American rapper Macklemore was kicked out of Ed Sheeran’s tour due to anti-Israel rhetoric at previous concerts.
In an Instagram post on Monday, he wrote: “Ed Sheeran and his team have made the decision to remove me from the Loop tour.”
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Macklemore, 43, opened for the English singer-songwriter earlier this month at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, when he chanted “Free Palestine” and accused Israel of apartheid and genocide, the Jewish Journal of Greater Boston reported.
“There was a pre-planned video of IDF soldiers pretending to be Nazis,” concertgoer Lauren Cheesner told CBS News.
In a video Macklemore posted on X showing him talking to the MetLife crowd, he said, “One of the reasons I wanted to come on this tour was because I wanted to stand here on stages and stadiums across America and say two words that are near and dear to my heart: Free Palestine.”
He told members of the Jewish crowd that criticism of Israel is not criticism of the Jewish people.
The Israeli-American Council called on Sheeran to remove Macklemore from his tour. “Don’t allow your stage to be used to divide people or spread one-sided political propaganda,” the band wrote on Instagram.
The band filed a petition to have Macklemore kicked off the tour.
“The question is where to draw the line when an opening act uses a global concert platform to promote a one-sided political agenda,” the online post reads.
“This becomes even more troubling when the message is based on selective imagery, biased reporting and controversial statements presented to a general audience as fact, without context or complexity.”
American singer Pink, who is Jewish, later commented on the incident to MetLife.
“I have never asked for another artist to be silenced and I don’t now. I don’t want anyone fired and I don’t want a refund,” she wrote.
“What I need is to be able to say, as a Jewish mom, ‘This scared me and it scared the people I love,’ without being told that our fear is just propaganda, and without being told that I’m okay with genocide because I noticed it.”
She recalled how in 2014, McLemore dressed as a caricature of a Jew, donning a “hook nose, black beard and bowl cut,” performed in it and called it a “casual costume.”
At the time, critics panned it as anti-Semitic. Macklemore later apologized.
Pink said she “let it go… Then last weekend he stood in front of a stadium full of music-loving families with brutal images of war on the screens, dedicated a song to the movement of his choice, and then took the microphone to tell all the Jews in the stadium that this is not about them.”
She added: “You can’t decide this for us.”
In an Instagram post on Monday, the rapper said that neither he, Sheeran nor Pink were victims. He said the real victims are the Palestinian people.
According to the rapper, Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, called Sheeran and told him that Macklemore would not be allowed to perform there.
Kraft, who is Jewish, also told Sheeran that other stadium owners would likely follow his lead, McLemore said.
Macklemore said he had held his position on Palestine for years, but it was only getting attention now because he shared the stage with Sheeran.
The promoter for the U.S. leg of the tour, Messina Touring Group, confirmed to Rolling Stone that U.S. venues have notified him that “they will not allow a show with Macklemore in the lineup, which will result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans.”
“Following discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates,” the statement said.
Macklemore performed at two of the ten concerts he was scheduled to attend.
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