Ed Sheeran invited Macklemore to open for him in front of tens of thousands of fans.

Macklemore returned the favor by giving him an unsolicited lesson in the political obligations of pop stardom.

'Free all people in America living in fear over this terrorist organization ICE.'

Tour bore

After being dropped from Sheeran’s stadium tour over his pro-Palestinian remarks, the rapper — real name Benjamin Haggerty — published a lengthy statement that managed to praise his friend of 13 years, reveal details of their private conversations, and suggest that Sheeran’s long-standing refusal to turn his concerts into political rallies was a moral failing.

“Ed was in a f**ked up position,” Macklemore wrote. “He knew it. His typical apolitical stance was being challenged in a way it never had been before.”

Macklemore says he hopes their friendship survives. But first, apparently, Sheeran has some things to learn.

Macklemore was scheduled to open eight of the remaining 10 U.S. dates on Sheeran’s Loop Tour.

During his performances at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium earlier this month, however, Macklemore used some of that time to deliver a series of political messages.

"Free Palestine," he told the crowd. “I want those words to be loud and clear so the people from Gaza all the way to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten them.”

He went on to call for a “free” Lebanon, Cuba, Congo, and Sudan before turning his attention to the United States.

“Free all people in America living in fear over this terrorist organization ICE.”

Macklemore also praised the “bravery” of Columbia University students who participated in pro-Palestinian encampments.

'The stage becomes resistance'

The "Thrift Store" rapper has made similar statements for years. But in his response to being dropped from the tour, Macklemore acknowledged what made these performances different: He was making them from somebody else’s much larger stage.

“What I said at MetLife I have been saying on stages around the world for almost three years,” he wrote. “So why is it an issue now?”

“Because now I’m sharing a stage with one of the biggest artists in the world, in some of the biggest stadiums in America.”

And Macklemore appears to have understood Sheeran’s continued willingness to share that stage with him as an implicit political endorsement.

“If I kept doing the shows, saying Free Palestine, with Ed implicitly supporting it, the crowd getting loud and showing undeniable support for Palestinian liberation, what artist might speak out next?” he wrote.

“The stage becomes resistance.”

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Nose for controversy

According to Macklemore, the arrangement became untenable after New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft got involved. The Kraft Group owns Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, where Sheeran is scheduled to perform September 25 and 26.

Macklemore said Sheeran told him that Kraft had called and made clear that the rapper would not be permitted to perform there. The Seattle rapper further claimed that Kraft had rallied other stadium owners and effectively presented the tour with an ultimatum: Drop Macklemore or lose the venues.

Tour promoter Messina Touring Group confirmed that multiple venues refused to host the concerts with Macklemore on the bill. Kraft confirmed his own decision to bar Macklemore from Gillette Stadium, although Macklemore's claim that Kraft personally rallied the other owners remains his account.

The Patriots owner, who founded the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism in 2019, said Macklemore's recent performances reflected what he described as “a broader history of anti-Semitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community.”

“We determined that his participation in the September 25 and 26 concerts at Gillette Stadium would cross that line,” Kraft said.

Kraft also stressed that the decision was not intended to dismiss Palestinian suffering and said he would be willing to sit down with Macklemore.

Macklemore rejected Kraft's characterization of his statements.

“Antisemitism is real,” he wrote, before arguing that accusations of anti-Semitism are being “weaponized” to silence criticism of Israel.

This was not the first time Macklemore has faced accusations of anti-Semitism. In 2014, he performed in Seattle wearing a black wig, beard, and large hooked prosthetic nose — an outfit critics said resembled an anti-Semitic caricature.

Macklemore apologized, saying the resemblance was unintentional and that he had assembled the disguise randomly. “I acknowledge how the costume could, within a context of stereotyping, be ascribed to a Jewish caricature,” he wrote at the time. “It was absolutely not my intention.”

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Rap session

After stressing that he wasn't trying to "tear down [Sheeran's] character," Macklemore proceeded to give his "brother" a public dressing-down for his refusal to politicize his tour.

He described a private conversation in which Sheeran told him that “Free Palestine” and the image of a Palestinian flag had been hurtful to some of the people Sheeran had spoken with.

Macklemore wasn't persuaded. "I told him if those words were more offensive than tens of thousands of Palestinian children being killed by Israel, then there was a fundamental disconnect."

“But he couldn’t get past his public facing, ‘I don’t take sides,’” Macklemore wrote.

“Taking a side can cost you,” Macklemore wrote, citing money, sponsorships, festivals, relationships, and access. He then offered a crash course in social justice for his fellow multimillionaire pop star:

“There is no neutral position between the oppressor and the oppressed. When one side has the bombs and bottomless financial and military support from America, refusing to take a side doesn't leave you in the middle."

Paging Pink

Sheeran wasn't the only artist Macklemore took to task. After Pink reposted criticism of his MetLife remarks from the group StopAntisemitism, he invoked her as another example of a successful artist with little excuse, in his view, for remaining on the sidelines.

“Sheeran is not a victim, Pink is not a victim,” Macklemore wrote. “We have careers, money, opportunities, safety, and audiences around the world.”

Pink later objected to the assumptions being made about her own views.

"I was born a Jew. I didn't pick it, and I've never hidden it," she wrote. "And this week a whole lot of people decided what I believe without asking me, without checking a single thing I’ve ever said or done, because a repost and the word 'Jew' were apparently enough to fill in the rest."

She added that she doesn't speak for Israel and that "Hamas is a terrorist organization."

In Macklemore's telling, however, celebrity and financial security appear to create an obligation to speak: Using a stadium concert to advocate for Palestine isn't an intrusion of politics into entertainment but part of an artist’s responsibility.

“I didn’t need 10 shows from Ed. I needed 2,” Macklemore wrote. “Two chances to stand in front of 90,000 people and say the words that somehow became too dangerous to say.”

Sheeran: Fans first

On Tuesday, Sheeran issued a lengthy response of his own. He confirmed that venues threatened to cancel upcoming shows if Macklemore remained on the tour and said he spent the week speaking with venues, promoters, and activists in an effort to find a compromise.

But he disputed the suggestion that he personally fired Macklemore. “Macklemore coming off the tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine,” Sheeran wrote.

And he pushed back more directly against Macklemore’s suggestion that staying publicly neutral amounts to complicity. “I am not complicit,” Sheeran wrote.

Sheeran said he has his own views on the Israel-Gaza war and cares deeply about the suffering it has caused. But he does not believe that obligates him to turn his professional platform into a political one. Furthermore, his fans “do not expect a political forum” when they come to see him perform.

Instead, Sheeran said he wants his music to provide “a place of safety and sanctuary” and argued that “there is room for multiple approaches” toward the same goal of peace.

Sheeran's attempt to keep the tour out of the political fight hasn't exactly succeeded. All of his remaining scheduled opening acts — Finneas, Aaron Rowe, and Lukas Graham — have now pulled out, while his touring band Beoga has quit as well.

School of rock

After publicly recounting their disagreement and some of Sheeran’s private remarks, Macklemore insisted he bears his old friend no ill will.

“I hope this isn’t the end of my relationship with Ed,” he wrote. “Thirteen years of friendship doesn’t disappear because of one painful disagreement.”

He then offered his erstwhile tour-mate a homework assignment of sorts.

“I hope we both continue listening, studying what is happening in Palestine and wrestling with what neutrality means in a moment like this.”

Macklemore himself doesn't appear to have much wrestling left to do.

“Free Palestine,” he concluded, adding that “if those words cost me the stage, while turning the conversation back to Palestine, then it was the most successful tour I’ve ever been on.”

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