Macklemore was removed from Ed Sheeran’s US tour after speaking about Palestine during a performance in New Jersey on September 4, 2026, setting off a chain of withdrawals by other artists and a sharp fall in ticket prices for remaining concerts.
Opening for Sheeran, Macklemore performed ‘Hind’s Hall’, a song with a pro-Palestine message, and told the crowd: ‘One of the reasons why I wanted to come on this tour was because I wanted to stand up here on stages in stadiums across America and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: Free Palestine.’
The precise remarks that led to his removal have not been identified. It is also unclear whether Sheeran or the tour’s organisers sought his departure, or whether the decision was made elsewhere.
Finneas, Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe and Beoga subsequently withdrew as support acts. Prices for Sheeran’s remaining concerts fell in some cases by up to 50 percent. Macklemore said he would give $1m earned from his appearances to six organisations supporting Palestinians, whose identities have not been disclosed.
Sheeran has donated $2m towards humanitarian relief in the region. Ms Rachel has also pledged $1m to Palestinian aid organisations.
The dispute has brought a wider argument about political speech in entertainment into view. Macklemore has long used his public profile to address same-sex marriage, racism and US politics. He released his most commercially successful work independently. His advocacy for Palestinians became more forceful after the war launched by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
In May 2024, he released ‘Hind’s Hall’, which paid tribute to pro-Palestinian protesters who took over Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall. The track praised the student protesters and criticised former President Joe Biden’s military support for Israel and AIPAC.
His record has also made him a target of accusations of antisemitism. Robert Kraft blocked Macklemore from playing at Gillette, the Boston area stadium he owns, this week. Kraft said Macklemore had “a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery”. The relationship, if any, between Kraft’s decision and Macklemore’s removal from the Sheeran tour is unknown.
One earlier controversy dates from May 2014, when Macklemore wore an onstage costume with a large hooked prosthetic nose, a black wig and a bushy beard. Abe Foxman, the late director of the ADL, said later that year: ‘We take him at his word that he did not have any ill intent and unreservedly accept his apology’.
In June 2024, Macklemore told an audience in Mönchengladbach, Germany: ‘there will never be reparations for the Holocaust, but the only way that we can atone for our past is by today standing up against apartheid, against occupation, against genocide, for a free Palestine’.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany later condemned his invitation to Germany’s Deichbrand Festival. It said the invitation signalled that ‘antisemitism is welcome on the big stage’. Macklemore’s response to recent accusations about his activism is unknown.
The argument is unfolding as public views of Israel have shifted in the Pew Research Center’s latest survey. Across 36 countries surveyed this year, a median of 67 percent of respondents held an unfavourable view of Israel. In the United States, the figure was 60 percent. Among Americans aged 18 to 34, 74 percent held an unfavourable view.
It also comes amid legal findings and proceedings connected to the war in Gaza. A United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Macklemore’s removal has therefore become a test of how far major entertainment platforms will accommodate advocacy on Palestine, while the accusations against him show why the debate remains sharply contested.
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