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Why was Macklemore dropped from Ed Sheeran’s tour?

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Rapper Macklemore was dropped as an opening act on Ed Sheeran’s 2026 concert tour after he made pro-Palestine comments onstage. After he was removed, Sheeran’s backing band and most of the other scheduled opening acts quit the tour. Sheeran released a statement claiming that a tour promoter had made the decision to drop Macklemore. A week later Sheeran apologized for the controversy during a show, calling the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas in 2023 “horrific” and Israel’s subsequent response in Gaza “catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate.”