American billionaire Robert Kraft has confirmed that he pressured pop star Ed Sheeran to drop rapper Macklemore from his American tour. The billionaire is the owner of Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, one of the venues Macklemore was due to appear on stage at as the opening act for Sheeran’s US tour in late September. Letting Macklemore perform in Gillette Stadium would, Kraft said, cross a line, as he describes Macklemore’s recent performances as including a “broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery”.
On Tuesday, Sheeran denied being involved in Macklemore’s removal from his shows, saying it was a decision taken by the venue and the promoter. Robert Kraft is a Jewish American billionaire who also owns the American football team, the New England Patriots. He grew up in Massachusetts, in an observant, Orthodox Jewish household, and Forbes magazine estimates his wealth to be at more than $13bn.
Kraft has donated to and funded a number of Jewish and Israeli causes, including the campaign “Stand Up to Jewish Hate” that he funded with more than $20m. His outspoken support for Israel led to him receiving the $1m Genesis Prize, an annual award known as the “Jewish Nobel Prize” for professional excellence and contributions to humanity and the Jewish community, in 2019. At the award ceremony, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Israel does not have a more loyal friend than Robert Kraft.” The billionaire has taken famous athletes such as American football star Tom Brady to visit an Israeli military base, where, according to an interview Kraft gave to The Times of Israel, Brady fired a gun and danced the hora, a lively dance in which participants link arms and form a circle.
Kraft also made the news earlier this year when his name was mentioned in relation to the Epstein files. When Kraft was charged with soliciting prostitution in 2019, he appointed one of Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyers to his legal team. The charges were dropped in 2020.
Macklemore opened a Sheeran show at the New Jersey MetLife Stadium earlier this month with a speech about Palestine. He said: “The people all the way in Gaza to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten about them. Free Cuba to the Congo to Sudan to Iran.” The speech triggered an immediate backlash, and the Israeli-American Council started a petition to have Macklemore dropped from the tour.
Macklemore defended his statements, and also his performance of the song Hind’s Hall – dedicated to Hind Rajab, the five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces while stranded inside a car in Gaza – by stating that “wanting all humans to be treated equal should never be controversial”. Hamilton Hall, one of the main buildings on the campus of Columbia University, was the site of a student protest in 2024 against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. The students occupied the hall and renamed it “Hind’s Hall”.
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