A Timeline of the Ed Sheeran & Macklemore ‘Free Palestine’ Tour Controversy

It all began on Sept. 4, when Macklemore played his first show on the Loop Tour. At MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, the rapper performed his protest anthem “Hind’s Hall” and told the crowd, “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.”

The following day, during his second night at the venue, Macklemore echoed his sentiments from the prior show and added, “To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters: Criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you.”

One day after the MetLife shows concluded, the Israeli-American Council published a petition calling for Macklemore to be removed from his post on the Loop Tour.

“The issue is not whether Macklemore has the right to hold political views,” it read. “The question is where the line should be drawn when an opening act uses a global concert platform to advance a one-sided political agenda. This becomes even more troubling when the message relies on selective imagery, biased messaging, and disputed claims presented to a massive audience as fact, without context or complexity.”

Macklemore addressed backlash to his comments by sharing a video of one of his speeches on X, writing, “Wanting all humans to be treated equal should never be controversial.”

After facing criticism for resharing a post that called for Macklemore’s removal from the Loop Tour, Pink said her piece in a long statement on Instagram.

“I was born a Jew,” she wrote. “I didn’t pick it, and I’ve never hidden it. And this week a whole lot of people decided what I believe without asking me, without checking a single thing I’ve ever said or done, because a repost and the word ‘Jew’ were apparently enough to fill in the rest.”

The singer added that she believes “Palestinians deserve a future that honors their humanity and their aspirations,” but condemned Macklemore for standing “in front of a stadium full of music-loving families, with violent images from a war on the screens, dedicated a song to the movement of his choice, and then took the mic to tell all of the Jews in the stadium that it wasn’t about them.”

Macklemore was dropped from the Loop Tour after just two shows amid growing calls for his removal, as announced by the trek’s U.S. promoter, Messina Touring Group, on Sept. 14.

“As the concert promoter for Ed Sheeran’s U.S. Loop Tour, 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,” a spokesperson told Rolling Stone at the time. “After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates.”

After news of his dismissal went public, Macklemore shared his thoughts in a lengthy statement on Instagram. In it, he expressed empathy for Sheeran — whom he called his “brother” — and the “f–ked up situation” the Loop Tour’s headliner had been placed in. But the rapper also called out his longtime friend’s “I don’t take sides” approach to the issue after explaining that Sheeran had allegedly been pressured by some of the owners of certain stadiums the tour is scheduled to stop through, namely Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft.

“There is no neutral position between the oppressor and the oppressed,” Macklemore wrote. “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.”

After he was named in Macklemore’s statement, Kraft shared his own thoughts on the issue. “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 September 25th and 26th concerts at Gillette Stadium would cross that line,” the billionaire wrote.

“This decision is not about diminishing the suffering of innocent Palestinians or denying anyone the right to advocate on their behalf,” he continued. “Their pain and loss are real. But that advocacy should not come at the expense of the Jewish community.”

In response to pushback from the public over the dropping of Macklemore from tour, Sheeran explained his perspective on the matter in a statement on social media captioned, “It’s important that I set out some facts.”

The pop star confirmed that Kraft and other “venues on my upcoming tour dates [had] communicated that they would pull the shows” if the rapper remained on the supporting lineup. Despite his attempts to “build bridges” and “find a solution” between the stadium owners and “activists on both sides,” Sheeran said that “the venue’s and promoter’s decision was final.”

“I respect Macklemore’s strength of purpose to stand up and shout for what he believes,” the “Shape of You” artist added. “However, there is room for multiple approaches to the same end: peace. I choose to use my fame and platform to be a place of safety and sanctuary, to maintain diplomacy and keep conversations open, not closed.”

The IAC got its wish after launching the petition to have Macklemore removed, but following Sheeran’s statement, the council also criticized the singer.

“In his statement, Sheeran talks about wanting his shows to be a ‘safe space’ and about how his audience doesn’t come for a ‘political forum’ — but when the moment came to take responsibility for what happened on his own stage, he chose to emphasize that the decision to drop Macklemore wasn’t his,” the IAC said in a statement shared with Billboard. “This isn’t just ‘criticism of Israel.’ It’s a message that crosses the line between legitimate political criticism and antisemitism. This is Ed Sheeran’s stage, it’s the tour that carries his name — and so the responsibility for what happens on it is his too.”

Within hours of Sheeran’s statement, the rest of his Loop Tour openers — led by Aaron Rowe, who was the first to make an announcement — dropped out of their scheduled performances on the trek. “I stand with Palestine and its people,” Finneas wrote of his choice to defect, while Lukas Graham wrote in his announcement, “We should be able to speak about war, about civilians being killed, about children who deserve to grow up.”

Sheeran’s guest band Beoga, which played a six-song mini-set with him during Loop shows, also announced on Sept. 15 that it would not finish out the rest of tour. “To play in venues that silence anyone advocating for Free Palestine is simply not an option for us,” the group wrote.

Macklemore spoke up again following Kraft and Sheeran’s statements to announce that he’d be donating the entirety of his earnings from the Loop Tour — $1 million — to humanitarian organizations providing aid to Palestinians in need. He also challenged Kraft to match the donation.

“Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protecting,” the rapper wrote. “A Palestinian life is no less valuable than another life on this earth.”

Kraft released another statement saying that, before Macklemore announced his donation of $1 million, Sheeran had reached out to Kraft with the idea of making donations of their own.

“I have dedicated much of my life to building bridges between all people,” Kraft wrote. “I believe deeply that all lives are worth protecting. Earlier today, before Macklemore challenged me to match his donation, Ed called me and asked me to commit $2 million to match his donation to aid in the region to fight this humanitarian crisis. Ed now plans to reach out to other venue owners and our goal is to continue to work together to build bridges.”

Sheeran opened his Sept. 19 concert in Philadelphia — the first stop of his Loop Tour without Macklemore or any supporting acts — by addressing “the question of where I stand in the situation in Israel and Palestine.”

“What happened in Israel and at the Nova Music Festival on October 7th was horrific and compounded centuries of Jewish pain. What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic and unjustifiable, and disproportionate. My heart has been broken by the scale of devastation and loss of civilians’ lives, of children’s lives, and the systemic injustice we’re seeing unfold in the West Bank cannot be overlooked,” Sheeran said from the stage at Lincoln Financial Field.

“I am already speaking to people across the spectrum to work out how to make a contribution that helps victims of these terrible times, and listening and learning because I do not know enough,” he added.