The Lebanese outlet Al Mayadeen devoted a large share of its front page Thursday to the escalating public fight between Seattle rapper Macklemore and former touring partner Ed Sheeran, according to Breitbart, which reported that four Arts & Culture items appeared on the site’s homepage, three of them favoring Macklemore’s side of the dispute.
Breitbart described Al Mayadeen as a network with a documented pro-Iran, pro-Hezbollah and anti-American editorial line — one that routinely places quotation marks around the word Israel to signal its rejection of the country’s legitimacy. The outlet does not ordinarily cover the Western entertainment industry in depth, Breitbart noted, making Thursday’s volume of Macklemore coverage notable in itself.
The Feud and the Reported Tour Split
At the center of the story is Macklemore’s reported removal from Sheeran’s tour. According to Breitbart’s account of Al Mayadeen’s coverage, the rapper was pulled “after he voiced support for Palestine during a performance at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey earlier this month.” Breitbart noted that Al Mayadeen’s write-up left out a key piece of context: that Macklemore paused his set to deliver a political tirade against Israel that drew outrage from concertgoers who had come to see Sheeran and were unhappy about being handed anti-Israel messaging mid-show.
Al Mayadeen also promoted a video titled “Dropped from Sheeran’s tour over Palestine: Macklemore says it was ‘most successful tour.'” The video, per Breitbart, mixed Macklemore’s on-stage anti-Israel remarks with footage of him wearing a keffiyeh and with unrelated imagery said to depict Palestinians in Gaza — put together as a backdrop for summarizing what is fundamentally an American entertainment news story.
The $1 Million Pledge
The outlet’s most recent piece focused on Macklemore’s announcement that he would donate $1 million to what he described as Palestinian support groups. In a social media statement, Breitbart reported, the rapper listed UNRWA among the recipients.
UNRWA has long been a subject of controversy in the Middle East debate. Breitbart noted that the United Nations revealed in August 2024 it had reason to believe at least nine UNRWA employees took part in the October 7, 2023, attack on civilians in Israel, which killed an estimated 1,200 people and involved widespread rape, torture, abductions, mutilations and the desecration of corpses.
Escalating Rhetoric Around the Tour
In a separate story, Al Mayadeen amplified calls from Islamist and far-left voices to boycott Sheeran after he issued a statement declining to back the pro-Palestinian cause and defending a musician’s right to hold a public image without taking political positions on contested issues. Breitbart reported that the piece praised Macklemore for backing “a boycott of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest over the inclusion of ‘Israel'” — a fight entirely separate from the Sheeran dispute — while pressing the question, “Is Ed Sheeran apolitical or selective?” The outlet also faulted Sheeran for having previously voiced support for Ukrainian civilians suffering under Russia’s invasion.
Breitbart also referenced prior coverage of the rapper’s political activity, including a 2024 song that honored the violent pro-Hamas takeover of Columbia University’s campus as a protest against Israel following the October 7 massacre. Al Mayadeen’s focus on Macklemore, per Breitbart, appears to have begun that year.
Who Macklemore Is, and How He Got Here
Macklemore — born Benjamin Haggerty — broke through nationally in the early 2010s as half of the duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. Their joint album The Heist produced a string of Billboard hits in 2013, among them “Can’t Hold Us,” “Thrift Shop” and “Same Love.”
The success brought him a guest spot on Sesame Street, but also a backlash from critics who objected to a white rapper briefly becoming the face of a genre rooted in Black American culture. The criticism intensified when Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, then riding the popularity of “Fancy,” posted a since-deleted photo of herself with Macklemore captioned “the king and queen of rap.”
Macklemore responded to the uproar in a 2014 interview, Breitbart recounted, saying: “White, liberal people want to be nice. We don’t want to be racist. We want to be, ‘Oh, we’re post-racial. We don’t want to talk about white privilege and it’s all good, right?’ It’s not the case. We have to get past that awkward stage of the race conversation, step up, and just have it.” He revisited the theme two years later with the song “White Privilege II,” and while he never again matched the commercial peak of The Heist, he has kept releasing politically charged material since.
The net effect, as Breitbart framed it, is a feedback loop: a rapper who has leaned steadily into political provocation now finds his tour dispute and his donation pledge amplified by an outlet whose primary audience is not the American music press, but readers attuned to a broader anti-Israel and anti-American project. Whether the attention helps Macklemore’s standing with his existing fans or further isolates him from the mainstream touring industry is a question the coming months may settle. What Thursday’s homepage made clear is that Al Mayadeen sees the Sheeran feud as useful material — and is treating it accordingly.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2026/09/17/iran-friendly-media-hypes-macklemores-pro-palestinian-ed-sheeran-feud/