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Paloma Faith appeared on Channel 4 to call out Ed Sheeran after she played the Concert for Ukraine with the beleaguered musician in 2022.
The Shape of You singer is facing a storm of backlash over the decision to drop Macklemore from his US tour, after the rapper’s ‘Free Palestine’ speech on stage.
Billionaire venue owner Robert Kraft – who is a supporter of and donor to the Israeli state – subsequently lobbied for Macklemore to be removed as a support act.
Faith, 45, a longtime advocate for Palestine, said Macklemore acted with ‘integrity’ and rejected the notion that anything he said on stage was inflammatory.
Speaking to Krishnan Guru-Murthy on his show The Fourcast, Faith said: ‘I’m really glad that I’m not Ed Sheeran right now because it’s actually astounding and quite badly handled on the part of everyone who advises him.’
She went on to say she has ‘always been at odds with the culture of political apathy’ and said she believes musicians should champion humanitarian causes.
She added: ‘I did play at a concert with Ed Sheeran to raise money for Ukraine, so he wasn’t apolitical by doing that. I don’t really understand why one felt more political than the other.’
As well as performing Bad Habits at the ITV benefit concert, Sheeran recorded a protest song about the war in Ukraine with U2 earlier this year.
‘I think what Ed Sheeran’s learning the hard way is that it’s impossible to be at that kind of level and think that you can stay out of politics because being apolitical is a political act in itself,’ Faith continued.
She went on to say she took issue with several aspects of Sheeran’s public statement on the matter, in that he referred to Israel’s brutal military actions in Gaza – which have been widely acknowledged as genocidal – as a ‘conflict’, and also coached his political neutrality behind the fact there are children among his fans.
‘That comment I don’t like,’ said Faith, referring to the latter statement. ‘When he said that, it really upset me because there are so many children in Palestine that are faced with unimaginable things and shouldn’t be.
‘I say “Free Palestine” to my children every night. I think children should be exposed to politics.’
The mother of three referred to statistics in a UN commission that found Israeli forces have killed 20,000 Palestinian children since the Hamas attack on October 7. The same report found that Israel had committed war crimes in deliberately targeting children.
Faith said that the ability to ‘detach’ from the documented atrocities in Palestine ‘comes from a place of privilege’.
Guru-Murthy went on to quiz her on whether she believes Sheeran should cancel the nine remaining dates on his Loop Tour, the first of which is this Saturday.
‘I don’t know if he can insurance-wise,’ she said. ‘I don’t know the small print of that. It’s much more nuanced in a legal sense.
‘Ideologically, I think that would be the right thing to do, but I don’t know what the implications of that would be financially to his team or whether it could bankrupt him.’
Faith went on to acknowledge that Sheeran is ‘a nice guy’, but said she believed he should have stuck by his original support acts for the tour.