Ed Sheeran’s Philadelphia show is becoming the latest flashpoint in the controversy surrounding Macklemore’s removal from his tour.
A prominent pro-Palestine group in Philadelphia has announced plans for a protest outside Sheeran’s September 19 show at Lincoln Financial Field, TMZ has learned.
The Philly Palestine Coalition, along with an organization called Shut Down D&Z, is urging supporters to gather outside the venue in support of their cause.
A flyer promoting the demonstration uses the slogan “Billionaires, Zionists & Warmongers out of Philly,” a characterization made by the organizers and not independently established by the source material.
The groups are specifically criticizing Sheeran over Macklemore’s departure from the tour after the rapper made remarks about Palestine during the first two New Jersey shows where he opened for Sheeran.
The controversy has already put Sheeran in the middle of a dispute over who made the decision to remove Macklemore from the tour.
Sheeran has denied that he personally decided to drop Macklemore. According to the supplied reporting, Sheeran said the decision came from the tour promoter after Robert Kraft and several other NFL team owners refused to allow Macklemore to perform at their stadiums.
Kraft, who owns the New England Patriots, has separately said he did not want Macklemore performing at his stadium because of what he described as the rapper’s “recent actions” and previous actions that he said were deeply offensive to the Jewish community.
That dispute has now spilled into Philadelphia, where the planned demonstration is expected to bring the controversy directly outside Sheeran’s concert.
For Sheeran, the Philadelphia stop is therefore arriving with an issue far beyond the music itself: a tour decision he says he did not make has become the target of a planned protest at one of his biggest U.S. shows.
The protest is scheduled for September 19 outside Lincoln Financial Field.
