Singer Ed Sheeran gave a speech to the crowd before his concert in Philadelphia on Saturday night about the controversy he found himself embroiled in with Macklemore.
Macklemore, a 43-year-old rapper, was removed from the remaining dates of Sheeran’s Loop tour after drawing backlash from Jewish groups for saying that part of his reason for participating in the tour was to let people in the “occupied West Bank” know they had not been forgotten. The Sept. 4 comments, which were made at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, prompted the Israeli American Council to call for his removal from the rest of the tour, as Macklemore had previously faced backlash in 2014 for wearing a costume onstage that pro-Israeli groups said resembled anti-Jewish caricatures.
