Macklemore Drama Just Took Another Turn

SPEAKER_1 (0:07)

Hey, good morning, welcome to The TMZ Podcast. I'm Branson Quirk.

Tony Smith (0:11)

And I'm Tony Smith.

SPEAKER_1 (0:13)

This Macklemore story has blown up.

And there's update after update. We're seeing more celebrities come out backing Macklemore, supporting him. We've also seen a couple higher profile people come out and support the latter as well. On the other side, Robert Kraft, Dave Portnoy, for example, showed support for the other side. So we're seeing a lot of high profile people come out and talk about this. But now we are learning the NFL owners who allegedly, well, not allegedly, we know that they were promised no Palestine talk after Ed Sheeran's first MetLife show. And these are the people that were a part of getting Macklemore removed from that Ed Sheeran tour.

And we're also hearing about this pro-Palestine protest that's upcoming because there is a concert in a few days. It's what, the 17th now? So two days from now on the 19th, Ed Sheeran has a concert in Philadelphia. And all eyes are on that.

Tony Smith (1:11)

Yeah. So a couple of the smaller updates we'll get into first, and we'll get into that NFL part in a second. But there is a protest happening in Philadelphia that is the next upcoming show because of the backlash that is coming from this from Macklemore's removal from Ed Sheeran's tour. So the Philly Palestine Coalition and Shut Down D&Z are urging supporters to attend the protest on September 19th. The protest is scheduled to take place outside of Lincoln Financial Center in Philadelphia. So why are we bringing up Philadelphia? Well, NFL owners were allegedly promised no Palestine talk after Ed Sheeran's first MetLife show.

So, NFL owners, like I said, were allegedly assured that Macklemore would not mention Palestine during the second night of Ed Sheeran's tour stop. And according to the Wall Street Journal report, several NFL team owners complained about Macklemore's pro-Palestine messaging after the first night of the New Jersey shows. And the report does not identify who made the promise to NFL owners. But we did get some from this report, some clues to who really was at the forefront of objecting this. So the journal identified the owners of the Carolina Panthers, the Atlanta Falcons and the Philadelphia Eagles as being unhappy with Macklemore. And those owners were reportedly willing to cancel Ed Sheeran's shows if Macklemore remained on the lineup.

SPEAKER_1 (2:39)

Right. And Macklemore later blamed the New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft for drawing a line in the sand and getting him removed from the tour. As we know, the New England Patriots owner, Robert Kraft, he owns Gillette Stadium, and he was like, no way you're going to perform at Gillette Stadium if Macklemore is a part of that tour. And now we're learning, yeah, these owners. So we have some names. These league owners included Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, and Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, according to the Wall Street Journal again.

But yeah, Ed is getting ready to perform at Lincoln Financial Field. And we've been paying attention here at TMZ as well to ticket sales and tickets that are still continuing to sell. It's hard to paint a picture of that because there's so many ticket websites and everything like that. But we're doing our best just to see maybe there's a lot of people that will put their tickets on sale, resell their tickets. I've seen a couple people on my Instagram that I know that live on the East Coast that were originally going to this concert and have now put their tickets on sale. And you can imagine.

Tony Smith (3:49)

Backlash is growing. Ed Sheeran is catching so much heat. And not just in the ticket sale department, in the radio department, too.

SPEAKER_1 (3:57)

Yes, yes, yes.

Tony Smith (3:59)

So an Irish radio station, Classic Hits Radio, has stopped playing Ed Sheeran's music for the foreseeable future following the widespread backlash from this tour controversy. The station is based in Dublin and reaches other major Irish cities, including Cork.

Please forgive me if I mispronounce any of these. Sorry, Irish.

SPEAKER_1 (4:18)

No, all good.

Tony Smith (4:20)

Limerick and Galloway. And Ed Sheeran currently has no upcoming tour dates in Ireland. But you can see, like, if Ed Sheeran's not getting any radio play in there, it makes you wonder, like, all right, is there going to be anybody in the US and any other country? I mean, Ed Sheeran's a major star.

SPEAKER_1 (4:37)

Right. And again, Ed Sheeran, a lot of people are blaming him, despite his clarification on his stance on this. I mean, his stance is that he doesn't have a stance. So he said that he's neutral. It wasn't his decision. He said that he battled with the promoters for about a week, trying to keep Macklemore on the tour. But yeah, it looks like Macklemore had this pro-Palestine imagery on stage as well during that first two shows in New Jersey. And so it was two shows that he did before it became a problem for them. Ed Sheeran again says he's apolitical, he's neutral, not taking a stance. And what's interesting too is that Robert Kraft, did you see this? He matched the donation.