Ed Sheeran addresses Macklemore controversy onstage: ‘What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic’
Singer Ed Sheeran addressed the controversy surrounding rapper Macklemore’s removal from his tour on Saturday night.
During his first performance since the controversy sparked by Macklemore’s political remarks during an opening set, Sheeran addressed his position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has been at the center of the controversy over the rapper’s removal from the tour.
“I don’t want to disappoint fans, and I’ve never wanted to be an activist musician, but this has put me in the middle of an important and passionate argument about freedom of speech and the most complex political issue on the planet,” Sheeran said onstage.
“What happened in Israel and at the Nova music festival on October 7 was horrific and compounded centuries of Jewish pain,” he said.
Sheeran also addressed the Palestinian side of the conflict.
“What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate. My heart has been broken by the scale of devastation and loss of civilians’ lives, children’s lives. And the systemic injustice we are seeing unfold in the West Bank cannot be overlooked,” he said.
