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Report / Published 2026-10-31

Macklemore Closes His Free Palestine Tour at Wembley

Macklemore ended his three-show Free Palestine benefit tour at OVO Arena Wembley on Friday, with Greta Thunberg and Paloma Faith on the bill and 50 peers' objection behind him.

Q.QIBA Screen deskSource-backed article · 5 min read
Event date Prepared Published 2026-10-31
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Conceptual editorial illustration; not a photograph of the people or event described.

THE SHORT VERSION

  • Macklemore closed his three-show Free Palestine benefit tour at a sold-out OVO Arena Wembley on Friday, October 30, telling the crowd he does not believe staying silent is brave.
  • Greta Thunberg opened the evening, Nemahsis and Paloma Faith also performed and spoke, and the House of Lords' attempt to block his visit failed, according to the two reports.
  • The reports differ on attendance, above 12,500 in The Hollywood Reporter against around 10,000 in NME, and neither gives a total raised for the three shows.

The tour ended at Wembley on Friday

Macklemore brought the final night of his Free Palestine Tour to London on Friday, telling a U.K. audience: “I don’t believe that staying silent is brave,” The Hollywood Reporter reports. The paper describes a sold-out OVO Arena Wembley, where more than 12,500 people cheered and screamed as the U.S. rapper spoke.

NME, covering the same concert, gives a lower figure: around 10,000 people attended, it reports, at the close of a three-show European benefit tour. Neither report explains the gap, and neither publishes a ticket count or a box-office total. Both agree on the shape of the run: three cities, one purpose, London last.

The shows followed his removal from Sheeran's Loop Tour

Both outlets connect the benefit shows to Macklemore's removal from Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour weeks earlier, after he made pro-Palestinian statements on stage. The Hollywood Reporter carries Sheeran's later account: it was a promoter decision to drop Macklemore, he said, and venues due to host the concerts threatened to pull out if Macklemore stayed on the bill. NME describes the three-show tour as one organised after that removal.

NME sets out the itinerary: Dublin on Monday, October 26, with Hozier, Kneecap and Beoga among the acts; Paris on Thursday, October 29, with Aurora, Pomme and Portugal. The Man among those performing; then London. The Hollywood Reporter identifies Beoga as Sheeran's backing band, which it says pulled out of the Loop Tour in solidarity with Macklemore, a detail that links the Dublin bill back to the tour he had left.

Thunberg opened, and the speakers filled the night

Greta Thunberg opened the London evening with a speech, according to NME, in which she praised the resilience of people in Gaza and urged the audience to keep campaigning after they left the building. The Swedish activist warned that the “occupation will not end by philanthropy and slogans”. The magazine adds that she had previously criticised Sheeran's response to Macklemore's removal, accusing him of lacking the courage to stand up to pressure from promoters and venue owners.

Nemahsis, the Palestinian-Canadian singer, spoke about being dropped by her record label in 2023 after publicly supporting Palestine. “My existence is the strongest form of resistance,” she told the Wembley crowd, NME reports. Paloma Faith, who said she was seven months postpartum, argued that the safety of children in Gaza, Sudan, Yemen and Congo mattered as much as her own family's. The magazine also lists Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos, Antoine Raffoul and Arab Barghouthi among the speakers. Kapos recalled the Nazi occupation of Budapest as a child, Raffoul was displaced from Palestine during the Nakba in 1948, and Barghouthi spoke about his imprisoned father, Marwan.

A headline set, and a reply to the House of Lords

His own set drew on songs the room knew. NME lists 'Thrift Shop', 'Same Love', 'These Days', 'Glorious' and 'Can't Hold Us', alongside 'Hind's Hall', his pro-Palestine protest track. The Hollywood Reporter records that he answered the 50 members of the House of Lords who had urged the U.K. government to ban the concert: “Regardless of what the 50 Lords have to say, this is a story of equality for all human beings around this earth.” NME adds that the peers asked Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to block his visit over concerns about the Palestinian Youth Movement, one of the organisations benefiting from the tour, and that the group has denied allegations it celebrates terrorism or has links to terrorist groups.

The Hollywood Reporter carries his longer answer about Sheeran: “It was more uncomfortable for me to stay silent than to say something,” Macklemore said, then: “And I just want to say, I don’t believe that saying something is brave. I don’t believe that saying something is courageous. I believe that saying something is human. And those children in Gaza are our children. There is no separation.” NME records a shorter version of the same passage and adds that he told the crowd he had reached a point where remaining silent had become more uncomfortable than speaking out.

Proceeds went to Palestinian organisations

NME reports that proceeds from the London show went to 12 organisations supporting Palestinians, and names six: Medical Aid for Palestinians, the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, Gaza Soup Kitchen, HEAL Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace and UNRWA USA. The Hollywood Reporter, citing the rapper's team, says money from the Dublin, Paris and London concerts will go to groups working through humanitarian relief, medical care, education, advocacy, policy change and community initiatives, without naming them. Neither outlet explains how the recipients were chosen.

NME also reports that, after his removal from Sheeran's tour, Macklemore pledged his entire $1 million in earnings to six organisations supporting Palestinians. The Hollywood Reporter gives the wider toll the night was held against: the death toll in Gaza is over 69,000, according to numbers from the British Red Cross, and almost 1,200 Israelis were killed in the October 7, 2023 attack. Neither report says what the three shows raised in total.

What the two reports establish

Read together, the accounts agree on the outline: a sold-out OVO Arena Wembley show on October 30 closing a three-city European benefit tour, speeches from Thunberg, Faith, Nemahsis, Kapos, Raffoul and Barghouthi, a headline set that included 'Hind's Hall', and proceeds routed to Palestinian organisations. They differ on attendance, above 12,500 in The Hollywood Reporter against around 10,000 in NME, and on how the money was described: one outlet counts recipient organisations, the other lists the kinds of work they do.

Neither report says what the shows raised, whether the tour will continue, or how the peers' request was settled, beyond NME's description of an unsuccessful attempt to keep him out of the UK. Related coverage on this site includes the Noah Kahan tour dates for 2027, Powderfinger's 2027 reunion tour and Cheap Trick's touring break.

Sources & reporting limits

  1. Macklemore Wraps Up Free Palestine Tour in London: “It Was More Uncomfortable for Me to Stay Silent” — The Hollywood Reporter
  2. Greta Thunberg, Paloma Faith and Nemahsis join Macklemore at London ‘Free Palestine’ tour finale — NME
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