Macklemore was pulled from the remaining stops on Ed Sheeran's U.S. stadium tour this month, not because of a scheduling conflict or a broken contract, but because he said "Free Palestine" from the stage. According to the tour's promoter, venues warned that a Macklemore show simply would not be allowed to happen. Macklemore says Sheeran told him that Patriots owner Robert Kraft pressured him directly and helped rally other stadium owners into an ultimatum: drop Macklemore, or lose the booking altogether. Kraft has confirmed he barred Macklemore from Gillette Stadium, citing "a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community," according to his own statement. He has not addressed the claim that he also pushed other venues to do the same.

Most of the stadiums that dropped Macklemore aren't private property. They're owned or operated by cities, states, and public authorities, funded in part by taxpayers, which raises a real First Amendment question about the government pressuring venues to silence a performer's viewpoint. That question gets sharper next to Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, a publicly owned venue that let Kanye West perform this summer despite his own history of antisemitic remarks, reportedly because his contract barred cancellation over his statements. The same stadium is now dropping Macklemore anyway.

Artists shouldn't lose bookings at public venues because a billionaire made some calls. Fans shouldn't lose the show they bought tickets for because of backroom pressure they had no say in. Sign the petition to demand publicly owned stadiums stop letting private pressure campaigns override an artist's right to speak, before this becomes the standard playbook for silencing performers everyone disagrees with next.