Direct link to his statement, but it’s a bunch of photos of text on Instagram so I used the news article that sums it up as that’s more accessible: https://www.instagram.com/p/DdT-6KGAtuI/
all of his opener acts and his session band just left the tour btw. i feel like this is a huge unforced error from him, he’s not even following the money really cause opinion has changed so much in UK and worldwide last couple of years
w those other guys i’ve never heard of
I was fucking shocked tbh. I said before this happened that nobody would be stupid enough to do it but apparently he really is just that stupid. The amount of backlash it would provoke was obvious, not just from audiences but from other musicians too.
This completely changes everything he does from now on. Every conversation about Sheeran will involve someone mentioning Israel. All other artists will evaluate whether they want to be associated with that or not when considering work. It’s never going away.
Unbelievably stupid mistake.
bonus, anyone who does gets the taint and we know they aren’t principled, so if we didn’t know before that would out them
This is what I was thinking too. We are genuinely at the point with Israel where any competent rat is also jumping off the ship.
Well i would say he is standing up to his values, even if in a dishonest way. His values are however very bad.
His whole “no politics” thing is clearly BS if you make any effort to look at his past actions. Really actively making the choice to keep stepping on rakes.
Many such cases
“I am not complicit”
this doesn’t work, you have to declare it
Please don’t write in the newspaper that I was complicit
Lol. Lmao, even.
I hope this tanks his career but Kanye is still out there making bank so I know it won’t.
Ed Sheeran’s next single “Heil Herzl”
It really won’t, radio and tv love him and will keep pushing him down everyone’s throat until they forget about this.
He’ll be joining Kanye on his Israel exclusive “Heil Hitler” tour soon enough.
“i will do whatever is expedient to get even more money” - rich white bozo
*insert the pic of him in front of the ukronazi flag
‘Brown people are poltical’
Two ethnicities: White and POLITICAL
someone ought to remake the ‘our blessed homeland’ meme but with the two ethnicities/genders/sexual orientations/religions
Hahahaha get fucked Sheeran nobody will give a fuck about this statement.
“If we are only focused on shouting the loudest, nothing will ever change. There are different approaches to being an advocate for change. I have spent this week trying to build bridges, to find a solution, and was unfortunately unable to do so.”
“I know who I am, both as a person and as an artist, and those who know me by heart know my values too,” Ed concluded.
Ed “I don’t take sides” Sheeran’s values:
Corporate sponsorship = not politics Speaking out about a genocide = politics
somehow.
It would have been better for him to STFU
Now he’s become a flack jacket for the Kraft billionare. What an stupid self own.
Mackelmore even gave Ed a shit ton of grace to try to save Ed from blowback.
“I do not use my professional platform for politics”
chud irish be like “defending genocide is not political”
ed sheeran is english
His grandma played the fiddle in an Irish band but she fell in love with an English man.
Fe fi fo fum
If your job is to entertain people, a thing usually called ‘being a professional entertainer,’ then it behooves you to develop a skill called “reading the room.”
Text of the Instagram post (alternate frontend)
spoiler
It’s important that I set out some facts.
- I am am appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The suffering and pain caused on both sides is human tragedy. There are too many wars across the world causing immeasurable pain, none of which should be tolerated.
- Macklemore asked to join my tour last year and I agreed, because I respect him as an artist.
- As with all my support acts, agree that they play a setlist of their choosing.
- After Macklemore’s performances at my New Jersey shows, venues on my upcoming tour dates communicated that they would pull the shows if he was still supporting. I was informed that this stance was based on how Macklemore conveyed part of his message during his performance, rather than on everything that was said. I spoke with the venues at length all week to try and build a bridge. One of those people was Robert Kraft. I was also involved in direct talks with promoters along with activists on both sides to try and find a mutual resolution for all, but the venue’s and promoter’s decision was final.
- Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine. Macklemore’s contract for the tour was with the promoter, not me.
- I would never let down the fans who had made plans, nor would I abandon the touring crew and the other support acts and musicians who rely on me for work and to make a living.
- I have always used my platform and music to bring people from all backgrounds and cultures together and this won’t ever change. Those who have been to one of my shows will know that they are bout unity, joy, escapism, love, and a place for everyone to feel welcome.
- I am not complicit. I have my personal views on this devastating conflict. Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn’t mean I don’t have them, and it doesn’t mean I don’t care. Nor does it mean I don’t support causes in my own, personal way.
- There is a reason I do not use my professional platform for politics — my audience includes young people, often children, of all backgrounds. Those who come to my shows do not expect a political forum. I respect Macklemore’s strength of purpose to stand up and shout for what he believes. However, there is room for multiple approaches to the same end: peace. I choose to use my fame and platform to be a place of safety and sanctuary, to maintain diplomacy and keep conversations open, not closed. If we only focus on shouting the loudest, nothing will ever change. There are different approaches to being an advocate for change.
- I have spent this week trying to build bridges, to find a solution and unfortunately, was unable to do so. I know who I am, both as a person and as an artist, and those who know my heart know my values too.
Ed
“im not complicit! im not complicit!”, i continue to insist as i slowly shrink and turn into a galil
The galil is the real deal!
Thanks comrade
The suffering and pain caused on both sides is human tragedy.
I truly believe centrists are the worst kind of people.
For an Englishman, Ed Sheeran sure makes a Good German
The arrogance of this turd, even a moderately intelligent sociopath would understand this is the worse response you could come up with given public sentiment and the fact your peers dropped out to support Macklemore
These people really do live enclosed lives utterly detached from common humanity
How many zionazi weasels are whispering in his ear to make him think that was the appropriate response
Robert Kraft is the real villain in this. Sheeran is just a shitty dumbass who probably knows he has to be bland and saccharine to keep the tour going, which means hundreds of people’s employment depends on him not being “controversial”
Kraft is the oligarch that can at a moments notice cut off the jobs of hundreds of people who definitely aren’t wealthy (and probably many don’t even have health insurance).
Sheeran is complicit, though with stakes tbf. Kraft is actively malicious, and because Sheeran is the face of the tour and better known he catches almost all of the bad press while the billionaire Zionist oligarch is almost entirely unscathed
If Sheeran had put his foot down Kraft and his cronies would have been fucked with a class action lawsuit from the fans being denied access to what they paid for. It would have been a monumental legal battle and gummed up their shit for ages, Sheeran is just a complicit little stooge happily going along with them because he’s a greedy little capitalist pig too.
If Sheeran would have put his foot down, in all likelihood the monumental legal battle would end with him being on the hook for the losses.
I still think he’s being a shitlib by not coming out and saying “I support the right of Palestinians to all of Palestine from the river to the sea, and I support all facets of the Palestinian resistance in their struggle.” and instead giving the milquetoast both-sides bullshit. But I don’t blame him for continuing the tour.
I understand that he’s afraid of the professional repercussions of taking a stand, and he has a right to be a coward and I won’t fault him too much for that.
The issue with his statement is that he is taking personal ownership of his decision to “not be political” and attempting to take a moral high ground on “keeping dialogue open” and “calling for peace” and criticizing “both sides”, when he should be using his position to critique an industry that silences progressive political rhetoric. The problem is that he doesn’t really give a shit about Palestinians or, if he does, has no real understanding of the struggle in Palestine and who is in the right or wrong.
he has a right to be a coward
Fuck that. Those with power also have responsibility. You can be a coward if you fuck off out of the spotlight, but overpaid underworked celebrity assholes have absolutely no right to cowardice.
being on the hook for the losses.
He’s a bourgeois fuck that can afford it. Eat the losses. Take it to court. Put your money where your mouth is and have some principles for once. Maybe sell off a few houses you own but don’t live in. If he actually cares about his employees, he’d guarantee their wages.
What’s next? We gonna do a Go Fund Me for a bunch of billionaire pop stars to hang up a sign in Times Square, thanking them for their service? Seriously what the fuck is this bourgeois apologia? Palestinians are worth more than Ed Sheeran’s finances.
I’m not saying he shouldn’t be criticized. The point of my post was not to defend him but to narrow the point of criticism: that continuing the tour is not the problem, it’s his rhetoric around “not taking sides”, “not being political”, and “keeping discourse open”. In other words, I’ve seen too many points of contention where people are right to criticize but focusing on the wrong thing, and this is one of those situations.
As Marxists, we can only expect people to act in the collective self interest of their class. If he has potentially thousands or millions of dollars on the line, we cannot reasonably expect Mr. Sheeran to just burn that money when he likely has contracts - which are common in sports and entertainment - that hold him liable in the case of damages due to political speech.
What we should be holding him accountable for is the political speech that he has made, despite not thinking that his speech is political. Showing him the hypocrisy of supporting Ukraine but not Palestine, and especially critisizing his “both-sidesing” rhetoric wrt the horror and damage of the war.
There is a fine line between calling for a public figure to change their stance and agitating the public into hostility towards a person. Both have their place, but I believe our collective tactic towards Ed Sheeran should lean towards the former instead of the latter, at least until further information comes to light.
the least he could do is open with hind’s hall or something lol
I think threatening the legal consequences and not blinking first would have been a viable negotiating strategy and likely would have made them back down for fear of making their attempts to silence Macklemore too expensive than what they wanted.
