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.”
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
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
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_Group
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
We should really assign blame from the bottom up starting with the first people who are able to reasonably stand up for what’s right but down. Top down == no effect.
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.
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!
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.
Just as an aside:
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2026/02/04/jeffrey-epstein-wanted-robert-kraft-to-hire-his-lawyer-amid-patriots-owners-prostitution-case-documents-show/
Interesting quote in that article.
Kraft is literally Epstein class.
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.
If the venues back out of contracts for a tour it’s a pretty good chance he could win a lawsuit against them.
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.
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.
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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