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Macklemore to Donate USD1M Sheeran Tour Earnings to Gaza Relief Groups
(MENAFN) US rapper Macklemore announced Wednesday that he will give away the full $1 million he earned from Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour to six organizations aiding Palestinians, just days after he was pulled from the tour over his pro-Palestine statements onstage.
"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," Macklemore — whose legal name is Ben Haggerty — wrote in an Instagram statement.
He also challenged Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, to match the sum.
"Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protecting," he said.
Kraft acknowledged Monday that he had pushed Sheeran to cut Macklemore from the tour, blocking him from performing at the Patriots-owned Gillette Stadium over what Kraft described as Macklemore's "broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery."
Macklemore said the gesture wasn't meant to be about him or the fallout.
"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," he wrote.
He pointed to the death of Palestinian teenager Muhammad al-Zinati, killed a day earlier in an Israeli strike while trying to help someone who was injured.
"He was a child. Both were murdered. Both should be alive," Macklemore said.
"But aid alone cannot address the conditions that make it necessary. This is a manmade injustice, and I believe it requires immediate political change," he continued, adding that Palestinians "should not have to wait another day to be free."
Macklemore was cut from Sheeran's US tour after shouting "Free Palestine!" and performing his protest song "Hind's Hall" during a joint concert at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey earlier this month.
In his Instagram statement, he said Sheeran — whom he called a friend of 13 years — told him that Kraft had rallied other stadium owners into a boycott threat unless he was removed from the lineup.
Sheeran, for his part, said the call came from tour venues and promoters, not from him personally.
"I am not complicit. I have my personal views on the devastating conflict. Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn't mean I don't have them," he wrote on Instagram, saying he'd rather keep his platform "a place of safety and sanctuary" than turn it into "a political forum."
"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," Macklemore — whose legal name is Ben Haggerty — wrote in an Instagram statement.
He also challenged Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, to match the sum.
"Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protecting," he said.
Kraft acknowledged Monday that he had pushed Sheeran to cut Macklemore from the tour, blocking him from performing at the Patriots-owned Gillette Stadium over what Kraft described as Macklemore's "broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery."
Macklemore said the gesture wasn't meant to be about him or the fallout.
"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," he wrote.
He pointed to the death of Palestinian teenager Muhammad al-Zinati, killed a day earlier in an Israeli strike while trying to help someone who was injured.
"He was a child. Both were murdered. Both should be alive," Macklemore said.
"But aid alone cannot address the conditions that make it necessary. This is a manmade injustice, and I believe it requires immediate political change," he continued, adding that Palestinians "should not have to wait another day to be free."
Macklemore was cut from Sheeran's US tour after shouting "Free Palestine!" and performing his protest song "Hind's Hall" during a joint concert at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey earlier this month.
In his Instagram statement, he said Sheeran — whom he called a friend of 13 years — told him that Kraft had rallied other stadium owners into a boycott threat unless he was removed from the lineup.
Sheeran, for his part, said the call came from tour venues and promoters, not from him personally.
"I am not complicit. I have my personal views on the devastating conflict. Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn't mean I don't have them," he wrote on Instagram, saying he'd rather keep his platform "a place of safety and sanctuary" than turn it into "a political forum."
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