When it comes to the Ed Sheeran-Macklemore fallout, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) thinks the problem — and the responsibility to fix it — goes beyond just music artist.
The Democratic congresswoman weighed in on growing controversy around Sheeran’s Loop Tour this week as opening act Macklemore was banned by stadium owners from playing the remainder of his dates after speaking out in support of Palestine on stage.
She argued that while Sheeran has a responsibility to speak out in support of Macklemore, the controversy raises broader questions about the power stadium owners like Robert Kraft have to police what artists say.
She was asked by TMZ Tuesday if she would change the channel when Sheeran came on the radio and what she thought about the artist’s Loop Tour. Earlier Tuesday, fellow openers Finneas, Aaron Rowe, Lukas Graham and Sheeran’s own house band, Beoga, all dropped out in solidarity with Macklemore’s dismissal — leaving the remainder of his tour without an opener.
“I think that what we’ve seen, especially — it’s not just what’s 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 the stadiums to censor speech in that one specific way, it’s become clear that it’s not just about one music artist or two music artists, but about how just a handful of stadium owners and the elite can prevent an entire massive issue — in this case, the genocide in Gaza,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“But it doesn’t stop there. It could be speaking out about AI. It could be speaking out about any issue that you can now just get a handful of stadium owners to ensure that an entire person’s career can be jeopardized if they speak out about any issue.”
Rep. AOC tells @hicharliecotton she is boycotting Ed Sheeran because she says he’s complicit in Robert Kraft and other stadium owners’ efforts to silence Macklemore. pic.twitter.com/zuISc3zaFs
— TMZ (@TMZ) September 15, 2026
The congresswoman added that while she doesn’t know what Sheeran’s contracts look like or what the “financial entanglements” are, she thinks the right thing to do is ultimately speak out about it, particularly what she described as the abuse of power by stadium owners over tours and artists’ rights to free speech.
“Because if they’re saying that to him, right, then they can say it to anybody, and at what point does it stop?” she added. “I have a huge amount of empathy for the situation because it’s — I think people want the focus here to be about Ed Sheeran and he of course plays a role, but they’re not putting the focus on Robert Kraft and the actual people who are kind of twisting things here. Again, everyone has responsibility; everyone plays a role. But we need to be very clear about how dangerous a precedent this is.”
Macklemore was originally scheduled to open for eight more shows on Sheeran’s tour, kicking back up Friday in Philadelphia. The updates came a week after the Israeli American Council condemned his pro-Palestine messaging, issuing a petition for his removal from the tour.
Macklemore spoke out on Sheeran’s role saying, “Ed was in a f–ked up position. He knew it. His typical apolitical stance was being challenged in a way it never had been before,” he further wrote. “But he couldn’t get past his public-facing ‘I don’t take sides.’”
You can watch Ocasio-Cortez’s full remarks in the video above.
The post AOC Says the Real Problem in Ed Sheeran-Macklemore Fallout Is Stadium Owners’ Censorship: ‘Not Just About One Artist’ appeared first on TheWrap.
