Why did Ed Sheeran's tour get boycotted by artists? Which artists were on tour with him?
Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour lost every one of its supporting acts in September 2026 after rapper Macklemore was dropped from the tour for making pro-Palestinian comments onstage, with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft reported to be the force behind his removal.
What started it
Macklemore, whose real name is Ben Haggerty, was performing on Sheeran's Loop Tour when, at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, he told the crowd "Free Palestine" and performed his protest anthem "Hind's Hall." According to Macklemore, Patriots owner Robert Kraft then called Sheeran and threatened to cancel the tour's remaining dates unless Macklemore was removed. Sheeran posted about the ouster and attributed the decision to tour promoters, but Macklemore publicly named Kraft as the person who organised the pressure campaign.
Who walked out and why
Once Macklemore was gone, every remaining supporting act on the tour quit in solidarity, as NBC News reported on September 15, 2026. The artists who withdrew were:
- Finneas (Billie Eilish's brother and collaborator), who had been scheduled for six South American dates in November. He said publicly that "artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed."
- Aaron Rowe, an Irish singer who had already toured the Australian leg and was set for 10 more North American dates.
- Lukas Graham, the Danish band, who had been lined up as a replacement for Macklemore on remaining US dates.
- Beoga, an Irish folk band who had been Sheeran's house band for several years, performing songs mid-set including ones they co-wrote with him. They said in their statement that "the real enemy is the zionist lobby" and they expressed direct support for Macklemore.
Several of the Irish artists also cited Ireland's own historical experience of occupation as part of their reasoning for standing with Palestine.
The broader picture
The tour itself, called the Loop Tour, began in January 2026 in Auckland in support of Sheeran's eighth studio album, Play. Its full supporting act roster across all legs included BIIRD, Vance Joy, Mia Wray, Sigrid, Amble, Myles Smith, Ellie Banke, and the artists named above.
The fallout moved well beyond music. Fans and public figures declared a broader boycott of Sheeran's concerts, his social media following began dropping, and several politicians including Representative Rashida Tlaib and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez publicly criticised his handling of the situation. Sheeran himself has said he tries to keep politics out of his shows, arguing that fans do not come to his concerts for political statements, but that position has satisfied very few of his critics in this case.
What this story illustrates is a familiar dynamic: when powerful financial interests and creative expression collide in a shared space, the people with the capital usually set the terms. What is less common is seeing so many artists refuse those terms publicly and at real personal cost to their own careers and relationships.
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Why did Finneas specifically say artists must not be silenced when speaking up for the oppressed?
Finneas said exactly seven words on that point and did not elaborate further, so the reasoning has to be read from the context he placed those words in.
His full statement, as reported by Rolling Stone, Variety and Billboard in September 2026, was three sentences: "Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed. I have decided to withdraw from my upcoming tour dates with Ed Sheeran. I stand with Palestine and its people."
That is it. He did not give an interview expanding on the philosophy behind the first sentence. So the reasoning has to be inferred from the sequence of events he was responding to.
What he was reacting to
Macklemore had said "Free Palestine" from a stadium stage, performed a protest song, and was then removed from the tour. According to Macklemore's own account, the removal came after Robert Kraft called Sheeran and threatened to cancel remaining dates. From Finneas's vantage point, a billionaire with stadium leverage had just ended a performer's contract for the content of what he said onstage. That is the specific mechanism his statement was pushing back on: not a venue declining to book someone, but a power player using financial threat to remove a voice mid-tour.
Finneas and his sister Billie Eilish have both spoken publicly about their Irish family roots and their support for Palestine before this moment, as Al Jazeera noted. So the walkout was consistent with a position he had already held, not a reaction formed on the spot.
Why those particular words
The phrase "speak up for the oppressed" is doing specific work. It frames the Gaza question not as a political controversy where reasonable people disagree, but as a situation where one side holds power and the other is being harmed. That framing matters because it sets a floor: whatever you think of the geopolitics, silencing the person speaking for the less powerful party is a category of wrong that artists, who depend on platforms and stage access, should refuse to be complicit in.
His refusal to play venues that had effectively banned a certain kind of speech was the action behind the sentence. The statement was short because the situation had already said most of it.
The broader pattern among the acts who left
The other departing artists were more explicit in their reasoning. Aaron Rowe, as Billboard reported, said he could not allow "billionaires to use their position of power to silence the rightful voices" of those speaking against civilian deaths. Lukas Graham wrote that artists should be able to speak about war and children being killed, and that performing in venues that silenced such speech was "simply not an option." Irish folk band Beoga noted their own country's history with colonialism and occupation as the lens through which they read the situation.
Finneas's statement was the most compressed of the group, but it pointed at the same core concern: when economic power is used to determine which political speech reaches a mass audience from a stage, artists who comply become part of the mechanism of that silence.
So Patriots owner Robert Kraft called Sheeran and threatened to cancel the tour's remaining dates unless Macklemore was removed. Wow Just wow. Why?
Kraft's motive was personal, principled and financial all at once, and once you understand who he is, the call makes sense even if you disagree with it entirely.
Robert Kraft is Jewish, a long-time major donor to Jewish causes, and someone who describes himself as having a personal responsibility to combat antisemitism. Rolling Stone reported that he has donated millions of dollars to those causes over the years and has made fighting antisemitism a central part of his public identity. That context is the engine behind everything that followed.
What Kraft actually said
Kraft confirmed he made the decision to bar Macklemore from Gillette Stadium, which his group owns. His stated reason covered two things: Macklemore's onstage comments at MetLife in New Jersey, and what he called, in his own words to NBC News, "a broader history of rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community." He did not name specific examples in his statement. The one episode most often cited in coverage is from 2014, when Macklemore wore a stage costume that included a fake nose, which he later acknowledged could be read as a Jewish caricature and apologised for.
Kraft did not just stop at Gillette. According to Macklemore's account, which Sheeran himself later confirmed in substance, Kraft rallied other stadium owners and the group collectively gave Sheeran an ultimatum: keep Macklemore on the tour and you do not play our venues. Billboard reported that Sheeran confirmed that venues had communicated they would pull the shows if Macklemore stayed. Kraft did not publicly deny the coordination claim, and his representatives did not address it when asked by Rolling Stone.
Macklemore's counter
Macklemore has been consistent that his support for Palestinians is not antisemitism and should not be treated as such. He said onstage in New Jersey that his message was "for peace, love, for all human beings to be treated with dignity." In his written statement he argued that the accusation of antisemitism has been used as a tool to silence critics of Israeli government policy, and that there is "no neutral position between the oppressor and the oppressed."
Where that leaves it
Those two positions are genuinely irreconcilable right now, and that is why this became a national story rather than a venue dispute. Kraft sees the onstage behaviour as crossing a line he has a personal obligation to enforce on property he owns. Macklemore sees the removal as a billionaire using real estate leverage to suppress speech he disagrees with. Both men are describing what they actually believe. Ed Sheeran is caught between them, insisting the decision was the promoter's and that he stays out of politics, while Macklemore wrote pointedly that there is no neutral ground.
The structural fact underneath all of it is that stadium owners hold enormous power over touring artists. A major tour cannot easily reroute around a dozen venues controlled by coordinated owners. That leverage, applied once, ended a touring contract and then triggered a walkout by every remaining supporting act. The "wow" you felt is the right reaction: it is a remarkable demonstration of how much quiet authority sits in real estate when it decides to speak.
Did Lukas Graham make a public statement explaining their decision to walk out?
Yes, Lukas Graham made a public statement, and it was more pointed than Finneas's, aimed directly at the power dynamic that made Macklemore's removal possible.
What he actually said
Graham posted on Instagram on September 15, 2026. Rolling Stone and the Irish Star both covered it. The core of his statement, as reported, was: "We should be able to speak about war, about civilians being killed, about children who deserve to grow up. Wherever they live." He also told his followers, as MSN reported, that "money doesn't give you the right to own the conversation."
He did also say, as Billboard reported, "I love Ed, and I'm grateful for everything we've shared. That hasn't changed. But I can't put these words out into the world and carry on with this tour as things stand."
So there were three threads running through what he wrote. One was about the substance: the right to talk openly about civilian deaths and children caught in war. One was personal: he was not attacking Sheeran the person, and he said so directly. And the third was structural: the problem was money being used to determine who gets to speak about suffering.
What separates his statement from Finneas's
Finneas framed his exit around the principle of silencing artists. Graham framed his around the specific mechanism: financial leverage controlling speech. "Money doesn't give you the right to own the conversation" is a direct shot at exactly what happened, which is that Kraft's ownership of Gillette Stadium gave him the ability to threaten the tour's viability and end a performer's contract over the content of what he said onstage.
That is a different argument. Finneas said artists should not be silenced. Graham said the specific instrument being used to silence them, money and venue control, is illegitimate. Both reach the same conclusion but from different angles.
What was left unsaid
Neither Graham nor Finneas addressed Robert Kraft by name in their statements, at least in what has been reported as of September 18, 2026. Macklemore named Kraft directly. The supporting acts kept their statements at the level of principle rather than accusation, which is worth noting if you are trying to understand the full picture of who said what and how far each person was willing to go publicly.
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