Macklemore is no longer opening for Ed Sheeran, and the reason has turned a pop tour into a referendum on free speech. The rapper says New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft pressured Sheeran and a string of other stadium owners into pulling him from the remaining U.S. dates of Sheeran’s Loop Tour, a claim Kraft has partly confirmed and left partly unanswered.

Here’s everything we know about how a few minutes of stage banter turned into one of the year’s biggest music-industry controversies.

What Did Macklemore Actually Say Onstage?

Macklemore joined the Loop Tour earlier this month, opening two shows at MetLife Stadium outside New York City on September 4 and 5. At the first show, he 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,’” according to Rolling Stone. “I said, ‘Free Palestine!’ I want those words to be loud and clear, so that people all the way in Gaza to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten about them.” He also called U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement a “terrorist organization,” per The Guardian, and performed his 2024 protest song “Hind’s Hall,” which references the Columbia University students who occupied Hamilton Hall that year and renamed it after a young Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza. He showed images of the devastation in Gaza during the performance.

The backlash was immediate, with the group StopAntisemitism accusing Macklemore of “ambushing” fans with “anti-Israel propaganda” in an Instagram post that singer Pink amplified, according to Rolling Stone. The Israeli American Council launched a petition demanding Sheeran remove Macklemore from the tour, arguing his statements raised the question of “where the line should be drawn when an opening act uses a global concert platform to advance a one-sided political agenda.” At the second MetLife show on September 5, Macklemore addressed Jewish members of the audience directly: “Criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you,” he said, according to The Guardian. “My message is for peace, love for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality.”

How Did Robert Kraft Get Pulled Into This?

In a lengthy Instagram statement posted Monday, Macklemore said Sheeran told him that Kraft had personally called to say he would not be allowed to perform at Gillette Stadium, where Sheeran’s tour was scheduled to play later this month. “Ed told me that Kraft said I would not be allowed to perform in his stadium,” Macklemore wrote, per Rolling Stone and Variety. “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.”

The tour’s promoter, Messina Touring Group, backed up at least part of that account in a statement to Rolling Stone: “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. After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates.”

Macklemore was slated to appear at eight of the 10 remaining shows on the U.S. leg, which resumes September 19 in Philadelphia. The venues that allegedly objected, according to Rolling Stone, were Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, AT&T Stadium in Arlington, and Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. WBUR reported that the promoter told Rolling Stone that six stadium owners beyond Kraft’s own Gillette Stadium said they wouldn’t allow a Macklemore show.

Most of those venues did not respond to requests for comment, Rolling Stone reported, including questions about why they objected, and ownership complicates the picture further, since Bank of America Stadium and Gillette Stadium are privately held while the rest are owned by cities, states, or other government entities, raising First Amendment questions if a public venue barred a performer over his political statements.

But Wait, Who Is Robert Kraft?

Kraft is a Jewish American billionaire who grew up in an observant, Orthodox Jewish household in Massachusetts and owns the New England Patriots, with a net worth of more than $13 billion, according to Forbes. He has funded numerous Jewish and Israeli causes, including donating more than $20 million to the “Stand Up to Jewish Hate” campaign, and in 2019 he received the $1 million Genesis Prize, an award sometimes called the “Jewish Nobel Prize,” for his contributions to the Jewish community. At the ceremony, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Israel does not have a more loyal friend than Robert Kraft.” Kraft has also taken athletes, including Tom Brady, to visit an Israeli military base, where Brady fired a gun and danced the hora, a traditional circle dance, according to an interview Kraft gave The Times of Israel.

Kraft founded the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism in 2019, now known as the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, and he’s a longtime supporter of both Israel and its ally in the White House, President Trump, according to The Guardian. He was also charged with soliciting prostitution in a 2019 Florida massage parlor sting, at which point he appointed one of Jeffrey Epstein’s attorneys to his legal team, according to Al Jazeera. The charges were dropped in 2020.

What Has Robert Kraft Said in His Defense?

Kraft confirmed in a statement shared with multiple outlets, including NBC News and Variety, that he made the call to bar Macklemore from Gillette Stadium. “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,” Kraft said. “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.”

Kraft did not confirm or deny Macklemore’s claim that he rallied other stadium owners. He did say the decision “is not about diminishing the suffering of innocent Palestinians or denying anyone the right to advocate on their behalf. Their pain and loss are real. But that advocacy should not come at the expense of the Jewish community,” and he placed responsibility on Hamas, which the United States and several other governments have designated a terrorist organization, for what he called its role in causing “immeasurable suffering for Palestinians and Israelis alike.” He closed by saying he’d “welcome the opportunity to sit down with Macklemore and discuss the facts, because ultimately our goal is the same – peace for all people, an end to suffering, and an end to all hate.”

How Has Ed Sheeran Responded?

Sheeran denied personally orchestrating Macklemore’s removal, saying in an Instagram statement that the decision belonged to the venues and the promoter. “After Macklemore’s performances at my New Jersey shows, venues on my upcoming tour dates communicated that they would pull the shows if he was still supporting. I was informed that this stance was based on how Macklemore conveyed part of his message during his performance, rather than on everything that was said,” Sheeran wrote. “I spoke with the venues at length all week to try and build a bridge. One of those people was Robert Kraft. I was also involved in direct talks with promoters, along with activists on both sides, to try to find a mutual resolution for all, but the venue’s and promoter’s decision was final. Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision. It was not mine.” Sheeran added that he would not “let down the fans who had made plans” or “abandon the touring crew and the other support acts and musicians who rely on me for work and to make a living.”

Macklemore, for his part, called Sheeran a friend of 13 years he considers a “brother” and said the two had a week of “difficult conversations” that ended in disagreement. “Ed was in a f–ked up position,” Macklemore wrote, per Rolling Stone and The Guardian. “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.’”

Who Else Has Weighed In on the Robert Kraft and Macklemore Fallout?

Pink’s initial repost of the StopAntisemitism post kicked off the public backlash against Macklemore, but she later clarified her position. “I have never asked for another artist to be silenced, and I’m not asking now. I don’t need anyone fired, and I don’t need a refund,” she wrote, per Rolling Stone and The Guardian. “What I need is to be able to say, as a Jewish mom, ‘that scared me, and it scared people I love,’ without being told our fear is just propaganda, and without being told I’m somehow cool with genocide because I noticed?” According to NBC News, Pink said she took issue specifically with Macklemore displaying “violent images” from Gaza in front of families and telling Jewish audience members “it wasn’t about them,” adding, “You don’t get to decide that for us.”

Children’s content creator Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, criticized Sheeran directly on Instagram, writing that he had an opportunity to show “that we won’t be bullied” and instead “caved to people who refuse to accept what the world knows. A genocide is happening in Gaza. We all need to speak out against it.”

For her part, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat who represents Macklemore as a constituent, posted on X that it was “incredibly disappointing” to see her constituent dropped over his advocacy. “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,” she wrote. “Thank you, Macklemore, for speaking up.”

Has Robert Kraft Done This Before?

Kraft suspended his financial contributions to his alma mater, Columbia University, during the 2024 student encampment protests, where the demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza began, saying he was “no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff,” according to Al Jazeera. The Kraft family had donated at least $18 million to Columbia, and that funding has not resumed. The Trump administration separately pulled roughly $400 million in federal funding from Columbia in 2025 over similar antisemitism concerns; the university later settled for $221 million and had its federal funding restored.

Multiple outlets, including Al Jazeera and Rolling Stone, have also compared the situation to Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, the final stop on Sheeran’s tour and one of the venues that objected to Macklemore. Raymond James hosted two concerts by the rapper formerly known as Kanye West earlier this year despite his history of antisemitic statements. Those shows went on as planned, in part because Ye’s contract barred the venue from canceling over his past statements, and legal experts told local news that doing so would likely have violated the First Amendment, since the stadium is owned by Hillsborough County and operated by a public board, the Tampa Sports Authority.

What Do We Know About the Genocide Claims at the Center of This?

Macklemore and Kraft’s statements both circle the same underlying dispute: whether Israel’s military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide. A United Nations commission concluded in findings published last year that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, according to NBC News, a conclusion WBUR reports a growing number of human rights groups have also reached. Israeli government officials have denied the allegations, calling them “distorted and false,” per NBC News, and Rolling Stone reports that Israel’s allies, including the United States, have denied it as well.

The war began after Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, killed about 1,200 people and saw roughly 250 others taken hostage, according to NBC News. More than 73,000 people in Gaza have died as a result of Israel’s military campaign since, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, including at least 1,273 people killed since a fragile ceasefire took effect in October.

Where Does Ed Sheeran’s Tour Go From Here?

The U.S. leg of the Loop Tour resumes September 19 in Philadelphia without Macklemore and is set to run through the fall, wrapping November 7 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, according to Rolling Stone. Openers Lukas Graham and Aaron Rowe remain on the bill. A South American leg follows in November and December. As for Macklemore and Kraft, no meeting between the two has been reported since Kraft said he’d welcome one.

Tags: Macklemore