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Macklemore Dropped From Ed Sheeran's Tour After Supporting Palestine
Venue operators pushed Macklemore off Ed Sheeran's tour after he called for a free Palestine. Owners have long used their control of stages and airwaves to decide what political speech Americans hear.
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On September 14, Messina Touring Group, the promoter of Ed Sheeran’s U.S. Loop Tour, removed rapper Macklemore from the tour’s remaining opening slots. The promoter said operators of venues on upcoming dates told the company they would not host a concert with Macklemore on the lineup. On September 4 and 5, at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, Macklemore called for a free Palestine and performed “Hind’s Hall,” his 2024 song about Columbia University students who renamed a campus building for Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl whom Israeli forces killed in Gaza. Every other supporting act has since quit the tour in protest.
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Owners of American venues and media companies have punished artists for political speech before. In 1982, Boston Symphony Orchestra officials canceled actress Vanessa Redgrave’s contract after patrons objected to her support for the Palestine Liberation Organization. In 2003, radio executives pulled the Dixie Chicks off country stations after lead singer Natalie Maines criticized President George W. Bush before the Iraq War. In each case, a few owners controlled the stages and airwaves that artists needed to reach large audiences, and those owners decided which political speech those audiences heard.
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Stadium Owners and a Pop Tour
On September 14, Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, confirmed that he barred Macklemore from Sheeran’s September 25 and 26 concerts at Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, which Kraft’s company owns. Kraft cited what he called Macklemore’s “broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery,” without naming examples, and said he did not intend to diminish Palestinian suffering. In 2024, Kraft suspended donations to his alma mater, Columbia University, over how its leaders handled student protests against the war in Gaza.
Macklemore wrote on Instagram that Sheeran told him Kraft rallied other stadium owners to threaten Sheeran’s shows if Macklemore stayed on the tour. That claim comes from Macklemore’s account of a private conversation, and Kraft did not address it. Sheeran wrote that he spoke with venue operators, including Kraft, but he did not say who organized them. Rolling Stone‘s Jon Blistein wrote that seven stadiums allegedly objected to Macklemore, and most did not answer the magazine’s questions.
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According to Blistein, government bodies own five of those seven stadiums, and under the First Amendment, governments cannot punish people for their speech. Earlier this summer, Tampa officials let two concerts by rapper Kanye West go ahead at Raymond James Stadium despite his antisemitic statements, and legal experts said canceling them likely would have violated the First Amendment.
Sheeran wrote that the promoter made the decision because Macklemore’s contract was with the promoter, and that he keeps politics off his stage because his audience includes children. On September 15, Irish folk band Beoga, which performed with Sheeran during each show, quit along with Irish singer Aaron Rowe, Danish band Lukas Graham, and American musician Finneas. Lukas Graham wrote that wealthy people should not decide who gets to speak, an apparent reference to Kraft.
Earlier Cancellations Over Palestine
In March 1982, the Boston Symphony Orchestra hired Redgrave, a British actress, to narrate Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. Subscribers and community members called to protest her support for the Palestine Liberation Organization, the umbrella group of the Palestinian national movement, and orchestra officials canceled her contract around April 1, citing fears of disruption and violence. Redgrave sued, and in 1984, a federal jury found that orchestra officials harmed her career by canceling. A Broadway producer testified that his company chose not to hire her because of the cancellation.
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In 1985, federal judge Robert Keeton threw out the jury’s $100,000 award for career damage and wrote that officials canceled partly because of pressure from patrons. In 1988, a federal appeals court ruled 3 to 2 that the orchestra, as a private organization, had a right not to perform, though Redgrave could still collect her $27,500 fee plus $12,000 for the lost Broadway role. Gillette Stadium is also a private venue, but government owners of stadiums lack that right.
Antiwar Artists in 2003
On March 10, 2003, days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Maines told a London audience that the Dixie Chicks were “ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.” That month, the band’s single “Travelin’ Soldier” reached No. 1 on Billboard‘s country chart. Executives at Cumulus Media, which owned 270 radio stations, banned the band from the company’s country stations. Within two weeks, the Dixie Chicks fell out of the top 40 of Billboard‘s country airplay chart.
In 1996, Congress eliminated the national cap on radio station ownership in the Telecommunications Act. According to Federal Communications Commission researchers, the number of radio station owners fell by 34 percent between 1996 and 2002. At a July 2003 Senate hearing, Cumulus CEO Lewis Dickey said Cumulus executives acted on listener complaints. Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, told Dickey he was offended by Maines’s statement but found it remarkable that Cumulus executives restrained the band’s trade over free speech.
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On March 23, 2003, filmmaker Michael Moore accepted the Academy Award for Bowling for Columbine, his documentary about gun violence, and said, “Shame on you, Mr. Bush.” In May 2003, Disney executives told leaders of Miramax, a Disney subsidiary, that they could not distribute Moore’s next film, Fahrenheit 9/11. In 2004, Disney CEO Michael Eisner said the company’s theme park guests did not expect Disney to take sides, an argument similar to Sheeran’s. After Miramax’s founders bought the rights, U.S. audiences spent about $119 million on tickets, a record for a documentary, and Cannes Film Festival jurors awarded the film the Palme d’Or.
Control Over Large Audiences
People around the Dixie Chicks also lost income. Songwriter Marcus Hummon, who co-wrote two of the band’s singles, told Billboard that his royalties from those songs ended. Singer-songwriter Radney Foster said artists began using “Dixie-Chicked” as a verb, and in 2019, pop star Taylor Swift said people in country music told young artists not to act like the Dixie Chicks.
Many Americans believe that political speech ends an artist’s career, and Moore argued that people in power encouraged that belief. In an April 2003 letter, Moore wrote that Americans constantly heard that anyone who spoke out politically would “live to regret it,” and he said commentators and news outlets spread that message to keep ordinary people quiet. The Dixie Chicks proved Moore right by continuing to work despite the radio ban. Their 2003 tour was Billboard‘s top-selling country tour that year, and in 2007, the band won five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for Taking the Long Way.
Paul Robeson, a singer and actor who openly supported the Soviet Union, did lose his livelihood during the Cold War. In 1950, State Department officials confiscated his passport and television executives kept him off the air, and his annual income fell from $100,000 in 1947 to $6,000 in 1952. Government officials and private owners together cut off Robeson’s work.
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Artists who speak out take real risks. Macklemore lost eight stadium dates, and the musicians who left Sheeran’s tour gave up paid work by choice. Only Macklemore has claimed that Kraft organized other owners, but Kraft confirmed that he barred Macklemore from Gillette Stadium, which holds tens of thousands of concertgoers. By removing Macklemore, Kraft decided which political speech those concertgoers would hear, and operators of other stadiums on Sheeran’s tour made the same decision.
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References
Blistein, Jon. “Macklemore Dropped From Ed Sheeran Tour After Onstage ‘Free Palestine’ Statements.” Rolling Stone, September 14, 2026.
Kennedy, Mark. “Ed Sheeran’s Tour in Trouble After Opening Acts Drop Out in Solidarity with Rapper Macklemore.” Associated Press, September 15, 2026.
Redgrave v. Boston Symphony Orchestra, Inc., 855 F.2d 888 (1st Cir. 1988).
Knopper, Steve. “An Oral History of The Chicks’ Seismic 2003 Controversy From the Industry Execs Who Lived It.” Billboard, June 14, 2022.
“Fellow Opening Acts Quit After Ed Sheeran Tour Drops Macklemore.” CNN, September 15, 2026.
van der Wolf, Marthe. “Who Is Robert Kraft, Pro-Israel Billionaire Who Cancelled Macklemore?” Al Jazeera, September 15, 2026.
Associated Press. “Judge Rejects Award to Redgrave in Her Boston Symphony Lawsuit.” New York Times, February 14, 1985.
“Redgrave Loses Appeal to Boston Symphony.” United Press International, August 31, 1988.
Welna, David. “Senate Examines Radio Station Blackout of Dixie Chicks.” NPR, July 8, 2003.
“Lawmakers Blast Dixie Chicks Ban.” Variety, July 9, 2003.
Moore, Michael. “Michael Moore’s Oscar Speech and Its ‘Backlash.’” April 7, 2003. Reposted on Philip Tagg’s home page.
“How Michael Moore Cleaned Up on Fahrenheit 9/11.” Slate, May 3, 2005.
“Disney Blocking Release of Moore’s 9/11 Film.” Today, May 5, 2004.
History.com Editors. “Controversial Documentary ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ Wins Palme d’Or Prize.” History.com, May 27, 2025.
“Palme Pilots: 10 Important Cannes Winners.” Time, May 20, 2013.
CBC Arts. “Dixie Chicks ‘Ready to Make Nice’ After 5 Grammys.” CBC News, February 12, 2007.
Doherty, Thomas. “The Blacklisting of a Great Artist: Paul Robeson’s Exile From Hollywood.” Hollywood Reporter, October 12, 2024.
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