Ed Sheeran’s tour of North and South America was plunged into chaos Tuesday when four of his supporting acts — including his touring band — abruptly quit in solidarity with the rapper Macklemore, who was dropped for making pro-Palestinian comments onstage.
Hours after Sheeran posted on social media about Macklemore’s ouster and attributed the decision to the tour’s promoters, Irish acts Aaron Rowe and Beoga, the Danish band Lukas Graham, and Finneas posted on Instagram that they were leaving the tour.
Rowe and Lukas Graham would have been replacements for Macklemore on Sheeran’s remaining U.S. dates, while Beoga was serving as Sheeran’s touring band. Finneas, who is Billie Eilish’s brother and musical collaborator, was due to tour with Sheeran in South America later this year.
“Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed,” Finneas said on Instagram. “I have decided to withdraw from my upcoming tour dates with Ed Sheeran. I stand with Palestine and its people.”
The moves by his fellow artists put enormous pressure on Sheeran, who has tried to avoid politics and taking a side in the Gaza conflict, arguing that his fans don’t come to his shows to hear politics.
Rowe and Beoga each cited their country’s history in their statements explaining their decision. “We are Irish people who understand colonialism. As founding members of the Irish Artists for Palestine movement, we are committed activists for justice and will continue to be,” Beoga said.
Rowe called Sheeran a friend and said the British singer-songwriter changed his life. “But as Irish people we know all too well about genocide, forced famine and violent occupation,” he said, adding that he couldn’t “stand by and allow billionaires to use their position of power to silence the rightful voices of those who speak up.”
who has tried to avoid politics and taking a side in the Gaza conflict
This is such BS, he did a benefit show for Ukraine, not that they don’t deserve it but that is an inherently political statement. Why is it about these people in Gaza, who are also involved in a war that was started by an oppressor, don’t deserve the same respect.
well well well
Solidarity with Palestine, and also with Macklemore.
What are things I’d never thought I’d read in 2016, Alex?
2016? You just wake up? You have one hell of a decade to catch up on.
If only Sheeran also stood by him.
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world
he doesn’t existthat the genocide in Gaza is a matter of “controversy” and “opinion” and is somehow “debatable” and “anyway, Hamas roasted babies in ovens then beheaded others on October 7th, soooooo…”Honestly, there are plenty of situations in the world that are difficult to parse and understand, and coming to a strong position on it is tricky. The Gaza genocide really ain’t one of them. I’m from N. Ireland, and currently there’s a lot of talk about a United Ireland. I was raised during the “troubles”, Catholic and surrounded by loyalists on every side, but I don’t know what the future will look like for us under an all-Ireland government. There are volumes written on the economic and educational and healthcare aspects of it, and it’s really not as clear-cut as “the partition was unjust and should be removed just as a matter of principle” or indeed that “the UK is so far off the rails that it’s skidding through the Australian Outback, we need to disconnect ASAP”. It’s like trying to wade through Finnegan’s Wake. Gaza, on the other hand, is like reading the Hungry Caterpillar then finding that huge swathes of the West are tangled up in it like it’s James Joyce during one of his LSD benders.
What’s amazing is there basically no evidence Hamas did any of the most heinous things they accused them of and a bunch of evidence that the IDF has done those things. Every accusation is a confession I guess…
Amazing how there’s seemingly thousands of videos showing IDF soldiers murdering obvious noncombatants and I don’t think I’ve seen a single video of a Palestinian doing the same (granted I’m not looking for either).
Then there’s the whole thing about Israeli intelligence supposedly keeping Hamas in power by squashing rival Palestinian groups who wanted to pursue less violent means of dealing with Israel. As well as Israel supposedly knowing the Oct raid was going to happen and allowing it so they had an excuse to ramp up the genocide.
It makes me wonder if the PLO might have reformed had Israel not been interfering on behalf of Hamas.
To paraphrase someone in another thread, if you won’t take a stand against genocide, then you are effectively standing with it. Fuck you Ed.
Down there - he said - are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any inequity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathsomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don’t say no.
– Terry Pratchett, Guard! Guards!
Ugh I need to find that book, I was just around where that super tall dwarf guy had joined the watch and then I was a bit busy for a few days and couldn’t read and then suddenly 2022 turned into 2026. I should still have it lying around somewhere after 4 or 5 moves, or at least I think I saw it a few months ago.
The whole series is just brilliant. Pratchett was an amazingly gifted author.
They were quoting Ellie Wiesel, one of the most prominent and eloquent Holocaust survivors whose writing you were almost certainly required to read in school.
Solidarity is the greatest asset we have in this system which survives by dividing us. Big respect for these artists
Agreed. I get so mad when people get all shitty about immigrants and religions and foreign countries and it’s like dude, they are people, like you and me, desperately trying to survive in a very different but equally shitty system to the one we are trying desperately to survive in. You can’t cherry pick honor killings and morality police incidents as the only evil in the world while you ignore school shootings and mass medicare denials. We’re all fighting the same fights against inequality and injustice even if we’re all stuck in different lanes. We’re all fucking people. We all want the same fucking things, we want a home, we want safety and security for our families, and we want some opportunity to make our future better. We can certainly argue about how exactly to do that, but demonizing other people is where evil starts.
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Unity is built through coalition, not homogeneity.
Also, it’s spelled “dilute”.
Ok
Hmm. Was Sheeran equally apolitical in 2022?
Responding publicly to Ukrainian band Antytila, whose members had joined Ukraine’s territorial defence, Sheeran said: “To all Ukrainians, I love you, I stand with you”, adding that he was proud to be taking part in the Concert for Ukraine fundraiser.
He described what followed the invasion as “devastating acts of violence,” called Ukraine “a proud and resilient country,” and said: “I stand with Ukraine.” He donated his YouTube royalties from the video to the DEC Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.
Sheeran’s reaction was evidently very strongly pressured by Robert Kraft (billionaire, conservative, general shitheel, Patriots owner, orangeboi + regime supporter). Which, you know, simply tells us that Ed’s morals have a quantifiable dollar-value price, and that his price is lower than almost people would have guessed.
Israeli lobby has really done a number on folks’ perception of violence.
An who can blame them with antisemitic comments like this all over the place… /s
including his touring band
Fucking lol
That’s pretty hilarious lmao
As funny as this is, doesn’t he do a show solo? Like he gets up and loops it all himself.
He does now
Did
Lol
His replacement and touring band are founding members for the “Irish Artists for Palestine” movement and he didn’t think they’d have a problem with this?
I get why people are pissed at Ed Sheeran. But it seems wildly unfair that billionaire Israel supporter Robert Kraft, who started this mess, is somehow getting away clean while Ed Sheeran takes all the heat.
Robert Kraft, friend of Jeffrey Epstein, is the one who made this happen. Ed is simply spineless and complying with Kraft’s demands
Ed Sheeran could have told Robert Kraft to go fuck himself and Ed would have most of the world on his side. He is already rich enough to not have to worry about anything.
But nope. I suppose for some people it is never enough.
Now everyone knows what a cunt and a shit friend he is.
So yeah, fuck Ed Sheeran.
Yeah, this is a MASSIVE own-goal for Sheeran. What a way to categorically fail at reading the room. Or, I guess, make it clear that your morals are for sale, for the right price.
If this actually tanks his career, I’m not gonna have any sympathy, because he just showed the world the caliber of his character, and it’s not great.
I wouldn’t describe him as “getting away clean”. His rapist past (present?) is absolutely on blast right now.
You’re definitely right that he will never face justice though. There is no justice against the oligarchs unless we do it ourselves.
Sheeran is taking heat for not standing up for Macklemore. Not much we can do to protest Kraft except respond to assholishness with solidarity
There’s a lot more that can and should be done.
Tell patriots fans that their team has a political slant that you disagree with, if that is the case. The Kraft group’s other holdings are a bit too opaque for me to parse
Anyone who participates in any way shape or form with the NFL after their obviously evil treatment of the kneeling black guy is a loser who clearly only has two brain cells left to run together.
only has two brain cells left to run together.
Repeatedly into each other, over and over, until they too suffer a traumatic brain injury that’s swept under the rug.
People are dumb, social animals. Try to engage on their level and you’ll find yourself effecting change far more often.
Gillette Stadium is just about the only one an average person can boycott, besides the sports teams that is.
The rest of it is mostly paper, cardboard, other wood products, various packaging and shipping containers. If the marketing photo on the International Forest Products, LLC website is to be believed, you should avoid crap tea, scotch and cereals (Lipton, Johnny Walker and whatever Nestle cereal thing) in order to avoid their paperboard.
Oh and at least two of his four sons are also supporters of Israel. One’s trying to popularize LaCrosse in Israel, one is a known donor of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Majority_for_Israel one lacks a wikipedia page and one I couldn’t really parse any political stances from.
And, uh, avoid ICE deportation flights I guess?
Since 2017, Robert Kraft has owned two Boeing 767 private jets used by the New England Patriots.[114] As of June 2022, one of these jets had been used for at least 3 flights deporting migrants from the United States to Honduras.[114] Neither Kraft nor the Patriots commented on this revelation, but they later cancelled their contract with the charter airline that had operated these flights; in 2024, they signed a new charter contract with Omni Air International, which also operates deportation flights on behalf of ICE.
And the source [114] itself since I just copy-pasted wikipedia with citation tags: https://gillianbrockell.com/the-truth-about-ice-and-the-new-england-patriots-jets-go-seahawks/
Majority of football fans are right wing Israel supporters.
Then sway the rest. Also, I’ll definitely need a source to back that up. I’m pretty sure it’s an even split between socially regressive and progressive people
Well yeah for one they named their team after wealthy slave owning tax evaders.
Never go to a venue he’s associated with seems like it would be a pretty big one.
Too many people willing to abandon any morals they have in exchange for a date night concert, though.
Probably cuz we all already knew that Robert Kraft was a bad guy. We’re not surprised when a villain acts like a villain. Fascist usually act like fascists. What’s dangerous is when people just start going along with them because it’s easy. That’s when things get really bad.
Interesting quote in that article.
“There are actually two cases involving billionaire Palm Beach neighbors that are blowing up right now — those of Kraft and the convicted teen-sex-abuser Jeffrey Epstein,” columnist Will Bunch wrote in the piece. “In different ways, both men exploited women who were very young and very poor — and whom they considered disposable.”
Kraft is literally Epstein class.
I wouldn’t say he’s getting away cleanly, every article on this heavily mentions Kraft being the one behind the pressure to drop Macklemore from the tour…
But short of another Mangioni, there’s very little anyone can do to hurt Kraft in a meaningful way.
Even if the backlash from this outright irreversibly ended his career and robbed him of every holding he has, which it won’t, he’d still have his generational wealth to tide him over till the day he died.
Let’s tax his wealth!
From what I heard (although I may be wrong) it sounded like Sheeran was quietly supportive of Macklemore, given that he was consistently allowed to give his speech up until Kraft threatened them. Sure, he gave in to the pressure far more quickly than he should have, but by the sound of it, he was ultimately a victim of Zionist actions rather than a supporter. Kraft was the one trying to silence the Free Palestine messages, and threatening the whole tour to do so - he is the aggressor here.
That said, maybe I’ve missed something, so feel free to correct me.
Given they’ve been working together for over 10 years and it seemed like they were actually good friends… That was just a major stab in the back. Man’s got hundreds of millions, if all those zionist venue owners had cancelled on him for real, he could’ve easily weathered that storm. Hell, might’ve even gotten more sales at the venues that wouldn’t have cancelled since the cancellations would’ve been good publicity in the eyes of many. Wouldn’t even have had to explicitly support Palestine himself, just say that he will not let bullies force him to drop his fellow artists from his tour and that’s it.
Unless his entourage is literally a thousand people or something, he could’ve even paid them for the cancelled events without the financial hit being all that major.
Tour crew arent his “entourage”, and easily get into the hundreds. If its a big show, then yeah its thousands.
He’s not paying thousands of them full-time though, don’t be daft. Most would get contracted for just the stadium they’re working at. They’re not exactly dependent on his tour for the next 1.5 years of their lives.
The riggers, electricians, lighting operators, sound operators, stage hands, transportation, instrument technicians would all travel with the tour. Depending on the tempo of the dates, this could be two or three crews piggybacking venues.
If the venues back out of contracts for a tour it’s a pretty good chance he could win a lawsuit against them.
He did offer up that his fans came to be entertained, not have politics thrust on them. It’s a classic excuse, while throwing under the bus his fellow tourmate and the situation as a whole.
Sure, he gave in to the pressure far more quickly than he should have, but by the sound of it, he was ultimately a victim of Zionist actions rather than a supporter. Kraft was the one trying to silence the Free Palestine messages, and threatening the whole tour to do so - he is the aggressor here.
Sheran is only a victim of his own cowardace.
I don’t give a wet fuck what he thinks behind closed doors if the spineless little shit caves and throws away his own “beliefs” in public the microsecond it becomes a problem.
Actually, I take that back, I do give a fuck what he thinks in private, in as far as it shows he has no morals and is willing to assume the position rather than take heat for his beliefs.
Did you see his statement both-sidesing the genocide?
I did not, so that would explain what I’m missing and why people are focused on him over Kraft.
helpers arent victims.
It’s expected from Kraft, he’s in with the traitors. People hold musicians to a higher standard.
Agreed, both of them should be taking heat.
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good, fuck him
and fuck anyone else who continues to live life normally while this atrocity unfolds.
In his social media post, Sheeran said he “spoke with the venues at length all week to try to build a bridge,” but that “the venue’s and promoter’s decision was final.”
He wrote that he tries to use his music to “bring people from all backgrounds and cultures together” and that while he has personal views about “this devastating conflict,” he chooses not to speak publicly because people who come to his shows “do not expect a political forum.” He added: “I am not complicit.”
I am not complicit my ass. If you have a platform and decide to stay quiet when you have a clear chance to send a message, then fuck you .
In the world full of Ed Sheerans, be James Blunt. 😬
“NOM!” - the leopards, in regards to faces
Glad they are standing by that singer. Not huge fan of rap but definitely give them some love for this move. Fuck Ed Sheerans don’t like his face and thought it was scummy just by some past comments.
