Ed Sheeran: The Fallout

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1:15Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me Marina Hyde. And me Richard Osmond. Hello everyone. Hello Richard, how are you? Yeah, I'm not bad, how are you? Not too bad, thank you, not too bad. I think a little bit sleep deprived. A little bit sleep deprived. But when are you not? It's getting quite extreme now, hanging by an actual thread. Looking forward to the podcast. Luckily, we've got really low-key subjects to discuss. We're talking about three people who have had interesting weeks, are we not? The first person we're talking about is Ed Sheeran. We will get on to that.

1:49Perfect for someone hanging by a thread to discuss. Exactly. Then we were talking about... Nigella. Nigella's Bake Off debut is tonight when this podcast goes out and that is a mega cultural event that is a mega cultural event and we're also talking about Tom Cruise who's given his first magazine interview in quite some time and it's as good as you would hope and a cover which we'll also have to get to it is quite something someone else who's had a busy week is Sydney Sweeney who we're going to be talking about we had so many questions about her photo shoot we're talking about that on the Q &A episode this week I know you're looking forward to covering that I am in full I'm a fan Shall we move on to Ed Sheeran?

2:23We're not really going to cover the political situation because you've got podcasts for that, but we are going to cover this idea of what happens if you're a megastar. Do you have a responsibility to speak out? Are you allowed to not speak out? And how things have come to a head for Ed Sheeran and where that leaves him, right? Yes. Shall I do a little bit of backstory? You'll be familiar with it by now, but Ed Sheeran is on a tour in the Americas. I think it's both North and South and supported by various artists. One of whom is McLemore, who made various kind of pro-Palestinian statements on stage and showed some footage.

3:01And some venues after that objected and both promoters or venues have managed to get him removed from the remaining dates. The New England Patriots owner, Robert Kraft, who owns, among other things, Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts. I imagine we'll be talking about him a little bit. We'll be talking a little bit about him. He said he's got to go. Now, then others of the support artists on this tour also withdrew in support or solidarity or whatever. And they have Phineas, Aaron Rowe, Bioga and Lucas Graham. And often some of them have said they're grateful. Some of them said it's about promoters or it's about free speech or it means a lot to them because of their own history with colonialism or all sorts of different things.

3:46Ed Sheeran has said he tried to mediate, but it was venues and promoters. Macklemore said it was actually a painful disagreement. I mean, it's sort of particularly amazing in a way because Ed Sheeran is kind of the epitome of the inoffensive. I'm not meaning to be detrimental to him. No, no, no, that's okay. But we, you know, we're not dealing with kneecap here. They would have pulled out, I suspect. Yeah. I believe that I'm not allowed to travel currently. I can't remember the situation. Sorry if that's wrong. But Macklemore said that Ed Sheeran couldn't get past his public-facing I don't take sides.

4:19yeah so it's a really difficult one because you know i have i have a lot of sympathy for ed sheeran's basic principles that where he's run his career which is you know i'm not going to ever say anything political i think you're allowed to do that i think that's in in in some ways in the culture we live in it's quite a radical act to say i you know i'm i'm literally not going to join in on any side of this my job is to bring a load of people to a stadium get a lot of people to buy music and spread joy and spread happiness i think that's okay i think you're allowed to do that as a human being i think you're allowed to say i can only think of one way i can actually make the world better and it's only 0.001 better but that's by making my music and bringing people together right that's a decision you absolutely are allowed to make and i i respect that as a decision should be allowed to make it but it became impossible and we will get to why it just became an inevitability there was something that was going to happen and it's interesting really interesting what has happened in Philadelphia on Saturday night where he went out without a band because his band have sort of pulled out and I actually saw the image before I read the quotes and it was a picture of Ed Sheeran sitting sort of cross-legged apparently crying on stage with the guitar in his lap and I did think okay well I guess the culture now has its pound of flesh it's Scout, it's whatever it is.

5:44And he said, we'll look at what he said. And for someone who has absolutely, you know, struggled to remain apolitical, it's interesting what he said in the end. This week, the criticism was about something much more important. And I've had to take and make difficult decisions. And I am making mistakes. And I'm so, so sorry. I don't want to disappoint fans and I've never wanted to be an activist musician but this has put me in the middle of an important and passionate argument about freedom of speech and the most complex political issue on the planet. I am deeply worried about the idea that venues should pre-approved content performance.

6:24This happens in so many places that I perform around the world but it should never happen in the free world. And then he has to get more specific so this is what he said when he had to get more specific. I have tried in my career not to be a political commentator of any kind because I want my music and shows to be about unity, not division, about humanity, not politics.

6:50But this is a humanitarian issue and I cannot hide how I feel about it anymore. What happened in Israel at the No Music Festival on October 7th was terrific and compounded centuries of Jewish pain. What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate. My heart has been broken by the scale of devastation and loss of civilians' lives, children's lives. And the systemic injustice we're seeing unfold in the West Bank cannot be overlooked. I am already speaking to people across the spectrum to work out how to make a contribution that helps victims of these terrible times, and listening and learning because I do not know enough.

7:36It's interesting. I mean, he really opened up about what it's felt like and he said he's lost family and friends over it. You know, he normally has a B stage. He has an extended stage like a lot of them do nowadays where they go out into the crowd. They abandoned that for Philadelphia because he said he didn't know if stuff would be thrown at him. He said he didn't know if he wanted to be an artist at all because it happened so quickly. I mean, it's sort of fascinating watching someone in the centre of one of those, these big kind of media firestorms that we see about all sorts of things these days.

8:10And then sort of just going out there and someone who's absolutely, you know, it's anathema to him to have to engage with things in this way at all. But there was an inevitability to it. And I sort of think of it, as you say, Richard, it became impossible for him not to do something. The modern kind of cultural game theory left him with no choice. He had to move. You know, inaction was not really something he felt he could do. And there'll be a lot of people saying, oh, well, he saved his career with this. And there will be a lot of people saying, oh, he continued to effectively sit on the fence.

8:51I don't think he did at all. I think he did something that is completely against what he wants to do. and that actually, to be perfectly honest, doesn't make a difference in the wider political situation. I'm very sorry I have to cleave to this idea and I know it's really important to people to think that all of these things make a difference. I don't think they do and I think perhaps he feels that way, but he still felt he had no choice, but he had to make a move. Now he's in a situation, absolutely, as you say, where he's forced to make a very public decision about something. and Robert Kraft has said It's who he's been forced by is quite interesting That is the really interesting thing so Robert Kraft has said look, McLemore can't play on this and has he spoken to other venue owners that seems to be slightly vaguer but I mean, you'd be shocked if he hadn't he said, look, he can't open on this and the Messina Touring Group part of Live Nation who look after Ed Sheeran have, you know, said oh, listen, we have to pull McLemore because all these venues are saying they're going to drop out.

9:55You think, okay, and Ed Sheeran in this, and you know, he issued a statement on Instagram, which was super vanilla, but there was nothing, it was all kind of, you think, yeah, yeah, I sort of see that. So Ed Sheeran has said, look, I've got hundreds of thousands of people coming to these gigs. They've all bought tickets. I also have a huge group of people who are employed in this touring party. That's important to me. And almost all of the support acts you've left have said, we owe Ed a great deal and we have a good close personal relationship. So, you know, there's that. But there is definitively a moment there would have been a meeting, there would have been a single discussion where the Messina touring group, don't forget Robert Kraft is a billionaire.

10:35The Messina touring group are incredibly wealthy. Ed Sheeran's incredibly wealthy. Okay, so everyone here is a billionaire. So it's how billionaires negotiate with each other. You know, the tour is ongoing, so they've got to make a decision quickly. Absolutely get that. Does Ed Sheeran at any point say, no I'm sticking by McLemore you are going to have to back down Robert Kraft you are going to have to back down Messiner, touring group no one can yet tell us that that's the case or not I think we can surmise having not heard that this didn't occur that that didn't occur and certainly this has all happened very very quickly and perhaps Ed Sheeran's thinking well look I have a personal relationship with McLemore he understands the situation that I'm in he understands where I come from which is I've got these I want people to come to the gigs I've got these people who are working for me so maybe i'll just say to macklemore sorry man listen you get it right and i did say don't do this on this tour and all that stuff and he's thinking great in a couple of days we'll have a little chat together and you'll have a drink and we'll just go sorry man he really that it was just a really difficult position for me i hope you understood but macklemore doesn't take it lying down neither would i by the way uh if robert craft had told just told me that i couldn't you know continue on a tour and the fact that the rest support acts literally every single one of them including the backing band that comes on during the show the fact they all dropped out means suddenly this is not something that Ed Sheeran can just kind of get over in a couple of days and that has worked for him his whole career that that thing of just saying you know what I'm just going to let this go I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to let this slide and this suddenly can't and how is he judged for that and who is he judged by well it feels like he's being judged by audiences or by the wider social media world.

12:20But I will say that I think ultimately, what happened here was that a rich owner, Robert Kraft, decided against freedom of speech. I've read some interesting stuff over the weekend that if you defend freedom of speech, I think that some of the normal suspects who defend freedom of speech have been quite won over this. And actually, the thing that I think is the bit that really does make a difference, because I'm terribly sorry. I'm afraid I don't believe that artists are making a difference on this or indeed any issue in terms of changing the politics. But Ed Sheeran said, I'm deeply worried about the idea that venues should pre-approve content for performers.

13:02This happens in so many places that I perform around the world, but it should never happen in the free world. Now, I am all for that. And it's interesting that many of the kind of reflexive defenders of free speech have been quite quiet on this for various different reasons. I'm sure they've got their reasons. But ultimately, this shouldn't be something that is happening. I completely agree. I mean, you think of the venues that someone like Kanye West has been allowed to play in in the US, despite the fact that he was selling kind of swastika T-shirts at one point in his, I think he now calls it a bipolar meltdown.

13:38And I'll leave you to decide what you think about that. But you can't have all these different rules. And you cannot leave it up to, although, as we've seen, rich owners, economic power can decide an awful lot of things. Personally, I don't think they should. They are within their rights in the same way that we always say, you know, people own platforms. And I'm going to be getting to the platforms, the social platforms later. But people who own platforms, sorry, they own it. They'll do what they like. Like it's not, they are going to do it, but do I think it's right? And I don't, no, I don't.

14:10I think what's interesting to some extent is in this case, what has happened with the wider artistic community, because they are almost waiting for these firestorms where they can coalesce in numbers. And the people who've come out of sort of big names, you know, Ms. Rachel, Hannah Einbinder, who's in Hacks said, Ed Sheeran, I say this is a ginger. I hope you get a really bad sunburn, the kind on the back of your entire body where it hurts to lie down or walk or sit. Okay. Ms. Rachel said, Ed Sheeran had an opportunity to show that we won't be bullied into punishing people for supporting Palestine.

14:43Instead, he caved to people who refuse to accept what the world knows. Artists don't in general talk about other artists that are as big as Ed Sheeran like this. Yes. Certainly someone like Ms. Rachel. No. And I think it's interesting, their sense of sort of absolute moral rectitude. I always am very suspicious of anyone one who has a sense of sort of absolutist moral retitude. And I think that within the artistic community that I have to say that, although I'm not going to talk about politics, there are also other places in the world where really terrible things are happening. And it's interesting, you know, you look at East DRC or in Sudan, where there's huge ethnic targeting and humanitarian crises.

15:26And certainly in Congo, this incredible, unspeakable sexual violence against children and bodies like Genocide Watch, respected bodies have put lots of these places on lists. Those things, to pick those two examples, Sudan, DRC are not things that many artists are speaking about now. Very interestingly, McLemore did speak about Sudan and the DRC on stage in that speech that has started this entire ferrari. but I must say amongst the wider artistic community there does seem to be a feeling that because they're speaking out about the appalling kind of active situation in Gaza that they are conducting themselves faultlessly whereas I would say they are conducting themselves certainly selectively and that's not the case in this particular instance with Macklemore.

16:21Yes I'm not sure that they are conducting themselves consistently and I think it's very difficult that when there is one thing that people want to make this point about, and there are other things, and to find ourselves in this kind of unique cultural moment where there is this kind of one lightning rod thing that within one community they're talking about a lot, I think it's very, very difficult. And I feel for everyone involved in this, and this is not in any way to minimise anybody's suffering, but it's very difficult to sort of say, we are the absolute moral high sparrows and arbiters of this and you have completely failed i'm really the level of extreme condemnation of ed sheeran yeah is something to behold if he thought right i am absolutely going to use my fame as a megaphone to talk about the things that i care about and the issues that i care about would it move the dial in those issues in any way whatsoever And by the way, Ed Sheeran...

17:22We've talked about this so many times. No, it doesn't. No, but that's a discussion that Ed Sheeran would have had with him. Yeah. You know, he's not an idiot. You know, he knows his audience, and it's a huge mainstream audience. Like Taylor Swift, it's the same thing. They are bright people, and they seem to be nice people, and they seem to be kind people. They, more than us, more than anybody listening to this, more than anyone commenting on it, understand the position they are in, and they understand the impact of what it is that they do, and they understand sometimes the lack of impact of what they do.

17:54They understand their career more than anyone else, and they understand where they can be useful and where they cannot be useful. And if Ed Sheeran has taken the view that it is not useful for him to do that, you know what? He is allowed to do that in the 21st century. He's allowed to do it. He finds himself now in this situation where he is going to have to come down on one side or another. And it would be fascinating to see. But it won't make any difference. No, it won't make any difference. As we've said so many times before, it doesn't make any difference. And a lot of artists love to think they make a huge amount of difference about political things.

18:32And I have to say that every single piece of evidence suggests they don't. Another thing I would also like to say is about the audience. One thing we do know about people, and we do know about this from all kinds of polling, is that particularly over the past decade and all the kind of political tumour on both sides of the Atlantic, that actually people wish life was less political. and that's that most people wish life that politics wasn't bleeding into all sorts of areas of life that it has bled into and you can absolutely say this is a huge issue and you know it's interesting and however selfish and however fortunate you may be to be born under great stars and not to have to think about it and to just be able to go to pop music concerts and not be bombed I understand we all understand these things but it's very interesting that people actually wish there was a little bit less, you know, every piece of polling will tell you that people wish life was less political.

19:25Yes, but the people who want it to be political want it to be more political. And by the way, neither group is wrong. You're allowed to have either of those views. You're allowed to think, I wish we talked a little bit less about politics in the public square. And you're also allowed to think this world would be better if we talked more about it. Neither of those groups of people is wrong. If you think either of those things, it's absolutely fine my view is if you want to listen to people talking about the situation in gaza or read uh people talking about the situation in gaza there are brilliant people who are writing all day every day about this there are great minds who are writing incredibly nuanced things about this and with all respect to macklemore who i'm a big fan of that he's he's not one of them right he's not one of them and i absolutely defend his right to say what he said it's absurd that as a venue owner you would ban someone for just saying that that seems crazy to me he would say that he banned him for a history of more extreme things and you'll i'll leave people to judge that well yeah i mean he could have he could have done that a long time ago yes robert croft yeah uh now talk to me about this thing of that everyone now after you know cheering has issued his statement everyone else is issuing their statements and by the way again every statement on every side i'm like yeah yeah i absolutely buy that i agree with that there's there's very few statements here from any of the artists on either side that i disagree with very very few because they're all they're all just speaking their truth and they're all living their life in the way they want to and try and spread a message in the way they want to i get that but as well as the statements there's now this weird escalating um charity donation angle to this story right macklemore donated his one million torfi or whatever it was um to palestinian aid ed sheeran has now said i'm donating two million well no robert craft said ed sheeran rang me before he heard about mac saying he was going to donate two million that's weird double the amount that's handy and i'm going to match that and that that will go to charities in the region uh unspecified in the region uh and listen the more money that's uh that that gets raised um the better in some ways but uh yeah it it feels like a kind of arms race of uh it feels like an enormous mess i would say but i do think to bring it out to the sort of wider cultural moment we are in a very unique and unprecedented i'll get what to why i think it's happened sort of cultural moment that um we talked about um film festivals and the risk of film festivals which is kind of a ridiculous thing to even the risk of a film festival the venice jury press conference at this year's film festival was cancelled.

22:09And they said they couldn't make the timings work. It's like, okay, yeah. And then there was a sort of out... And you know why they're cancelling it because, you know, we already know that studios aren't sending films, not just because of the risk of bad buzz, but also because of the risk of your talent being out there on stage and being asked about some issue, but most particularly about Israel and Palestine and saying something that causes a firestorm one way or another, or not saying something which can cause its own firestorm. In the end, they reinstated that jury press conference. But I do think completely that it is so driven by the platforms and by the social media platforms.

22:43This is why it is a pitch, all of these things. And it's not, this is not in any way to downgrade seriousness of what is happening. But many bad things have happened over the past however many decades. And this is particularly acute at the moment. Remember, what people what the platforms want is for you to stay on them as long as possible and the best way for that to happen is for you to be angry we know this there are endless studies about it even better is for two sides to be angry with each other and to be arguing forever i don't think that people realize how manipulated they are and how in hot to the platforms they actually are even in emotive and morally repulsive situations it's not a coincidence that this is happening now they want you on the platform, politics has shifted and changing the world has shifted from organizing, joining institutions and accepting that there are costs to do this, costs of time, costs of labor, costs of all sorts of things.

23:45And it has shifted to liking and to signaling and to expressing outrage. And we know this, there is a much lower bar to participation. Many more people participate but we have become very good at saying no. We've become very good at digitally boycotting or tearing down or cancelling but it's almost as though we have lost the art of building things and building different futures afterwards. I think it's very easy to sort of make people have to pull out of things or tear people down or just kind of create these negative situations but in terms of actual world-changing stuff I think it's, you know, we're becoming less and less good at it.

24:27And I really feel that strongly. I'll give a slight rejoinder to that, which is as many people are doing, you know, positive activism on the ground and helping out in communities and doing actual work, as many people as ever done are. It's just they are now currently drowned out by everyone who is a sort of weekend activist who's able just to sort of press send on something.

24:50and it means that a lot of those people who are doing the hard yards and who are doing the hard work and who do come from the heart as well as from the brain are having a harder time doing that. So I think it makes the job of practical activism an awful lot harder. Yeah, my first book I wrote was about celebrity and a huge amount of it was about celebrity activism in the sort of noughties and I remember feeling it was trying to sort of issue a warning about everything being celebrity-led because once you've got everything being sort of celebrity-fronted, these kind of things, it's just a part-time job.

25:25It's not even a part-time job, to be perfectly honest. It's a pastime of posting about these things. We didn't have posting in those days, but we had other sort of ways of doing it. They'd literally have to put it in an envelope and put a stamp on it. But they had endless humanitarian award ceremonies at which people who give 365 days a year to stuff do not get honored. It's always going to Angelina Jolie or someone for whom, you know, however their heart's in the right place and they're doing the right, obviously just doesn't do the day-to-day work of this stuff. And by focusing, and I did think, I just don't think this is helpful, and I think that this is actually, it will put people off and it will warp and damage the very idea of what it really means to change stuff on the ground.

26:11And it's become even, I couldn't have foreseen what social media would be, where people can be effectively activisming all the time. And yet, what is it really? It's just writing some stuff in the service of a tech lord who, you know, couldn't care less about it either way. I do think it's worth remembering the people who put the work in. Yes. Okay, there are people out there who are trying to make the world a better place. They're really, really awesome, like incredible people in every area in your community, in the world, who are doing, who have your boots on ground, you know, shovels in the soil, people who are genuinely doing the work.

26:48And the sooner we sort of get back to that being at the heart of a debate, rather than, as you say, someone monetizing two groups of people who are never, ever, ever, ever going to agree with each other, the happier we'll be. That said, sometimes there is a line in the sand. This happens to be one of them, and it's going to be fascinating to see how Ed Sheeran deals with it. but try lose the noise on that side there is something real here but it's it's not the noise that is absolutely overwhelming us about it um let's go to a break after that a little change of tone we're gonna start talking about tom cruise can i call him a palate cleanser i don't think so well let's find out

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28:50statement from number 10 on that flight with 350 passengers on board. The great game. Strategic struggle between Britain and Russia. We assess our Prime Minister with high confidence it was Russian. Holding the Russians accountable is World War 3. They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people. The man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. You've got to ask yourself, do you want to play or not? You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing!