CMAT has shared her thoughts on the backlash being faced by Ed Sheeran, saying that while she thinks he could have handled it differently, a lot of the criticism he is facing is still “unfair”.
Sheeran has been at the centre of controversy recently, after Macklemore was dropped as a support act for his ‘Loop’ tour after making a speech calling for a “free Palestine”.
After his on-stage comments, Gillette Stadium owner and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said he found Macklemore’s speech “deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community”, while the likes of Pink and the Israeli American Council called for the rapper’s removal from the tour.
Macklemore was booted from the line-up soon after – prompting Sheeran’s band and other support acts to pull out in solidarity with the rapper – and Sheeran also spoke out about the situation, saying he was “not complicit” and “appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine” – seeing the “suffering and pain caused on both sides” as a “tragedy”.
The ‘Shape Of You’ singer later returned to the stage in Philadelphia and apologised for “making mistakes”.
In response to the situation, big names including Greta Thunberg, Massive Attack, Roger Waters, Dropkick Murphys, Amelia Dimoldenberg, Billy Bragg and Hayley Williams have shown their support for Macklemore too, and the rapper has since donated his entire $1million earnings from the tour to six organisations supporting Palestinians – while Kraft said Sheeran had asked him to match a $2million humanitarian contribution.
Now, CMAT has also weighed in on the uproar over the ‘Loop Tour’, explaining that while she thinks Sheeran could have handled things differently, she does “feel bad for the guy” because “a lot of the criticism is a bit unfair”.
Asked about the situation on The Daily Show, CMAT shared that her “hot take” was that she “actually feel[s] bad for the guy, because I don’t think he knew what he was getting himself into”.
Sharing how she thinks he could have spoken out in support of Macklemore, CMAT said: “I think he could’ve absolutely said, ‘No, cancel the tour then if you’re gonna cancel the tour. I want Macklemore to stay on as my support act’. And I don’t think anything would’ve happened.”
“I think you can be a very, very famous person and a very, very rich person, and a very, very celebrated musician – and actually I don’t think you have to bow to those structures,” she continued, adding that the approach he took was likely what he was recommended to do by his team.
“I think that famous people are often surrounded by a massive team of people who are making endless amounts of money off them, [who] are putting loads of pressure on them to do the thing that upholds the capital value of their artistic product. So I think he was given really bad advice.”
Also in the interview, CMAT also shared that part of the reason why people may be reacting so strongly to Sheeran’s actions could be because “he started identifying with as Irish recently”.
“He wanted to reconnect to his Irish heritage, and he wanted that to be a part of his personal brand and music. So he hired all these amazing Irish musicians, with supporting Irish musicians… which is amazing. [But] the problem then is that something like this issue – of what I would refer to as a genocide happens – then Irish people are gonna hold you to account for that.”
Because of that, she shared, he is held to a different standard than the “many other musicians playing in massive stadiums that are not surrounding themselves with people that’ll hold them accountable”.
“He’s a guy that probably got a bit unlucky by his choices,” she concluded. “I actually think there are a lot of people who are doing much worse than him. And that’s why I think a lot of the criticism is a bit unfair.
“There are a lot of people who are not saying anything, or doing anything to help the Palestinian people right now, who are just not getting it in the neck because they refuse to be surrounded by people who would make it an issue for them.”
Since the backlash over the tour started, both of Sheeran’s shows at Robert Kraft’s Gillette Stadium have been cancelled due to “severe weather warnings”.
Bono has also weighed in on the situation, revealing that Sheeran told him that he didn’t want to “get into politics” when he collaborated with U2 on their 2026 single ‘Yours Eternally’.
