Colin Kaepernick accused NFL stadium owners of colluding against Macklemore on Wednesday, hours after the rapper pledged to donate his $1m Ed Sheeran tour salary to Palestinian groups and challenged New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft to match it.
Speaking on the MeidasTouch podcast, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback said Kraft and other owners who refused to let Macklemore perform were acting in concert. “What Robert Kraft and what they’re saying by denying Macklemore the opportunity to go out and perform with Ed Sheeran is they are willing to collude,” Kaepernick said. “The [NFL owners] are openly colluding.”
Kaepernick drew a parallel to his own case. He began kneeling during the national anthem in 2016 to protest police brutality, went unsigned after leaving the 49ers, and filed a grievance against the NFL in 2017 that was settled in 2019. He said owners were protecting their power and money and warned others could face similar treatment.
Macklemore, whose real name is Ben Haggerty, announced the donation on Instagram, saying his net earnings from Sheeran’s Loop Tour would go to six organizations working directly with Palestinians and relief in Gaza. “Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protecting,” he wrote. “A Palestinian life is no less valuable than any other life on this earth.”
The rapper was removed from the tour after telling the crowd at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey that he wanted people in Gaza and “the occupied West Bank” to know “we have not forgotten about them,” and calling for a “free Palestine.” Kraft and several other venue owners said they would not allow him to play at their stadiums. All four of Sheeran’s remaining opening acts — Finneas, Aaron Rowe, Boega and Lukas Graham — later withdrew in solidarity.
Kraft has said his decision to bar Macklemore from Gillette Stadium was based on the rapper’s “recent actions” and “a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery.” In a statement to Al Jazeera, Kraft said the ban was not about “diminishing the suffering of innocent Palestinians” but argued advocacy should not come “at the expense of the Jewish community.”
Kraft said that before Macklemore issued the challenge, Sheeran had called and asked him to commit $2m in humanitarian aid to the region, and that Sheeran planned to approach other venue owners to raise further funds. “I believe deeply that all lives are worth protecting,” Kraft said.
Macklemore said writing a check was “one of the least costly forms of solidarity available to me” and urged continued attention to the cause. “When the news cycle moves on, which it will, don’t move with it,” he wrote.