She added: “What happens is we become the victims.”
Macklemore, real name Benjamin Hammond Haggerty, was removed last week from his supporting role on Sheeran's Loop tour in the US after seven of the eight remaining scheduled venues he was due to perform at threatened to cancel the concerts if he stayed on the bill.
The boycott threat came after the New Jersey leg of the tour earlier this month, when Macklemore chanted “free Palestine” and projected images of Gaza during the performance of his 2024 pro-Palestine song Hind’s Hall.
Messina Touring Group, the tour’s US promoter, announced on Monday that the rapper would no longer be featuring in its line-up.
Macklemore promptly pointed the finger at Sheeran, accusing him of caring more about keeping his “apolitical image” than about the conflict in Gaza.
Sheeran, who is well known for keeping politics out of his performances, spoke to fans in Philadelphia as the tour got back underway on Saturday – minus all his other support acts who had dropped out in solidarity with Macklemore.
Ed Sheeran spoke to his fans about the Macklemore sage at his first show back on tour in Philadelphia (Image: X/ Variety)[Missing Credit]
Sheeran, who was visibly tearful throughout his speech, told fans that the situation had “put me in the middle of an important and passionate argument about freedom of speech and the most complex political issue on the planet”.
He also stressed that his shows were supposed to be welcoming and that keeping them as such was fundamental to his identity, hence why he had decided to continue the tour on his own.
On the subject of the conflict, he described October 7 as “horrific”, adding that it “compounded centuries of Jewish pain”.
And in regard to Gaza, he said it was “catastrophic, unjustifiable and disproportionate”, adding that the situation in the West Bank “cannot be overlooked”.
Hussain shared the social media post by celebrity health and wellness coach Cooper.
In the video, which was originally posted on Sunday, and has since been deleted but has been seen by news outlets, Cooper says: “We're all waking up to Ed Sheeran's statement on stage, and I'm not going to go into what he said, but I do want to focus on one specific point...
“For those of us in white bodies, we need to understand and educate ourselves on white tears.
“White tears is a cultural tactic using emotion, consciously or unconsciously, to deflect accountability, to gain sympathy, and to centre self in conflict and challenge, particularly during discussions around racism and oppression.
“What happens is we become the victim. Our emotion is now prized above the actual issue, in this case, genocide. What this shines a light on is whose tears get to be seen, listened to, and heard in our society, and whose don't.”
Health and wellness coach Megan Cooper accused Ed Sheeran of crying "white tears" (Image: Instagram/ higherlove_withmegan)[Missing Credit]
She continued: “Not only does emotion meet whiteness, but it also meets patriarchy.
"So what we have is not just tears, it's power.”
She went on to say: “If the tears of Palestinians and black and brown and indigenous communities carried as much gravity, genocide would not happen."
She concluded by adding that people “in white bodies” need “to educate and inform ourselves so that we don't replicate systems of harm whilst we are trying to dismantle them”.
In the video, Cooper prefaced her comments by saying she doesn’t want to undermine Sheeran’s personal emotional experience.
