Comedian Kathy Griffin says Ed Sheeran made a mistake when he went along with the decision to pull rapper Macklemore from his tour after Macklemore delivered an anti-Israel rant on stage during a show at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
Griffin made the comments during a Wednesday appearance on Queerty, arguing that Sheeran had more leverage than he used against Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft.
“I wish that Ed Sheeran had not taken the advice of the ones who told him to fire Macklemore,” Griffin said. “First of all, let’s not be listening to fucking Robert Kraft, okay?”
“When Robert Kraft says, ‘I’ve called all the other stadium owners and they’re not gonna let you do the show with Macklemore either,’ then Ed Sheeran should’ve said, ‘Go fuck yourself, I can go to Brazil and perform for 250,000 people,'” Griffin said.
Griffin, 65, said Sheeran “had more options, and he is a true global artist, as is Macklemore,” adding that the situation put Macklemore “in the position of not wanting to really blame Ed because he knew the pressure he was under. But in my humble opinion, Ed had more power than he was aware of. And I think he made a bad call on this.”
Griffin also claimed Macklemore’s remarks were protected by the First Amendment, a claim that misreads the amendment, which restrains government censorship, not the decisions of private stadium owners and promoters.
Macklemore was scheduled to open eight more U.S. shows for Sheeran before he was dropped following his on-stage tirade. Sheeran has said the decision to cut Macklemore from the tour was “the promoter’s decision,” not his own.
The Israeli-American Council (IAC) took the opposite view of Griffin, praising the move. “Robert Kraft and his fellow stadium owners for their moral leadership in expelling rapper Macklemore from the concert stage rather than allow him to promote antisemitism,” the group said in a statement, adding that “Robert Kraft’s moral leadership establishes what should be an obvious principle: a performer who traffics in antisemitism should not be given a stage.”
Anti-Israel protesters had planned to gather outside Gillette Stadium in Foxborough for Sheeran’s concert, but the demonstration never materialized. Sheeran’s Friday and Saturday shows at the stadium were canceled because of an approaching nor’easter.
