He Was Booked to Warm Up an 80,000-Person Stadium for Ed Sheeran. He Used the Mic for Something Else Entirely.

Macklemore had one job as Ed Sheeran's opener at MetLife Stadium: warm up 80,000 people for the headliner. He did that, and then he did something the crowd wasn't necessarily there for.

Across two nights opening for Sheeran's Loop tour in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Macklemore repeatedly called out "Free Palestine" and performed "Hind's Hall," his 2024 protest song referencing the Columbia University pro-Palestinian encampment, while images tied to Gaza and pro-Palestinian demonstrations played on the stadium screens behind him.

Macklemore has been one of the more visible pro-Palestinian voices in American music since the war began, appearing at rallies and releasing "Hind's Hall" specifically to support the cause. None of that is new. What's different here is the venue: this wasn't his own show or a protest stage — it was someone else's stadium tour, with an audience that bought tickets to see Ed Sheeran.

The Israeli American Council launched a petition demanding Macklemore be pulled from the tour's remaining dates, arguing the show should not have doubled as a political platform: "This was an Ed Sheeran concert — not a political rally, not a protest, and not an activist event." Some attendees and commentators pushed back publicly as well, including actor Michael Rapaport, who criticized the performance directly.

Sheeran booked Macklemore, alongside Lukas Graham and BIIRD, as an official opener for the tour, and as of publication has made no public statement pulling him from remaining dates. That silence is itself being read two ways — either tacit tolerance of Macklemore's message, or simple reluctance to wade into a fight that isn't his.