Ed Sheeran is in Fact NOT Thinking Out Loud

Ed Sheeran has built a formidable career with a guitar, a loop pedal and the sort of approachable sincerity that could make a stadium feel like a very large kitchen. But his North American tour has now produced a considerably less soothing refrain: can a global superstar really claim to be above politics when powerful venue owners decide who is allowed on his stage?

The controversy began after Macklemore used his opening sets at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium to express support for Palestinians. The rapper said “Free Palestine,” criticised Israeli policy and performed his protest song “Hind’s Hall.” Critics, including pro-Israel organisations, accused him of using somebody else’s concert as a political platform; Macklemore maintained that condemning the Israeli government was not the same as attacking Jewish people.

Soon afterwards, promoter Messina Touring Group removed Macklemore from the remaining dates. According to Macklemore, stadium owners—among them New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft—had threatened not to host the tour if he remained. Kraft said his objections concerned what he regarded as divisive and antisemitic rhetoric. Macklemore rejected that characterisation.

Sheeran insists that dropping Macklemore was the promoter’s decision, not his. He says he tried to mediate and defended his concerts as places of unity rather than political forums. “Just because I choose not to speak publicly,” he wrote, “it doesn’t mean I don’t have personal views.”

That defence might have landed more convincingly had the tour not immediately begun shedding performers like a badly packed suitcase. Finneas, Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe and Sheeran’s touring band (random considering I thought his whole bit was being on stage by himsefl) Beoga withdrew in solidarity with Macklemore. The Loop Tour had become a loop indeed: every attempt to close the discussion merely sent it around again.

Here is the awkward chord in Sheeran’s plea for political neutrality: he has not always been allergic to politics.

In 2018, Sheeran joined other prominent musicians in signing an open letter opposing Brexit and calling for another public vote. The letter warned that leaving the European Union would damage touring, sales, copyright and royalty collection across Britain’s music industry. After Brexit, he was also among more than 100 artists who criticised the UK government over barriers to touring Europe, arguing that musicians had been “shamefully failed.” Those were public political interventions, even if they arrived on expensive stationery rather than through a stadium microphone. Reuters and the House of Lords Library document that campaign.

Nor has Sheeran been unwilling to lobby the government when the cause mattered to him. In 2025, he led an open letter urging Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government to protect music education, calling for funding, teacher training and a broader curriculum. It was a worthwhile campaign—but it was still an attempt by a celebrity to influence public policy.

None of this means Sheeran must publish a position on every crisis. He is also entitled to worry about fans, employees and crew members whose livelihoods depend on a tour continuing. And if promoters and venue owners controlled Macklemore’s contract, Sheeran may genuinely have lacked the final say.

But “I don’t do politics” becomes difficult to sustain when the fuller sentence appears to be: “I do politics selectively, and preferably when it does not threaten the tour.”

That distinction is the heart of the backlash. Macklemore accepted that speaking out could cost him money, bookings and relationships. Sheeran chose continuity, diplomacy and the protection of a vast touring operation. Both decisions carried consequences. Only one was presented as neutrality.

There is also an uncomfortable issue of power. A billionaire venue owner reportedly helped determine which political expression could appear onstage, while an artist with considerably less leverage was removed. Even if Sheeran did not make that call, continuing the tour does not magically place him outside it. When one side possesses the stadium keys, silence is not an empty space; it tends to favour whoever already controls the doors.

Since the fallout, Macklemore has pledged $1 million from his tour earnings to organisations assisting Palestinians, while Sheeran has reportedly committed $2 million in humanitarian aid. Those donations may do more material good than a thousand carefully polished statements. Yet generosity does not settle the underlying question of who gets heard—and who gets labelled “political” for speaking.

Sheeran is free to prefer bridges to barricades. But bridges are political infrastructure too. Someone chooses where they begin, where they end and who is allowed to cross.

The lesson from this episode is not that every concert must become a rally. It is that at superstar scale, “apolitical” is less a destination than a branding choice—and sometimes the loop pedal repeats what the artist would rather fade out.

To me, Ed Sheeran obviously supports Palestine, but he quite obviously supports his bank account more. It was disappointing to see all this go down considering I was at the Multiply Tour with my big foam finger 10 years ago.

Let me know what you think, and I’ll see you in the next one.

Eva :)