Ed Sheeran opened his Philadelphia show on Saturday night by apologizing, telling Lincoln Financial Field that “I am making mistakes and I’m so, so sorry” and calling the situation in Gaza “catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate.” He has now given three separate accounts of the week that cost him his entire opening bill, and in all of them the decision to drop Macklemore belongs to somebody else.
Here is the thing almost no one has done with those accounts: line them up against the statements the other two parties already put in writing. Sheeran says the promoter decided. The promoter says the venues decided. And Robert Kraft, who owns one of those venues, has published several paragraphs explaining why he decided. Three on-the-record statements, and not one of them claims the call.
The Three Statements, in Order
The sequence is short enough to hold in your head.
- Messina Touring Group, September 14. Announcing the removal, Sheeran’s U.S. promoter said it had “been notified by venues on the upcoming U.S. tour dates that they will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup, which would result in the cancellation of the tour.” The promoter is describing itself as the party receiving an instruction.
- Robert Kraft, hours later. The Kraft Group owner said Gillette Stadium does “not provide a platform for hate speech” and that hosting Macklemore would cross that line, citing what he called a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery. He acknowledged that Palestinian “pain and loss is real” while arguing that support for Palestinians should not come at the expense of the Jewish community. Whatever you make of the reasoning, he owned the decision in his own name.
- Ed Sheeran, September 15. In his Instagram statement, Sheeran said Macklemore “coming off tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine.”
Read in sequence, the promoter points up the chain to the venues and Sheeran points back down the chain to the promoter, and they cannot both be describing the same event accurately. Sheeran’s own post undercuts him in the very next breath. In the same statement in which he assigns the decision to the promoter, he writes that he “spoke with the venues at length all week to try and build a bridge” and that the venues told him they would pull the shows if Macklemore stayed. A man negotiating personally with the venues all week is not a bystander to what the venues decided.
Macklemore’s account fills in the rest. He has said Kraft rallied other stadium owners into a collective ultimatum: drop him, or lose the buildings. Sheeran has not disputed that characterization.
What Actually Happened at MetLife
Macklemore opened Sheeran’s September 4 and 5 shows at MetLife Stadium wearing a keffiyeh, played footage of destruction in Gaza, performed his protest song “Hind’s Hall” and led the crowd in chants. “The people all the way in Gaza to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten about them,” he said from the stage. On the second night he addressed Jewish fans directly, saying that criticism of Israel “is in no way a criticism of you.”
Two days later the Israeli-American Council publicly petitioned Sheeran to remove him. Eight days after that, Rolling Stone reported the removal from the remaining U.S. dates. The response from the rest of the bill was close to unanimous: Finneas, Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe and Sheeran’s own longtime backing band Beoga all walked. By Saturday in Philadelphia, Sheeran was the only act on the ticket.
An entire opening bill and the headliner’s own band quitting is not a publicity cycle. It is a verdict from the people with the most information.
Then came the donations. Macklemore pledged his full $1 million in net tour earnings to six Palestinian relief organizations and challenged Kraft to match it. Kraft announced $2 million the same day without naming a recipient.
The One Thing Sheeran Controlled
Sheeran’s Philadelphia remarks were, on Gaza, more direct than most stadium headliners manage. He said his heart has been broken by the loss of civilian and children’s lives. He also said he never wanted to be an activist musician and has been pushed into an argument about freedom of speech. Both of those things can be true and still leave the central question untouched.
The tour is his. The venues were not booking a Macklemore tour; they were booking a Sheeran tour, and the leverage in that relationship runs in exactly one direction. The promoter’s own statement spells out the stakes it was weighing, cancellation of the run and hundreds of thousands of disappointed ticket holders, which is a real cost and a real argument. But it is an argument Sheeran was in a position to make differently, and he has chosen to describe himself throughout as a man to whom this happened.
That is our objection, and it is narrow. Not that he failed to take a side on the war, which is nobody’s obligation. Not that Kraft lacks the right to decide what happens in a building he owns, because he plainly has it. The objection is that Sheeran is the only participant claiming no agency in an outcome he could have changed, and “the promoter’s decision” does not survive five minutes with the promoter’s own press release.
There is a larger thing here worth naming, and it has been almost entirely crowded out by the apology cycle. A small number of stadium owners can effectively set the boundaries of what a performer may say on a stage in this country, and they can do it collectively, in private, with no process and no appeal. Kraft is entitled to run Gillette as he sees fit. The part that should trouble people regardless of where they land on Gaza is that the decision traveled beyond Foxborough, and the man at the center of the tour insists it was never his to make.
Sheeran plays Gillette Stadium on September 25 and 26. He will do it with no opening act, because everyone who had one walked. That silence before he goes on is the most honest statement anybody has made all week.