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Macklemore and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft
On Monday, Macklemore was informed he’d been booted from his tour with Ed Sheeran after voicing his support for Palestine at a recent show. The rapper didn’t waste any time sharing his side of the story, and he asserted Patriots owner Robert Kraft played a major role in pressuring the English singer to cut him loose.
Ed Sheeran has devoted a sizable chunk of his schedule in 2026 to the “Loop” tour, which he announced in the wake of the release of his album Play, which came out last year.
The singer kicked things off in New Zealand in January to usher in a run of nearly 60 shows on three different continents, which will come to an end in Mexico City midway through December.
He’s tapped a number of artists to serve as his opening act, including Macklemore, who was slated to join him for a stretch of shows in the United States after he showed up at MetLife Stadium for concerts on September 4th and 5th.
However, the “Thrift Shop” rapper managed to cause a bit of a stir after taking a break from his set at the first show to repeatedly say “Free Palestine” while expressing sympathy for people in the region who’ve been impacted by the ongoing conflict with Israel.
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Those two words tend to be inherently controversial due to the longstanding tensions in that part of the world, and it was not particularly shocking to learn he’d managed to anger more than a few people. That apparently includes the owner of the Patriots, who Macklemore painted as the primary culprit after he was kicked off the tour.
Macklemore says Ed Sheeran removed him from his tour after Robert Kraft threatened a ban from multiple NFL stadiums
Patriots owner Robert Kraft is a proud supporter of Israel and a leading force in the Jewish community when it comes to efforts to combat anti-Semitism (including his role in the Blue Square Alliance).
Based on what Macklemore had to say in a lenghty Instagram post he shared after being removed from Sheeran’s tour, he took issue with what he had to say at MetLife Stadium to the point where he called the headliner and informed him that his upcoming concerts at Gillette Stadium on September 25th and 26th would be called off if the opener was still part of the lineup.
He added that Kraft had “rallied some of the other stadium owners” to form a pact united by the same policy, and he asserted that Sheeran’s preference to maintain an “apolitical stance” led to him cutting ties.
It’s unclear which NFL owners sided with Kraft, but the tour is also slated to stop at the homes of the Eagles, Lions, Falcons, Colts, Panthers, Cowboys, and Buccaneers in the next month and a half.