SEATTLE — Macklemore has been dropped from the rest of Ed Sheeran’s tour after several venues said they wouldn’t allow the Seattle rapper to play, according to Sheeran’s tour promoter.

During the tour’s stop earlier this month at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, Macklemore called for a “free Palestine” on stage and made several statements supporting Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

The Messina Touring Group told Rolling Stone they “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. After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates.”

Of the eight remaining stops on Sheeran’s “The Loop Tour,” the venues that allegedly objected to Macklemore’s presence, according to Rolling Stone, include Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia; Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts; Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta; Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis; Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina; AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas; and Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.

In a lengthy social media post Monday morning, Macklemore confirmed that Sheeran, a longtime friend, had kicked him off one of the biggest U.S. concert tours of the year. The Seattle rapper wrote that Sheeran received a call from Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium, where Sheeran is set to perform Sept. 25-26. Kraft and other stadium operators allegedly threatened to cancel the shows if Macklemore was not removed from the bill.

Macklemore, whose real name is Ben Haggerty, acknowledged the difficult position it put Sheeran in as an artist who has largely remained politically neutral over the years.

“His typical apolitical stance was being challenged in a way it never had before,” Macklemore wrote. “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.’”

In a statement issued from the sports and entertainment division of Kraft’s umbrella company, The Kraft Group, the Patriots owner said:

“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. 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.”

On Monday afternoon, U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., weighed in, expressing disappointment that “Macklemore, my constituent” was booted off Sheeran’s tour for “his comments in support of the Palestinian people.”

“We should all be outraged that powerful people are more upset about what an artist says than the displacement, starvation, and killing of innocent Palestinian children and families,” Jayapal wrote on social media.

The controversy stemmed from remarks Macklemore made on stage during his second night on Sheeran’s tour. Before performing “Hind’s Hall” — Macklemore’s 2024 solidarity anthem for the pro-Palestinian protests sweeping university campuses at the time — Macklemore delivered an impassioned speech in front of a MetLife Stadium crowd.

“One of the reasons I wanted to come on this tour was because I wanted to stand up here on stages and stadiums across America and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: free Palestine,” Macklemore told the New Jersey crowd. “I want those words to be loud and clear, so the people from Gaza all the way to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten them.”

“To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters,” he continued, “criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide is in no way a criticism of you. My message is for peace, love for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect and equality.”

A video of the speech Macklemore posted on Instagram went viral, racking up more than 1 million views. Last week, the pop singer Pink, who is Jewish, fanned the flames, resharing a post calling for Macklemore to be dropped from Sheeran’s tour.

Macklemore and Sheeran have a well-documented history together. In his Monday statement, Macklemore noted their 13-year friendship, having shared “late nights, studio sessions and stages” with the pop singer, whose career exploded around the same time “Thrift Shop” and “Can’t Hold Us” launched Macklemore to fame.

Sheeran lent his vocals to the song “Growing Up” from Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ 2016 album, “This Unruly Mess I’ve Made,” and invited Macklemore on stage during his record-breaking 2023 show at Lumen Field. Sheeran also tapped one of the rapper’s frequent hometown collaborators, Jason Koenig, to direct the Seattle-shot video for “Shape of You,” one of Sheeran’s biggest hits.

Macklemore has landed in hot water before after making political statements onstage.

At a Palestine Will Live Forever benefit concert at Seward Park in 2024, Macklemore told the audience, “Straight up, say it. I’m not gonna stop you. I’m not gonna stop you. Yeah, (expletive) America.”

A Las Vegas music festival immediately dropped the rapper from the bill, and the Seattle Mariners replaced his hit song “Can’t Hold Us,” played during the seventh-inning stretch, with their “Hot Dogs From Heaven” marketing campaign.

The Mariners later returned to using “Louie Louie” as their seventh-inning stretch song in 2025.

———

©2026 The Seattle Times. Visit seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.