Macklemore pledges to donate $1M from Ed Sheeran tour to Palestinian aid organisations

Macklemore pledges to donate $1M from Ed Sheeran tour to Palestinian aid organisations

American rapper Macklemore said he will donate the entire $1 million he earned from Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour to six organisations supporting Palestinians,

"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 in a statement on Instagram.

"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."

He added that he will "continue to stand with the Palestinian people their fight for liberation".

On 4 September, during his opening performance, Macklemore called for a “Free Palestine” during a two-minute speech before performing his pro-Palestine anthem "Hind’s Hall", named after five-year-old Hind Rajab, who was shot and killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2024. His speech drew both praise and backlash from across the political spectrum.

The pro-Israeli group Israeli American Council (IAC) launched a petition to pressure Sheeran to drop Macklemore as his opening act from future tour dates following the speech.

In a detailed statement on Monday, the US rapper announced that “Ed Sheeran and his team” removed him from the tour after billionaire Robert Kraft rallied other stadium owners to threaten Sheeran with blocking him from using their stadiums if he didn't drop him.