Rapper Macklemore says his “Free Palestine” tour has been denied dates at nine U.S. venues, including Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena.
The Seattle artist, who was kicked out of the opening act of Ed Sheeran’s tour in September after making pro-Palestinian remarks and announced his own benefit tour shortly after, posted the news on Instagram Friday morning.
“We received available dates at these arenas through the end of the year. But once they found out these were my benefit shows for Palestine, those dates were suddenly pushed aside,” he wrote in his post. “The doors were closed. The conversations were all different, but the outcome was the same. These shows were not going to happen in these venues. In over 20 years of touring, I’ve never experienced anything like this.”
KOMO News reached out to officials at Climate Pledge Arena, but received no comment.
Other venues mentioned in his post were Madison Square Garden (New York), Prudential Center (Newark, NJ), Barclays Center (Brooklyn, NY), UBS Arena (Elmont, NY), Intuit Dome (Inglewood, CA), Kia Forum (Inglewood), Crypto.com Arena (Los Angeles), and Chase Center (San Francisco).
The musician finished his concerts in London, Dublin and Paris at the end of October.
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The controversy over Macklemore’s public positions on the Israel-Hamas conflict has prompted Jewish organizations to demand answers from concert organizer Live Nation about its selection process and how money raised from the shows will be distributed.
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