Ed Sheeran has said he’s ‘so so sorry’ as he broke his silence on the ‘Free Palestine’ comments that saw Macklemore pulled from his own tour.
The singer opened his Philadelphia show on Saturday night by addressing the fallout head-on.
According to Rolling Stone, Macklemore was removed from the Loop Tour after using an onstage speech at MetLife Stadium to voice support for Palestinians, a moment that ended up costing Sheeran his entire lineup of opening acts.
Sheeran was visibly emotional as he told the crowd: “I’m used to my music being criticized, and I’m always happy to take that because I’m lucky a lot of you like my stuff.
“But this week, the criticism was about something much more important, and I’ve had to take and make difficult decisions, and I am making mistakes, and I’m so so sorry.”
Why was Macklemore removed from Ed Sheeran’s tour?
Sheeran was quick to clarify the decision wasn’t actually his.
He claimed promoter Messina Touring Group pulled Macklemore after pressure from venues, and that a conversation with stadium owners, including Gillette Stadium’s Robert Kraft, is what ultimately sealed it.
“I am deeply worried about the idea that venues should pre-approve content for performers,” he said. “This happens in so many places that I perform around the world, but it should never happen in the free world.”
The fallout snowballed fast. Every remaining opening act on the tour dropped out in protest, including Finneas, Lukas Graham and Aaron Row.
Lukas Graham explained his exit in a statement: “Money doesn’t give you the right to own the conversation. Nobody’s bank balance should decide who gets to speak or which suffering we’re allowed to acknowledge. This is a difficult decision, but it’s one I need to stand by.”
That left Sheeran scrambling for support on stage. Introducing collaborator Alicia Enstrom and the other musicians who agreed to join him, he admitted: “How am I going to get musicians to stand onstage with me in a week where no one wants to stand on stage with me?”
He added that those who did show up knew what they were risking: “They said yes with the knowledge that the world may hate them too for standing onstage with me.”
What did Ed Sheeran say about Israel and Palestine?
Having spent his career avoiding political commentary, Sheeran said he could no longer stay quiet given the assumptions fans were making about where he stood.
He called the October 7 attack at the Nova Music Festival ‘horrific,’ while describing the situation in Gaza as ‘catastrophic, unjustifiable, and disproportionate.’
He also said the ‘systemic injustice’ unfolding in the West Bank ‘cannot be overlooked,’ and confirmed he’s now speaking to people ‘across the spectrum’ about how he can help.
Security fears shaped the night too. Sheeran revealed he’d scrapped his usual B stage, telling fans: “I didn’t know what this audience would be like tonight. I didn’t know if I would have things thrown at me.
I didn’t know if people would be angry at me. So Philly, I apologize that today is not the usual loop show. I took the B stage out because I was afraid of what might happen if I stood in the middle.”
The financial fallout has escalated since.