Macklemore Pledges $1 Million From Ed Sheeran Tour to Palestine Aid, Calls on Robert Kraft to Match

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Macklemore to Donate $1 Million Ed Sheeran Tour Earnings to Palestine Aid, Invites Robert Kraft to Match Him

“Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protecting,” the rapper wrote on Instagram By Hattie Lindert September 16, 2026 Save this story Save this story

Last week, Macklemore said that he had been ousted as an opener on the U.S. leg of Ed Sheeran ’s Loop tour after calling for a free Palestine onstage. Now, the rapper has pledged to donate $1 million of his net earnings from the tour to six organizations supporting Palestinian aid. “I want to bring the conversation back to where it belongs: to the Palestinian people who are still being killed, still living under military occupation, and still fighting for their freedom,” Macklemore said on Instagram.

The Ben artist also invited New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft to match his donation, which will be split between HEAL Palestine , Gaza Soup Kitchen , American Near East Refugee Aid , Medical Aid for Palestinians , and the UNRWA U.S.A. National Committee . Macklemore has accused Kraft of pressuring Sheeran into removing him from the tour by threatening to pull his shows at Gillette otherwise, and encouraging other venue owners to do the same.

“Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protecting,” Macklemore’s statement continued. “A Palestinian life is no less valuable than any other life on this earth. That is what this has always been about.”

In a statement to NBC New s, Kraft confirmed he was involved in kicking Macklemore off the tour. “Based on Macklemore’s recent actions, material shared from the stage during Ed Sheeran’s shows in New Jersey, and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply hurtful offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community, we determined that his participation in the September 25th and 26th concerts at Gillette Stadium would cross that line,” he wrote.

Sheeran detailed his own version of events in his own statement, claiming that the choice to kick Macklemore off the tour “was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine.” He wrote: “I am not complicit. I have my personal views on this devastating conflict. Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn’t mean I don't have them, and it doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

Since Macklemore announced his removal from the run, the remaining three opening acts on the tour— Finneas , Lukas Graham , and Aaron Rowe —and Sheeran’s backing band, Beoga , have all pulled out in solidarity. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)—a founding organization involved in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) initiative—has also called on Sheeran to cancel his tour completely.

Read Macklemore’s full statement below.

With everything that has happened over the last 48 hours, I want to bring the conversation back to where it belongs: to the Palestinian people who are still being killed, still living under military occupation, and still fighting for their freedom.

I will be donating the entire $1 million of my net earnings from Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour to six organizations working directly to support the Palestinian people. And I invite Robert Kraft to match my donation. Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protecting. A Palestinian life is no less valuable than any other life on this earth.

That is what this has always been about. Not me. Not a tour. Not the headlines or the controversy. It is about Palestinians right to freedom, dignity, and safety in their own homeland.

I want to center the parents carrying their children into hospitals without the basic resources to treat them, and the physicians, paramedics, journalists and aid workers who keep going back in. I want to center the organizers and activists who have paid real costs for standing with Palestine. Their risk is of a far different order than mine.

Just yesterday, 15 year old Muhammad al Zinati was killed in an Israeli strike while rushing to help aid worker Sherif Lubbad, who had already been injured. He was a child. Both were murdered. Both should be alive.

And the ones still under the rubble, whose names exist only in the memories of people who may not have survived to speak them.

Writing a check is one of the least costly forms of solidarity available to me. I am doing it because I can, and because these organizations are doing the work while much of the world debates it.

But aid alone cannot address the conditions that make it necessary. This is a manmade injustice, and I believe it requires immediate political change. Palestinians have lived for decades without basic rights and should not have to wait another day to be free.

That is where my focus will remain. I will continue to stand with the Palestinian people and their fight for liberation.

When the news cycle moves on, which it will, don’t move with it.

Free Palestine.

Hattie Lindert is an associate staff writer at Pitchfork. A former editor at Resident Advisor , she has written for Rolling Ston e, The FACE and The A.V. Club , among others. She’s based in New York, and born and raised in Vermont. ... Read More Contributor -

_Originally reported by [Pitchfork](https://pitchfork.com/story/macklemore-will-donate-ed-sheeran-tour-earnings-to-palestine/)._