Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is putting Ed Sheeran on mute after Macklemore was dropped from his tour following his comments in support of Palestinians — however, she thinks the British singer is part of a much bigger problem.
Sheeran has faced a wave of backlash after Macklemore announced that he had been forced out of his remaining U.S. tour dates because he called for a “Free Palestine.” New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft took issue with his pro-Palestine comments amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza and, along with other stadium owners, said he was not welcome to perform at certain venues.
Despite Sheeran insisting that he is “not complicit” in Macklemore being silenced, Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that he is a pawn in Kraft’s alleged efforts to control the narrative.
“It’s not just what has happened with the act and not just in removing Macklemore from the lineup, but when you see what Robert Kraft did to line up all of the stadiums to censor speech in that one specific way,” Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday in a clip shared by Fox News.
“It’s become clear that this is not just about one music artist or two music artists, but this is about how just a handful of stadium owners and the elite can prevent an entire massive issue, in this case, the genocide in Gaza.”
In another clip shared by TMZ, Ocasio-Cortez said that “the right thing [for Sheeran] to do is to speak out about it.”
“I have a huge amount of empathy for the situation because I think people want the focus here to be about Ed Sheeran, and he of course plays a role,” she said. “But they’re not putting the focus on Robert Kraft and the actual people who are kind of twisting things here.”
She added: “Everyone has responsibility in the situation, everyone plays a role, but we need to be very clear about how dangerous a precedent this is.”
Representatives for Sheeran have not returned The Independent’s request for comment.
Kraft said in a statement shared with ESPN Monday that Macklemore was removed from Sheeran’s tour because his stadium in Foxborough, Massachussetts, “has a longstanding commitment to providing a welcoming environment for all guests and ensuring that events held at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech.”
“Based on Macklemore's recent actions, material shared from the stage during Ed Sheeran's shows in New Jersey, and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community, we determined that his participation in the September 25th and 26th concerts at Gillette Stadium would cross that line,” Kraft said in the statement.
