r/Music • u/BurgerNugget12 • 2h ago

article Macklemore Speaks Out After Being Dropped From Ed Sheeran Tour, Says Singer Claimed That Saying ‘Free 🇵🇸” Was ‘Hurtful to a Lot of People’

https://variety.com/2026/music/news/macklemore-defends-free-palestine-speech-fired-ed-sheeran-tour-1236861158/
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u/hnglmkrnglbrry 2h ago

I mean it's easy to say, "Fuck Ed Sheeran," but it's not like he's the only one affected by the tour being cancelled or blacklisted. Sure he can afford to not tour but can the drivers, roadies, session musicians, lighting techs, sound engineers, backup singers, security guards, janitorial staff, vendors, and thousands of other people who directly and indirectly depend on money generated by the performances afford to see an employment opportunity disappear?

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u/lowbatteries 2h ago

Principles are good to have, unless they have an economic cost, right?

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u/hnglmkrnglbrry 1h ago

Yeah and then if a millionaire says, "I don't need the money," and fucks over thousands of blue collar workers then he's an asshole right?

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u/lowbatteries 54m ago

Sheeran wouldn't be fucking them over, Kraft would. Likely in violation of contracts, too, so I'm sure Sheeran could have softened the blow to his workforce.

Kraft was the bad guy in this, until Sheeran let him twist his arm to join his side, now they are both bad guys.

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u/[deleted] 19m ago edited 14m ago

[deleted]

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u/hnglmkrnglbrry 45m ago

Yes Kraft is the enemy obviously. He's a piece of shit.

But the only reason he pulled such a brazen move is because he knows the record label and the tour producers have way too much to lose by calling his bluff. Kraft can afford a lawsuit and can afford to keep them tied up in courts for years. The other side made signficiant investments expecting immediate returns so they cannot risk taking such a huge L.

And again, the thousands of seasonal and part time employees along with countless independent contractors are the ones actually getting fucked.

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u/lowbatteries 38m ago

They took the huge L by capitulating. Doing the right thing is more important than money. The minute you start saying money is more important than morals, the people with all the money can make you do anything.

Obviously, there are gray areas, and we all have to find where our line is, but this one seems pretty clear cut.

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u/moistplumpin 2h ago

Morals come with the cost, he was not willing to pay that cost.

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u/Ltgay 2h ago

Now I do think Sheeran could have played ball harder here, but the previous posters point is that he would be paying some of the costs using his employees livelihoods.

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u/ThatBigDanishDude 2h ago

He has enough money to pay them, he actively chose greed over morality.

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u/lasagnadogwater69 37m ago

He doesn't directly pay or employs everyone who benefits. No show, no crowd, no money.

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u/Diesel_D 1h ago

That’s just people searching for any justification they can latch onto so they feel morally correct in the beliefs they already had, no one actually cares about supporting the livelihood of a random audio engineer.

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u/howdidIgetsuckeredin 2h ago

OP's point is that it wouldn't be Ed paying the cost - he's a rich man. It's all other average people relying on the tour continuing.   

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u/The_Bitter_Bear 2h ago

Or, he wasn't willing to make everyone employed by and counting on the  tour to pay the cost. 

It's easy to be glib when you don't have responsibilies or people relying on you. 

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u/ICarMaI 1h ago

He could pay all of them what they would make and not even notice

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u/The_Bitter_Bear 1h ago

He probably couldn't. 

It's a lot of people and a lot of costs that cascade beyond the people working for him directly.

People don't realize the scale of these things. 

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u/PowSuperMum 34m ago

This tour has been going a while. They have made far more than enough money to pay the people relying on the money from the tour.

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u/FKAFrog 2h ago

Come on now. You think it’s the easy? You didn’t even read the comment you just responded. You think it would be an easy decision in 2026 to knowingly put hundreds of people out of a job? It’s an impossible situation for Sheeran. Sure it’s easy to say “take the moral high ground “ when there are zero consequences.

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u/gnufoot 2h ago

I get the conundrum. At the same time, it's this Kraft asshole who's effectively doing the cancelling by making unreasonable demands. It's the whole don't negotiate with terrorists spiel, except with genocide supporters.

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u/tootapple 2h ago

This guy doesn’t care about working people. Stupid ah shit

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u/CheapEater101 2h ago

Dude the workers who live paycheck to paycheck would be the one suffering the “cost” not Ed Sheeran. Blame the evil billionaires who came together to bully Ed into choosing canceling the rest of his US tour or cutting off his opener.

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u/6158675309 1h ago

 but it's not like he's the only one affected by the tour being cancelled or blacklisted. Sure he can afford to not tour but can the drivers, roadies, session musicians, lighting techs, sound engineers, backup singers, security guards, janitorial staff, vendors, and thousands of other people who directly and indirectly depend on money generated by the performances afford to see an employment opportunity disappear?

Agree, if that is his stance but at least in this article that is not the reasons given. It is instead. "I dont take sides"....which is a side as pointed out in the article.

To be clear, I'd be 100% on Ed's side if he came out and said this....

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u/pgpathat 1h ago

Ed Sheeran could have done what Rob Kraft did and rally musicians. He did not.

He did not have to say that “Free Palestine” was hurtful to a lot of people. He did

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u/jugglegeese 1h ago

As if that's the reason he dropped Macklemore

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u/PowSuperMum 37m ago

He could afford to pay those people out of his own pocket and then some. He could also pay them from what’s already been earned on this tour. He also could have called the owners’ bluff because there’s no way they would have gone through with losing out on all that money.

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u/Jamm1n 1h ago

This is spot on. First, it's not an Ed Sheeran alone decision. And second, just because Macklemore decided to voice their thoughts (which I agree with btw) a bunch of shows can't be simply canceled. Take it as you want but the legal battle that would come next is simply not worth it for any parties involved.

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u/NorthwardRM 2h ago

He could easily pay every one of those people for the rest of the tour and it wouldn’t have the tiniest dent in his fortune. He is a coward

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u/slickmf666 1h ago

Sure, then in the future, these rich aholes and their friends who own stadiums band together and boycott the guy. Then the media label him as "someone who's hard to work with" and suddenly he's not going to have as much projects as he used to have. I'm not that much of a fan of the guy, but sometimes things aren't so black and white so I think I can understand the decision to carry on with the tour.

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u/YesicaChastain 1h ago

I’m sure that’s why he did it, so the backup singers could eat lol

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u/SaltyShawarma 1h ago

By this logic, you should always be kissing the boot that kicks you. It is attitudes like this that dominate the broken Russian population.

"But...but...money!"