
I’m not pop culture pilled enough to know much beyond Thrift Shop and I have no clue what you’re saying with the Charlie Murphy comment.
Though if Macklemore had just done the pro Palestine songs without specifically yelling “free Palestine” to the crowd, then I don’t think anything would’ve happened. Not giving any excuses, just theorizing that the moneyed interests are less concerned about activist language when it’s masked by art. They more fear the explicit calls to action that leave little room for interpretation.
If you believe this line, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
This is Ed’s tour. Ed’s event. Ed’s name on the posters. Ed’s promoter. Ultimately, this is Ed’s decision.
C’mon now, Sheeran is a huge name with huge power. He likely didn’t push for booting Macklemore, but he did fuck all to tell the promoter and stadium owners to pound sand and keep him on the tour. Promoters and stadium owners don’t make money without a product and Sheeran is huge product - Bland, spineless product that stands for nothing, but product.