Going deep on Ed Sheeran's Palestine downfall

Seán (0:00)

Am I tough enough? Strong and stable leadership.

Ava (0:02)

Total ruba.

Seán (0:03)

Hell yes, I'm tough enough.

Ava (0:04)

Shut the fridge.

Seán (0:05)

Not another once. It's the PoliticsJOE podcast.

Ava (0:10)

Love Podcast, hate nonsense.

Tough day for you, Sean Hickey, tough day. Every day is a tough day for Sean. You've had to give up your Ed Sheeran ticket. Sean had front row, he did, yeah.

Seán (0:24)

I had actually five dates for Ed Sheeran.

Ava (0:26)

But it wasn't anything to do with this controversy, we just listened to some of Ed Sheeran's music and that's why Sean's given up the tickets.

Seán (0:32)

Do you know I have his autograph?

Ava (0:33)

Okay.

Seán (0:34)

I do, I genuinely do. I have Ed Sheeran's autograph. I saw him on HMV Grafton Street in 2011

Ava (0:40)

What's the 18th time?

Seán (0:42)

Yeah, yeah. It hadn't come out yet. The whole album hadn't come out.

Ava (0:46)

And because he's Irish, isn't he?

Seán (0:47)

Well, that's what he's been claiming.

Ava (0:48)

Oh, he was Irish up until recently.

Seán (0:50)

I've really enjoyed the taking of his Irish carried away from him. I think it's beautiful. Bono next, I say.

Ava (0:57)

Do you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna do a little recap, we're gonna talk you through what's happened with Ed Sheeran, and then we'll do a little chat. How about that?

Seán (1:04)

Let's do it.

Ava (1:05)

I love doing production while we're doing the podcast. Let's start from the beginning. So what's been going on? How did this all begin?

Seán (1:11)

So why you've seen him crying is essentially, Macklemore was part of Ed Sheeran's support for his US tour.

He is obviously in the last two, three years, been an outspoken advocate for Palestine. He released Heinz Hall in 2024, I think it was, but has had two pro Palestine songs that have come out in the time since October 7th. You might remember some of the songs that Macklemore came out with before of like pro LGBT, but was very quick to tell everybody that he wasn't gay in the song.

Ava (1:46)

Pro thrifting as well as well.

Seán (1:47)

Pro thrifting, yeah, exactly. Loves secondhand clothes, he loves Palestine, and he loves gay people, but he is not gay.

Make sure that you know that.

Or Thrifter, or yeah, the trifecta of things he isn't.

Ava (1:59)

So he was on the Bermuda Macklemore.

Seán (2:02)

The Bermuda Macklemore.

Ava (2:04)

We know what he isn't, we just don't know what he is.

Seán (2:06)

Yes, well, what he is.

Ava (2:07)

Shrouding as Macklemore.

Seán (2:10)

But what he is, is staunchly pro Palestine and was staunchly pro Palestine before he went on Ed Sheeran's tour, and predictably has been using the platform in Ed Sheeran's stadium tour in the United States to pour forward his message of solidarity with the Palestinians.

Ava (2:30)

So he's been doing a kneecap or he's been doing a massive attack. Yeah. It sounds quite similar to, we went to see massive attack, didn't we last year?

Seán (2:37)

They were fantastic.

Ava (2:38)

It sounds pretty similar. So he was displaying images of the destroyed cities in Gaza and then behind him, and then he was speaking.

He was saying that the people all the way in Gaza and the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten about them. I say free Palestine, I say free Lebanon, free Cuba, to the Congo, to Sudan, to Iran. So he's really covered all bases there because the big argument that you do hear often, actually, I've had this argument given to me on Radio 4 the other day, which was the left have only focused on Palestine and the Israel-Gaza war. They don't ever talk about any of the other conflicts in the world. Well, he's covered a few of them there.

Seán (3:17)

Yeah. I think you can fairly easily say.

Ava (3:20)

Cuba, Congo, Sudan, Iran. Yeah. There's probably a few more he could have mentioned.

Seán (3:24)

There's a few more, but I mean, he's been pretty comprehensive there.

Ava (3:27)

Very silent on the Irish struggle, we will know.

Seán (3:30)

He has got a song called Irish Celebration, you know.

Ava (3:33)

Not Irish either though, is he?

Seán (3:35)

He is arguably more Irish, I'd say, than Ed Sheeran. But maybe we can get into that.

Ava (3:40)

That's because you've claimed him. Okay. So after this, this caused outrage from the New England Patriots.

He's the owner, isn't he, Robert Kraft? Yeah. He's the owner and he owns the stadium, Gillette Stadium as well. So then according to the Wall Street Journal, he called Sheeran and the team and the loop tour promoters to tell them that he and other NFL stadium owners would not be hosting him anymore. Now, that's interesting because there's a rub there, isn't there?