U.S. rapper Macklemore said Wednesday that he will donate the entire $1 million he earned from Ed Sheeran's "Loop" Tour to six organizations supporting Palestinians, days after he was removed from the tour over his pro-Palestine advocacy on stage.
"I will be donating the entire $1 million of my net earnings from Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour to six organizations working directly to support the Palestinian people," Macklemore, whose real name is Ben Haggerty, wrote in a statement on Instagram.
He also invited Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, to match the donation.
"Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protecting," he said.
Kraft confirmed Monday that he had pressured Sheeran to remove Macklemore from the tour, barring him from performing at the Patriots-owned Gillette Stadium over what he called Macklemore's "broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery."
Macklemore said the donation was not about himself or the controversy.
"I want to center the parents carrying their children into hospitals without the basic resources to treat them, and the physicians, paramedics, journalists and aid workers who keep going back in," he wrote.
He cited the killing of Palestinian teenager Muhammad al-Zinati a day earlier in an Israeli strike while rushing to help an injured person.
"He was a child. Both were murdered. Both should be alive," Macklemore said.
"But aid alone cannot address the conditions that make it necessary. This is a man-made injustice, and I believe it requires immediate political change," he added, saying Palestinians "should not have to wait another day to be free."
Macklemore was dropped from Sheeran's U.S. tour after exclaiming "Free Palestine!” and performing his protest song "Hind's Hall" during a concert with Sheeran at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey earlier this month.
He said in an Instagram statement that Sheeran, whom he described as a friend of 13 years, told him that Kraft had organized a boycott among other stadium owners unless he was dropped.
Sheeran said the decision was made by tour venues and promoters, not himself.
"I am not complicit. I have my personal views on the devastating conflict. Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn't mean I don't have them," he wrote on Instagram, adding that he prefers to keep his platform "a place of safety and sanctuary" rather than "a political forum."
