Macklemore will no longer open for Ed Sheeran on the remaining U.S. dates of the singer’s Loop Tour, after the tour’s promoter said venues on the schedule refused to host concerts with the rapper on the bill. Messina Touring Group, which is promoting the U.S. leg, confirmed the change to Rolling Stone, which first reported the news.
In a statement to the outlet, the promoter framed the decision as a way to protect the tour itself. According to Messina, multiple venues on the upcoming run had notified the company that they would not permit a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup — a scenario the promoter said would have forced the cancellation of the whole tour and affected hundreds of thousands of ticket holders. After talks with stakeholders, the promoter said, Macklemore will not perform on the remaining support dates.
Eight Stadiums, One Lineup Change
Macklemore had been booked for eight more shows on the Loop Tour. According to reporting on the situation, all eight of those facilities had raised concerns about his participation. The venues on that list span the country: Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia; Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts; Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta; Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis; Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina; AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas; and Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.
The dispute follows a run of performances during which the Seattle rapper — whose legal name is Benjamin Haggerty — used his opening slot to deliver political remarks from the stage. At a New Jersey stop at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, he led the crowd in a chant of “Free Palestine” and accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Video from the night showed him wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh while the stadium’s Jumbotron displayed “Free Palestine” imagery behind him.
“I wanted to stand up here on stages across America and say two words that are near and dear to my heart: Free Palestine,” he told the audience, according to accounts of the performance.
The remarks drew immediate pushback from some ticketholders, with reports of fans seeking refunds after the New Jersey show. The backlash extended beyond the stadium: Pink, the pop star, reposted criticism of Macklemore’s stage comments and then explained her reasoning. Rolling Stone reported her statement, in which she said she had never called for another artist to be silenced and was not doing so now, adding that she did not need anyone fired or a refund. What she wanted, she said, was to be able to say as a Jewish mother that the moment frightened her and people she loves — without being told that fear is propaganda, or that noticing it means she is somehow fine with genocide.
Macklemore Pushes Back
Macklemore responded to his removal with a lengthy public statement of his own, in which he accused New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and others of applying pressure on Sheeran to take him off the tour. The rapper’s account of how the decision came together differs from the promoter’s version, which pointed to venue-level objections rather than outside lobbying.
Sheeran himself has not been a vocal presence in the dispute as described in the reporting; the promoter’s statement positioned the change as a logistical necessity driven by venue policies, not as a judgment on the rapper’s politics. Still, the episode lands in the middle of a broader argument over how far performers can take political speech onstage — and who gets to decide when a concert bill becomes a liability.
For the venues, the calculation appears to have been straightforward: hosting the show as booked, or not hosting it at all. For Messina, the choice was between one opening act and an entire stadium tour. For ticketholders in eight cities, the practical result is a different show than the one they bought tickets for, with the headliner unchanged and the support slot now in flux.
Macklemore’s onstage activism has been a running theme of his recent appearances, and the response to it has followed him from city to city. Whether the tour’s remaining dates pass without further incident — and whether the rapper’s removal quiets the debate or extends it — remains to be seen as the Loop Tour works its way through the fall schedule.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2026/09/14/macklemore-dropped-from-ed-sheeran-tour-after-unhinged-anti-israel-tirades/