Macklemore Accuses Madison Square Garden and Eight Other Arenas of Banning His ‘Free Palestine’ Tour
Macklemore is accusing some of America’s most iconic arenas of shutting his “Free Palestine” tour out.
The rapper, who recently had dates in Dublin, Paris and London at the end of Oct., took to Instagram on Nov. 6 to say that he has been turned down by American venues, including New York City’s Madison Square Garden, New Jersey’s Prudential Center, Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, Long Island’s UBS Arena, L.A.’s Intuit Dome, Kia Forum and Crypto.com Arena, San Francisco’s Chase Center and Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena.
“By mid-September, we received available dates at these arenas through the end of the year,” he said in the Instagram post. “But once they found out these were my benefit shows for Palestine, those dates were suddenly off the table. The doors were closed. The conversations were all different, but the result was the same. The shows were not going to be allowed to happen in these venues.”
“In over 20 years of touring, I’ve never experienced anything like this,” he also wrote. “I’d rather lose every opportunity in this industry than spend another day protecting people who value their business relationships with Israel more than they value Palestinian human life.”
“We live in a country that prides itself on freedom of speech. Yet we’ve reached a point where a handful of billionaires can decide which causes are acceptable, which voices are welcome and which human lives are worth defending,” he later wrote. “Today it’s Palestine. What will it be tomorrow?”
Macklemore ended his post with, “They may own the arenas. But they do not own the people who fill them. And they never will. FREE PALESTINE!”
In Sept., Macklemore was fired from Ed Sheeran’s “Loop” tour over pro-Palestine comments he made during his opening set at MetLife Stadium. All of the tour’s other openers and Sheeran’s own backing band ended up quitting the tour in solidarity with Macklemore and Palestine.
Variety has reached out to the nine arenas Macklemore mentioned for comment.
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