Roger Waters has become the biggest name yet to turn on Ed Sheeran over Macklemore’s removal from the Loop Tour, posting a short video message that opens with the words “Ed Who?” and ends with an insult.
“There’s two kinds of people in this world, Ed,” the 83-year-old Pink Floyd co-founder says in the clip. “There’s people who do the right thing — that rapper Macklemore would be one of those people. And there’s people, many of them, sadly… little f… excuse me, I nearly used the F-word then. P***ks like you who do the wrong thing. Goodbye.”
The timing was brutal. Waters posted as the last of Sheeran’s support acts were walking away from the tour, leaving one of the biggest live draws in the world due on stage in Philadelphia this weekend with no opening act and, as things stand, no backing band.
How the Loop Tour came apart
The row began when Macklemore called for “all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality” and declared “Free Palestine” during two New Jersey shows earlier this month. The Israeli-American Council called for his removal, accusing him of using the platform to advance a one-sided political agenda. On September 14 he was off the tour.
Macklemore responded with a 1,000-word statement that was notably sympathetic to Sheeran personally, describing him as having been put in an impossible position and threatened with the cancellation of his remaining dates if his support act stayed on the bill. He reserved his sharpest line for the ending: “But if those words cost me the stage, while turning the conversation back to Palestine, then it was the most successful tour I’ve ever been on.”
The most serious allegation in that statement concerned Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium. Macklemore wrote that “Ed told me that Kraft said I would not be allowed to perform in his stadium,” and that “Kraft had rallied some of the other stadium owners and collectively they gave him an ultimatum: If Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues.” Kraft has since spoken publicly to defend his actions. It should be stressed that this account of private conversations comes from Macklemore, relaying what he says Sheeran told him.
Sheeran says the decision was not his
Sheeran’s own position is that he did not make the call. “Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine,” he said. “Macklemore’s contract for the tour was with the promoter, not me.”
He has also pushed back on the charge that his silence amounts to endorsement. “I am not complicit,” he wrote. “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.” Elsewhere he described himself as “appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine” and said his audiences “do not expect a political forum,” hoping his shows remain “a place of safety and sanctuary.”
That explanation did not hold the line. Finneas withdrew with a pointed statement — “Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed” — followed by Irish singer Aaron Rowe, Danish band Lukas Graham, and then Beoga, the Irish folk group who have been Sheeran’s backing band and friends for more than a decade. Earlier support acts BIIRD and Myles Smith added statements of their own, and Massive Attack weighed in on the principle, arguing that no artist should tolerate the censorship of another.
Where the accounts diverge
For a story this heavily covered, the reporting is surprisingly inconsistent on the details, which is worth flagging.
Outlets cannot agree on what was actually on screen during Waters’ video. NME reported that he displayed an image of UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese alongside an unnamed woman from Gaza. LADbible described portraits of Waters’ Palestinian friends, naming journalist Bisan Owda. Far Out said the clip opened with Waters talking at length about the artworks in his office.
They also disagree on when it went up — Tuesday night by some accounts, Wednesday morning by others, a gap most likely explained by the Atlantic rather than by any dispute. And the reported damage to Sheeran’s following ranges from “nearly 100,000” Instagram unfollows to roughly 200,000, depending on which outlet you read and when the count was taken.
What happens next
The Loop Tour resumes on September 19 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. No support acts are currently listed, and it is not clear who will make up his band.
For Waters, this is familiar ground. He has spent years attacking other musicians over their positions on Israel and Palestine, from Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood to Nick Cave and Disturbed’s David Draiman, and more recently released a reworked “Comfortably Numb” with Palestinian singer Mona Miari. Sheeran is simply the most famous target yet — and, unusually for Waters, one who says the decision that started it was never his to make.
